Page 75

“I’d like that,” My mom chuckled, and I closed the door, letting them have their alone time. I’d had a lifetime with them, and Zeke seemed to be enjoying having a parental figure fawn over him.

“Night, Lex!” Zeke’s voice muffled through the door, and I gave him a little wave from the window.

Stealing a glance of Zeke in a chair while my mom and dad rocked on the bench across from him made my heart swell.

I couldn’t have asked for more.

Chapter Thirty-Three

Zeke

We’d been home from Lex’s place only a few days by the time Mesmer came by with paperwork and a miserable expression twisting his face. And since then, he’d been by at least weekly, monitoring Lex and finishing paperwork on a mysterious house we couldn’t see yet.

“Sup?” I glanced up from my desk as I sat down a copy of Huckleberry Finn that we suspected an archivist had gotten stuck in as Jim. A fact I’d confirmed when I spotted Huck Finn himself sitting next to a Chinese man, for all the world referring to him as Jim.

He didn’t feel like an archivist, not anymore, at least. Either that, or he was an extra that had dived with an archivist and had gotten stuck. Normal humans reacted poorly to archivist magic.

“Ennui?” Mesmer gestured toward the tome as I closed it and sneered. “Can’t say I’d feel wistful for those times.”

“I’d have Lex do it if I could. Trust me.” I pushed the book away.

While yes, the days without technology and where I could see the stars in the sky made my heart ache. But at the same time? I liked the days where I didn’t have to sleep in the horse stalls at inns and I got to vote—well, I didn’t vote nowadays, but not for the same reason. Despite all my paperwork being in order, I was always afraid. I’d always be a runaway, a second-class citizen, scared in some way.

“Can’t blame you. The good old days where you could be executed for sodomy.” Mesmer huffed and sat on the table next to me.

“Honestly, they mostly minded their own business back then. We had people we knew were funny.” I tapped my pencil on a form as Mesmer placed a folded packet next to my hand, a key taped to it. “What’s this?”

“Your new home. You’re welcome.” Mesmer pushed his hair back from his face and groaned lightly.

“Tap your finances?” I raised a brow.

“Pft. No. That trick you pulled with Bitcoin has me set for a century if interest rates hold.” Mesmer snickered,

and I sneered. I’d never been permitted to reap the full benefits of what they had me sew. “Ugh, they loaded you down with your cut into the trust.”

I glared at him. “Money that’s monitored heavily. I’m a prisoner, remember? Just because I can leave the building doesn’t mean I’m free.”

Mesmer nodded. “I think the council is going to lessen some of the restrictions. Now that you’re…” Mesmer gestured ambivalently as if searching for a word that I damn well knew he had. “Tied down.”

“Now that you have leverage over me, that is.” I lifted the paper stack he’d put down and glanced at this mysterious address he’d been holding back from us. The street was familiar, but the houses up that way were pretty old and formidable. Antebellum. And I’d be the mister of the house. Revulsion coiled in my belly.

“Leverage? Eh. Now that you have something you’d die for, you’re more dangerous to cage than let free. You wouldn’t change a word of the past if it risked never having Lexi or your little one to come.” Mesmer crossed his arms over his stomach and leaned forward, his face twisting in discomfort.

“That’s right, isn’t it?” I rolled my pencil across the desk back and forth. “I can’t change the past. Any little thing could be the one that makes Lex fade away.”

Mesmer nodded, face still a miserable twist.

“What’s up with you?” I raised a brow as I caught a strange cologne wafting off him. It smelled good, too good. I sniffed and leaned in until a middling nausea and revulsion made me recoil.

“In heat. Lexi did it.” Mesmer fanned himself. “And here I am without a boyfriend.”

“What’s stopping you?” I folded the paper back up.

“Haven’t found the right man yet. Kinda.” Mesmer glanced away. “The hard part about being an omega is that you need an alpha.”

I frowned. “Find someone that’s willing to let Lex… you know.”

He nodded. “Or date in those circles.”