“He doesn’t. You’ll make sure he knows that, right?” Tayla scrounged around in the bag again and pulled out Mickey. The ferret chattered indignantly, stole a pacifier, and scampered under the couch.
“Of course. We want to raise this little guy. But can you imagine how hard it’ll be for Wraith to come to family functions and have to see his own son growing up without him? And what about when the baby starts asking questions? What do we tell him? That his father didn’t want him?”
“I don’t think you’re being fair to Wraith,” Gem said quietly, and Tay and Runa stared like she’d just declared that Sheoul, with its dark, icy outer caverns and its molten lava core, was a primo vacation spot. “Come on. We don’t know how he’ll react. He’s always been unpredictable.”
“Yes, and that’s what you want around children,” Tay said dryly.
Gem shrugged. “I just think you need to give him a chance.”
Runa sighed. “I know I’m being hard on him. He’s got a protective streak a mile long, and he’s been kind to me, but I don’t know if any of that makes him good father material.”
“Speaking of father material,” Tay said, sliding Gem a curious look, “how are you and Kynan doing?”
“Father material?” Runa leaned forward and lowered her voice. “Are you and Kynan… expecting?”
Gem nearly choked on her own tongue. “No way. Are you kidding?” She glanced over her shoulder, half afraid he’d walked up behind her.
“But you want kids someday, don’t you?” Runa asked.
“Yes, but…” But what? She did want them, but what kind of world would she be bringing them up in? Demon or human?
A knot formed in her gut, tightening and squeezing until she could barely breathe. She’d grown up a product of two worlds, belonging to both and neither, and she swore she’d never put a child through that.
Heck, it was dangerous to put a child through that. Some demons, like Sensors, her adoptive parents’ species, existed for the sole purpose of hunting down pregnant human women whose babies were of mixed species, and killing the infants. Other demon species made it their mission to destroy half breeds, just for sport.
Gem herself had been marked for death and would have been destroyed had her parents not been desperate for a child when it became obvious that they couldn’t conceive. Tayla had been spared only because Gem’s adoptive parents hadn’t sensed demon in her and had left Tayla with their human mother.
She eyed Tayla and Runa, ashamed of the spike of jealousy she experienced at the knowledge that they didn’t share her problem. Their children were—and would be—purebred Seminus demons.
“What’s wrong?” Tayla asked. “Do you think Kynan wouldn’t want kids with you?”
“I think it’s too early to even think about.” But no, she didn’t think Kynan would want kids with her. It had taken him forever to have sex with a demon. Having children with one? He’d probably castrate himself before he allowed that to happen.
Runa thrust Wraith’s son into Gem’s arms. “We’ll have to let him see how great you are with them, then.”
Gem’s eyes stung as she looked down into the tiny, scrunched face of the baby snuggled against her. His little fingers grabbed hers, and she felt that tug again, low in her womb. Heavy footsteps announced the arrival of one of the guys, and sure enough, Kynan crouched next to her, a glass of soda in his hand.
“I brought you a drink.” He set the glass on the end table. “So that’s Wraith’s hellspawn, huh? He’s cute—nothing like his father.”
A smile played on his lips, and Gem’s breath caught at the longing in his eyes.
“He’s a really good baby,” Runa said. “So yeah, nothing like Wraith.”
Kynan’s smile turned sad, and Gem knew he was thinking about Wraith’s dire situation. “Can I hold him?”
Gem handed the infant to him, and she choked up—actually choked up, when he cradled the little guy to his chest and began to rock him. He was father material, pure and simple. Someday he’d want them, and what then? What would happen when he realized that Gem couldn’t bear him human children?
Nothing good, and it was time to face the facts.
She and Kynan could never have a future together.
Dinner tasted like sawdust
Kynan mostly pushed his food around his plate as Eidolon listed all the things that had gone wrong with the hospital, including the fact that the patch they’d slapped on the Haven spell was weakening. With the hospital running on minimal staff, E and Shade had decided that, should the Haven spell fail again, they were going to shut down.
But the worst of the news had come earlier, in private, when Shade and E had told him that their lives were also at stake, something they hadn’t told their wives.
And still the bad news kept coming.
“Plans are solidifying in the underworld,” Shade said. “There’s been a call to arms.”