Chapter Fourteen
Esmeray
With the help of a few of the household staff, we were able to set up in my old bedroom, open portals to the extended closets that still existed, somehow, in ether space, and retrieve a lifetime of thalmaturgy and magical information.
All while Gre made notes of the things we’d need—mostly toiletries.
All the while, he lamented not protecting the bathroom.
“We can buy new toiletries.” I flopped onto my bed as he moved with the others.
“Yeah, but my towels had the perfect amount of wear to them.” His pitiable look amused me, if I was honest. And being back home had a certain comfort to it, despite wanting to not live with my father—I’d admit I’d have more saved up if I didn’t insist on moving out.
But, I needed to prove so many things to myself, the least of which was that I was as capable as my coworkers who didn’t get a single handout.
Most of them had started with nothing, and I wanted to prove I could do the same.
“I’m sure we will wear out towels in time to your satisfaction.
” I supervised as my books came out of a portal one by one in the middle of my room.
Gre moved through the doors with ease and willingness while the help nervously moved from one side to the next, fearful of the portal closing.
Gre said time was limited, and they’d flinched every time they stepped in, since.
And of course, nobody allowed me to lift a thing, only supervise where boxes were put. Despite this, I had vastly underestimated the amount of belongings we’d kept in expanded spaces. I should have felt a modicum of shame, but I didn’t. I still had my books, after all.
For a demon, our grimoires and accumulated thaumaturgic knowledge were indispensable. In years, I could do what took decades and centuries for most to accumulate, and I would not start from the bottom ranks of hell like my peers.
“You have a copy of a fallen seraphim’s account of transition?” Gre strode out of the space with a leather-bound tome in his hands. I really hoped it wasn’t human leather, but hell was hell, after all. “Apologies for snooping.”
“Books are books. Even my own grimoire. Read them.” I strode across the room to flop onto my bed, watching everyone carry things out.
Gre sifted through the books and handed over a bound copy—a newer book, closer to my twenty-seven years of age.
My omega father had started it for me soon after he knew he was pregnant.
As I should have started one for our child to come.
For certain, they’d have magic, but it was not up to us the magic they received, demonic or deic, of the gods and mankind.
“I wouldn’t dare do so without your express permission.” Gre handed the tome to me and I took it with a sigh of relief. I traced fingers over the cover, treasuring agricultural leather rather than the potential leather of something intelligent or with a soul. Probably pig. The grain was very large.
As I leafed through the pages, I stared upon the discoveries of my own I’d made. Spells I’d seen in no other grimoires were made by combining spells from others. I could curl my hair with a twist of heat drawn from hell itself, boil water from a drop of fire from the sun.
I had turned what little seductive power I had inherited from my succubus father into charisma.
I was never able to push my sexuality forward, but I could force my personality.
Which is why I felt so much disdain and confusion about Malarthe’s accusations.
I had never been able to render myself seductive.
But I had an idea that cropped up. I checked my phone for the date of my life anew and the date of my brief stent in court. I thumbed through the calendar and put a few things together. My brow involuntarily twitched. “Gre?”
My mate stuck his head from the portal and smiled, far too chipper for someone who had just lost his home. “Yes?”
I turned my phone around and flashed him the screen. He put his load down outside the room and stared at it with confusion. “Our eight-week anniversary?”
“So, like… Wait, you remember that?” I sat up and laughed.
“Do I remember the day I bound my eternal soul to a cute little type A legal beagle of an omega demon? Yes.” He laughed. “So, what were you trying to show me?”
“Oh, this was the day of the case. Day after. What’s the issue?” He searched my face, smile fading into something guilty.
“Nothing really, but I think I know why Malarthe was—” I made a gesture with my index finger and whistled, pantomiming an erection. Ausmius rose up the wall behind me as a giant phallic shadow. Gre glanced up at it, brows raising.
“Oh?”
“Maybe I was in heat or something like it?” I frowned. “It would make sense?”
“Quite the boner he was sporting. I don’t blame him.” Gre grinned at me.
“Eh. I’ve seen better.” I glanced him up and down. “I have better.”
“Please, young master, please wait until we’re finished.” One of the men sighed raggedly as he exited the portal and glanced between it and the room. “We want the shelves, too? If not, we can close it.”
Gre peered in, made sure it was evacuated and snapped his finger with a puff of stale air. “That was the last of the spaces…”
“What about that one that was in the trunk of your car?” I glanced over, and he pursed his lips before opening a portal. Stale, smoky air rolled out for but a blink before he closed it.
“Nope.” He waved his hand and drew a sigil in the air to annex it and dispel the magic. “Maybe…”
He opened another portal and pulled out a shoebox, the paperboard of it indecently old and dusty. “Can’t believe I almost forgot this.”
“What’s that?” I craned my neck over as he clawed out a few more items from the space and closed it with a snap of his fingers.
“Baby pictures. The letter I was surrendered with.” He handwaved me off, but I forged my way forward to him to open the box and look within.
Two proud suited males held a babe between them, smiling wide, the young Gre in human form, as he’d stay until puberty when the shift took over. I leafed through the pictures. “Those your fathers?”
“My adoptive fathers, yes. Both giraffes.” Gre smiled at them. “They’ve long since passed from this world. The only reason I’m not an old man is because of my deal with the goddesses. I found magic and secured my stay on this plane.”
“Were they good people?” I pulled out a yellowed piece of paper, rife with an enchantment to preserve it. It was a birth record. April 17th, 1942, 8:45pm. 7lbs 8oz. Alpha father: Giraffe shifter. Omega father: Human. Nothing else.
“They named me Greginald.” Gre gave me a look that spoke more than he ever would about it.
“Fair point. I rather like Esmeray myself. My parents did good.” I patted Gre’s shoulder. “But I like Gre.”
“I do, too. Let’s be conscientious about naming our little one, shall we?” Gre whispered those words, eyes not meeting my own. “I want them to love their name, too.”
“They’ll love their name. I promise. Demons take great pride in giving their children good names.” I reached out and pulled his hand to my stomach. “And in eleven months we’ll figure it out.”
“Eleven?” Gre’s face lit up with confusion and then realization. “Right. Thirteen months.”
“Means we have a little more time than you’d bargained for?” I smiled, praying he had better insight than I did. He’d made big promises.
“Absolutely! Your father… I need to talk to him, but yes. He says he thinks he can escalate my application to the top of the pile.” He cleared his throat nervously.
“That means you’ve got the job. He’s blackmailed someone.” I snorted and choked on a laugh. Dad was a demon, true to his name and rank.
“Isn’t blackmail illegal?” Gre glanced over.
“Sure. But you have to prove you were blackmailed and reveal the information he has on you. Father’s a prince of hell. By the time they die, he could do very legal things to their soul.” I stared Gre down and waited for him to approach. I wanted his body against mine.
“I was wise to take your father’s threat seriously.”
“And unbelievably kind to offer me a choice, anyway.” The relief I felt at salvaging our things and escaping death, escaping his death, all culminated into something light and playful in me that I relished by drawing Gre closer to me, attempting to lure him into bed as the help left.
“We have an hour until dinner, and there’s nothing we can do about our situation, so… ”
Gre’s eyes hooded, lashes dangerously low over his pretty golden eyes. Seriously, such power in them I’d never seen before. His goddesses had gone above and beyond to bless him. “I can think of a good way to waste an hour. But are you sure you’re okay to?”
“I’m not getting any more pregnant.” I flicked my brows at him in invitation and sank under his weight as we snuggled into my bed. He lacked the hunger he had for me, all careful touches and uncertainty, like every part of me was precious. And for that moment, I’d be okay with it.