Chapter Sixteen
Greginald
Part of working with the police force in their magic division allowed me certain perks.
One of which was advanced DNA and aura testing.
I’d sent it off almost two months ago after putting Esmeray on all of my accounts.
It rarely took that long, so when the courier brought the mail to my office that morning, he clutched a thicker envelope than I’d expected.
“Mage Hawthorne?” A rather sullen mage who sat in my office stared me down as I pushed the paperwork to the side.
Cornelius Chase Atwood sat across from me, a hybrid of my variety.
His halves? Llama omega shifter and a rather horny human alpha that had several hybrid children all over town.
The man loved shifters in heat and loved paying child support even less than he did wrapping his own dick.
Though, I wasn’t one to speak. My only reason for not having a dozen children running about was that I didn’t sleep with anything that could procreate, as a rule. Save for Esmeray.
“Apologies, I was waiting for this letter.” I turned my gaze toward him.
“So, I saw that Malarthe dropped your case, and I’m still fighting my own.
How did you get yours dropped?” His llama had focused dark eyes on me, white fur pristine.
His shaven teeth were perfectly aligned, and he held his jaw taut.
“Honestly, it was a complete fluke. He sported wood on the stand after sniffing my attorney, an omega. My mate. My mate now, that is.” I nervously cleared my throat. “It was a bit sudden.”
Jealousy wrenched its way through those soft doe eyes of Cornelius’s, and I cleared my throat to change the subject. “No, it’s alright. You had no way of knowing someone like that would claim you. Lucky bastard.”
I nodded and kept my face somber as he smiled at me. “Esmeray is one of those dreams you never forget. I keep waiting to wake up and him be gone.”
“I’ll find mine one day, or not. So, here’s my problem. They’re asking me if I have the capability to curse his manhood. Honestly, half the witches on the east side want to curse his manhood. The thing is, I cannot. My magic needs to be very hands on.”
“Who is your deity?” I leafed through his paperwork.
“I don’t have one. I’m an atheist.” He stared me down with challenge, and I awaited an explanation that didn’t come.
“How does that work out, in reference to your gifts and position?”
“I came into my gifts young, and it was weak. I wanted to be a doctor, so I pursued that until—” He gestured at his head and I immediately understood.
“Discrimination.”
“Apparently, I’m unsanitary. So, I pursued my magic in tandem with my degree and found a rather niche residency within a few churches and from what I saw, no deity ever comes to the aid of another without something to gain.
I sought to do the work that the gods themselves will not do.
” He met my gaze, and I nodded politely.
“It holds you back, does it not?”
“I could be more powerful, yes. I’ve had offers, but I do not wish to owe anyone anything. I believe in nothing.” He nodded resolutely, bitter, no doubt, from what he was.
“Show me your hands and tongue. I’ll note your lack of a mark.” I wrote out some notes and checked his tongue then his hands, cast a revealing spell and had him shift to his human form, a rather pale white-haired young male with a sculpted body so taut someone could grate cheese on it. Good grief.
“So, in my professional opinion, you don’t have the capability to do it, and I’m recommending you to The Church of Plurality for a neutral third-party confirmation.
They’ll back me up. At some point, he’s going to get a settlement out of the coven admitting no fault, but we’re going to try and tack on a never sue us again clause.
” I gave him a shit-eating grin that he reciprocated.
“Sneaky. Then we can actually curse his dick?” He gave me thumbs-up, and I pursed my lips.
“I heard nothing. Saw nothing.” I waved him off and stared at my letter once more.
I opened the document and saw a letter explaining their tests, how they only receive very few results like mine and wanted another sample at some point if I was willing to be in a control group.
I turned the page and glanced over the paper, mouth open.
My alpha father had indeed been a reticulated giraffe, mixed with other varieties of shifter with the reticulated giraffe dominating them.
My omega father? No data had been in the system, no smaller percentages.
Classification? 51.04% extra-planar. That surprised me and I leafed through the other pages, explaining that it could mean I was part ghost or banshee, maybe an eternal, but from the aura testing, where a gold-plated glass sheet had been put on a necklace and I’d worn it for two days to inundate it for testing, they’d confirmed that my omega pater had been no omega at all, but rather a being of the deic plane.
In essence, the letter that lay before me, said that I, one Greginald Hawthorne, was likely a demigod.
“Well. Ausmius?” I glanced at the wall and my shadow, limp and listless, nodded in agreement. “Still poorly?”
Ausmius, or part of him. I still wasn’t certain, nodded at me and I hummed.
“Well… I’m a demigod, it looks like.” I clutched the letters in hand and my phone rang—Draevus.
I answered as I stood. My shift ending soon. “Hello.”
“Gre, please tell me you’re at your office?” His panicked voice hissed on the other end.
“I am. What’s wrong?” My blood ran cold. “Is Esmeray alright?”
“No. He’s fine. Baby’s fine. But he’s just been arrested.” My stomach clenched and Ausmius prickled, little spines shooting from my shadow as it sank into my usual form and something left me with a draining sensation—no doubt him going to check.
“What for?” I gathered my things and jogged up the stairs, sweat beading on my temples as I glanced around the stairwell and made my way to booking.
“Malarthe has some cockamamie claims that Esmeray assaulted him, and the child is his. And you know how alpha paternity rights go with extraplanars. They’re going to hold him so he can’t skip plane with the child!
” Draevus bit back a growl, and I prayed he refrained from demonic swearing, because I did not want to replace my phone in all this.
I made it to the booking area and looked around with no sign of him, just the usual rabble. “I’m here. I’ll call you back once I know something.”
I ran to the booking staff and caught a stare from the man working the desk. A lot of the staff here didn’t quite respect me as a mage, but then again, at least it wasn’t for being a hybrid. “I just got word. Is Esmeray Faust being brought in?”
He checked the log on his computer and nodded. “On his way now. Oh, shit, this is your mate, isn’t it?”
“Ballard, he’s pregnant. Please.” I gave him my most pleading look, and he nodded once in sympathy.
“Sexual assault— Who the fuck willingly sleeps with that slimeball?” Officer Ballard’s face made a decidedly appropriate expression of disgust and he scrolled through. “Ugh, Judge Fuckwit put the order through.”
“Fuckwit?” I blinked as Ballard waved his hand. “Family court guy. Falkwitz. Guy has it in for demons big-time and is part of The Church.”
“Not a fan, I take it?”
He shook his head. “My mother-in-law is a member. Every time I have to spend five minutes around her, she’s yacking my ear off about the divinity of Homo sapiens. Like I should give her son a divorce because I’m part elf!”
“I didn’t know you had an omega mate.” I perked up and earned a shake of his head. “Beta. Both beta.”
“Apologies for the assumption.” I held up a hand, and he shook his head. “Nah. He’s FTM. That’s a whole other problem for her.”
I shook my head in commiseration. “I lucked out on fathers-in-law. He’s absolutely fine with me being a hybrid.”
“Well damn. That’s nice, at least. Let’s see what I can do here,” he said, typing in. “Because he’s extraplanar I can’t do shit or make any calls. I’m not that well connected, and if Draevus Faust can’t get his son out of it, we peons can’t do shit, either.”
“That’s what I figured. And there’s zero chance that child is Malarthe’s.
” I grumbled as Ballard clicked through some things.
He glanced over at me pointedly. “I’ll give you a few moments alone with him when he gets here.
Best I can do. Have him pointedly tell whoever books him that he feels like he might be suicidal. ”
I blinked in surprise. “Why?”
“Puts him in solitary, keeps him from general population and keeps cameras on him. Anyone doing this much bullshit might have bad plans for him on the inside.” Ballard made a few notes. “What did he do to this Malarthe character?”
“Malarthe sued me, he was my attorney, and Esmeray might have given the judge doubt as to the truthfulness of his claims. Also, he’s affiliated with The Church, now.”
Ballard groaned. “Yeah, you’re one of ours. We’re taking care of your mate.”
“You have no idea how much this means.”
“Hybrids have it rough enough.” He nodded at me firmly.
“I thought you were part elf.” I stared him down, the dark hair and pointed ears matched to his spectral eyes, but nothing more.
“Yeah, but my partner… Hybrid mage helped him out. Atwood. Good guy.” Ballard turned in his seat, and I glanced up in time to see my mate being brought in cuffs and a silver, blessed collar.
Ausmius rose up the wall behind me with a violent hiss that rang in both mine and the officer’s ears.
He tamped down almost immediately, shrinking into the floor as if all the energy had gone from him.
“Oh fuck. Hey, Rosewill, give the mage a moment with his mate there. Alpha genes going nuts. That’s his mate and babe.” Ballard gestured toward Esmeray, who peered up at me with eyes dark and listless, the fire in them gone.
“Gre?” He stumbled, feet shackled too.
And in that moment, I realized a few things at once.
Demons had a demonic form, one they hid and kept treasured while topside.
It was difficult to drop the seals and made them vulnerable, but with the collar, I saw his true form and my rage intensified.
He might as well have been naked before them, such a vulnerable thing.
His pale skin shone glassine, and eyes were rimmed with white, pupils and irises a bottomless darkness that no fire rose in.
A slender tail dragged the floor behind him as thin limbs tipped with clawed nails hung weakly over his belly.
The officers stepped away as I rushed forward, taking Esmeray into my arms. “Esme.” I whispered the pet name to his slightly pointed ear, the tip notched and flatter than most.
“Gre. I didn’t. You know I didn’t.” His voice choked, and tears coated his cheeks, skin nearly sparkling like bone ash had been strewn over his cheekbones. I kissed him, pressing our lips together as I whispered to him.
“I know. I—” I hesitated as Ballard cleared his throat behind me.
“Look, we can’t do much at the moment. I love you and trust you beyond all else.
You are mine, and nothing will stand in the way.
When they question you, impress upon them that you feel suicidal.
Please. They’ve made arrangements so if you do that, they’ll put you up somewhere safer. ”
Esmeray stared up at me and nodded. “My shadow isn’t listening. He’s so weak.”
“I know. He’s not handling your pregnancy well at all.
Please. I’ll do all I can.” I cupped his cheeks and stroked his silken dark hair again as runic symbols, a shade paler than his own skin, seemed to move over his flesh like stripes.
He was a gorgeous demon, and even more beautiful were the horns he bore, three tines on each side of his head, rising up with a gentle curve like a beautiful obsidian crown.
I touched them ever so gently. “They had no right to make you show them.”
“It’s just to make sure everyone who looks at me knows how bad I am.” He huffed in disgust.
“Only I get to know how bad you are. And you’re fierce and strong. I love you.” I said it again because I meant it, and an officer coaxed him away, showing great deference for Esmeray.
Officers glanced at me sympathetically, and Ballard went around whispering to each of them just how much care needed to be taken.