Chapter 25
I stumbled into the kitchen late the next morning, unshowered and unchanged, looking like I’d been dragged through hell backwards by my ankles.
Which, considering how the night had gone, wasn’t far from the truth.
Ares had woken up every half hour like clockwork, cycling between hungry and crying and needing to be changed, or sometimes just screaming for reasons we couldn’t decipher no matter how many times we checked him over.
Trace had tried to help. And surprisingly, so had Dominic, though more from a distance.
They’d been there with me through every single wake-up call, taking turns watching him, even rocking his bassinet in an attempt to soothe him while I heated bottles or fumbled with diapers that seemed determined to make me lose what little of my mind remained.
It turned out that a barely legal eighteen-year-old and her two vampire boyfriends with a combined zero experience in infant care didn’t even translate to one competent parent.
We basically stumbled through the whole thing together, consulting frantic YouTube searches on Trace’s phone while Ares screamed his tiny lungs out in the background, until we finally managed to get him clean and fed and back to sleep.
Which lasted all of thirty minutes.
Then we did it all over again.
I collapsed into a chair at the kitchen table and reached for the steaming mug of coffee that Isa had already prepared for me because she was clearly a mind-reading saint.
“Rough night?” asked Tessa from across the table, eyeing me with a look caught somewhere between amusement and sympathy.
“Shut it,” I muttered, taking a long sip of coffee and praying the caffeine would kick in soon. My entire body felt like it was running on fumes and stubbornness, and I’d already burned through most of the stubbornness an hour ago.
Trace lowered himself into the chair beside me, his hand coming to rest on my thigh in a comforting gesture.
His movements were slower than usual, more careful, as if he were operating on autopilot too.
He still looked flawless, of course, his blue eyes only a touch dimmer than usual, but I could feel the toll of the night through our bond.
The pull of exhaustion that pressed down on him every bit as much as it was pressing down on me.
Not to mention how loud the crying and screaming must have been on his heightened vampire hearing.
A soft coo came from the bassinet Trace had wheeled into the kitchen and positioned within arm’s reach of the table. We couldn’t risk leaving Ares alone. Not even for a second. Not when the Order could show up at any moment.
The sound drew everyone’s attention for a brief moment. Tessa’s gaze flicked to the bassinet, then quickly away, like looking at him for too long made her uncomfortable. She sat across from me, hunched over her glass of orange juice with both hands wrapped around it in a white-knuckled grip.
“How long do you think before the Order figures out what happened?” she asked, still staring into her glass. Still not looking at me.
“Days.” Gabriel’s voice came from the head of the table, flat and matter-of-fact. “If we’re lucky.”
My stomach clenched as I turned to look at him. The line of his jaw had gone hard, his moss-green eyes fixed on the bassinet with an expression I couldn’t quite read. Disapproval, maybe. Concern. Possibly both at once.
“That soon, huh?”
“You saved the child they’ve been trying to eliminate since before he was born,” said Gabriel, his tone grim.
“They believe he is the harbinger of the apocalypse. The literal antichrist. And now he is here. Alive. Under your protection.” He paused, letting that sink in.
“They will not stop until they have rectified what they see as a catastrophic failure.”
My chest tightened. “So what do we do now? We can’t just sit here and wait for them to show up.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t be here at all.” Trace’s thumb traced absent circles against my thigh, the small movement betraying just how unsettled he was beneath that careful composure of his.
Gabriel’s eyes narrowed. “What are you suggesting?”
“My family’s cabin,” answered Trace.
“And how exactly do you propose we get past the wards without alerting the entire Council?”
The question came from Jaqueline, who stood near the counter with her arms crossed loosely over her chest. She still looked drawn, her skin a shade paler than usual from the lingering effects of her bloodbender, but her eyes were sharp and watchful as they moved between us.
Trace’s mouth set in a hard line. “I can try porting us out using the Transfer Bind Nikki made for me back when I used to visit her and didn’t want the Order tracking my movements. It’s worth a shot.”
“Even if that works,” said Gabriel, “the cabin is the first place they’ll look. They know about your family’s property. It’s in their records.”
“Then we go somewhere else,” shot back Trace.
“Ah, yes.” Gabriel’s voice dripped with skepticism so thick it could have coated the floor. “Start your new lives on the lam. With a baby, no less. I’m sure that will go splendidly.”
“It’s better than sitting here waiting for them to break down the door,” fired back Trace.
“Is it?” asked Gabriel. “Or is it just prolonging the inevitable?”
The question hung over the table like something that wasn’t going to leave quietly, but I refused to let it suffocate me. If we put our heads together and thought this through, we could come up with something. A plan that would protect the baby and the rest of us.
“There has to be something we can do. People disappear all the time. My father used a cloaking spell to keep me hidden for years. We can do the same thing for Ares. We can—”
“Jemma,” interrupted Gabriel as he leaned forward, his moss-green eyes locked on mine with that careful, deliberate stare he saved for moments when he was about to say something he knew I wasn’t going to want to hear.
“I need you to think about this rationally. You’ve had one night with him.
One sleepless, chaotic night where you barely managed to keep him fed and clean.
” He paused, letting that sink in. “This isn’t sustainable.
You’re still in school. You’re still training to control your Nephilim abilities.
You have responsibilities that don’t include round-the-clock child care. ”
Tessa’s fingers tightened around her glass of juice, her knuckles going white. She still wouldn’t look at me. Wouldn’t look at the bassinet either. Her entire body had gone rigid, like she was having an allergic reaction to this entire conversation.
I blew out a tired breath. “I know it’s going to be hard, but if—”
“Hard?” cut in Gabriel. “Jemma, this isn’t just hard.
It’s impossible. You can’t raise a child while fighting a war.
You can’t protect him from every threat that comes through that door while simultaneously trying to keep yourself alive.
” His expression gentled a fraction, the careful soldier giving way to the older brother for the briefest moment.
“I’m not saying this to hurt you. I’m saying it because I care about you, and I don’t want to watch you destroy yourself trying to do something that can’t be done.
Not when there are other options. Better options. ”
My throat tightened. “Like what?”
Jaqueline stepped forward then. “I have contacts.”
I looked up at her, my exhausted brain dragging itself two beats behind the conversation.
“People who specialize in placing children in situations where they need to disappear,” she continued.
“Where they need to be protected from those who would do them harm.” She moved closer, her expression coming as close to gentle as I had ever seen on her.
“We could find him a home. A good home, far away from here. Somewhere anonymous where he could grow up normal. Away from the prophecies and the hunters and the constant danger that comes with being connected to you.”
The words hit me like a backhand to the cheek.
“He could have a real childhood,” pressed Jaqueline. “Two parents who aren’t being hunted. A stable home. A life where he is not defined by what people fear he will become.” She paused. “Isn’t that what you want for him? A chance to be more than his destiny?”
I looked down at my coffee, my chest squeezing into a painful knot.
She was right.
God, she was right.
What did I know about taking care of a baby? About raising a child? I could barely keep myself alive most days, and now I was supposed to be responsible for someone else’s entire existence? Someone who would need me every single day for the next eighteen years?
I couldn’t even get through one night without feeling like I was drowning.
“He deserves better than this,” she went on, her tone soft and almost placating in a way that made my skin prickle even as the rest of me was busy agreeing with her.
“Better than running. Better than hiding. Better than living in constant fear that the people who love him will be killed because they chose to protect him.” Her eyes held mine.
“You made a promise to his mother to keep him safe. This is how you keep that promise. By giving him a life that doesn’t include you. Don’t you see that?”
The logic was sound. Practical, even. The kind of decision that made sense on paper.
But my heart was still screaming that it was wrong.
“I…” I started, but my voice wouldn’t seem to hold. “I don’t know.”
Trace’s hand tightened on my thigh. “You don’t have to decide right now.”
“Actually, she does,” said Gabriel, his voice gentle but firm. “The longer he stays here, the more danger he’s in. The more danger we are all in. If you’re going to do this. If you’re going to let him go. It needs to happen soon.”
I felt tears prick at my eyes. “I just…I promised her I would keep him safe. That I’d protect him.”
I’d promised myself.
“And you are,” said Jaqueline. “By making the hardest choice a parent can make. By putting his needs above your own wants.”