Demons Undone: The Sons of Gulielmus Series (45 page)

“Don’t know. My mother claims that whatever gifts she has are latent, but I think she’s a gleeful liar.”

Now Ariel sat up. “Like what?”

Julia bobbed her shoulder and then snuggled under the blankets. She tossed one long leg over Marion’s shins and closed her eyes. “Don’t know. She’s flighty because of the Brain Rot, but if you watch her when she thinks no one’s looking, she gets this serious look on her face like she’s privy to all the world’s major secrets. Then the next moment she’s wearing two shoes that don’t match.”

“Why does she let him … you know, be with her, if she knows what her children will become?”

“What have we become?” Julia didn’t open her eyes. “So far, Gulielmus is zero for three. John got free of him. He didn’t manage to mark me—I’ve got supernatural juice minus the demon calories. Krista is unscathed for the moment. I think my mother knows what she’s doing.”

“Huh.” It was all Marion could say. She trailed her fingers atop her belly in gentle circles. Making the decision to keep the baby had been one of the most frightening things she’d ever done in her life. She wanted the little girl so much because she represented the family Marion hadn’t had growing up. She’d be hers until the day she died, and the baby meant she’d never be alone again, even if Charles never came back. But at the same time, this was a child who had one foot in a world Marion didn’t really know or understand.

What would she be like? What kinds of things would she be able to do that would make her mother’s jaw drop?

Maybe this kid she and Charles had made together would be good because she
chose
to be, just like Julia and John did. And maybe that meant Charles could choose the same. But did he want to be good?

“I can hear your teeth squeaking as you grind them,” Claude said. He pushed his mirrored sunglasses up his nose and slumped lower in his Jeep’s driver seat. “Aren’t your molars flat enough as it is? You know, you’re not going to grow another set. Better take care of the ones you’ve got.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Charles didn’t care if he sounded surly. Who could blame him?

He cracked each of his knuckles in turn, and watched as Marion followed Clarissa into the obstetrician’s office with Julia bringing up the rear. Julia seemed to be on hyper-alert, scanning the area all around them before letting the door whoosh shut behind her. At least she’d been conscientious enough to ask Charles if he minded before she’d volunteered to escort Marion to her appointment. Of course he minded. It seemed everyone could touch Marion but him, but what he could he say?
No, don’t shield her
? That she didn’t
really
need prenatal care?

The rational part of him was glad his half-sister had the foresight to ask, but that didn’t assuage his ire any at the fact that it was her in there and not him.

He shifted beneath his seatbelt. He and Claude had just endured their monthly visitation from Claude’s mother and he was still feeling the effects of the spirit encounter. The witch had been dead for more than a hundred years, but even from beyond the grave she dispensed tough love.

“Your mother would say I’m a coward for not going in,” Charles said. He drummed his fingers atop the seatbelt release.

Claude reclined his seat and crossed his arms over his chest as if he were settling in for a nap. That wasn’t unusual. Like Charles, Claude slept wherever was convenient. They didn’t have the luxury of routine.

“No. Actually,
Maman
would ask if you’d walked dick-first into some bad voodoo, and then she’d laugh at you.”

Charles cringed. “What would you do? I don’t want to cause a scene. If I walk in there, Marion will probably have the nurses throw me out.”

“I doubt it. She’s not the type. She’d save her tantrum for the parking lot and make you regret intruding on her space later … and probably for a long time.”

Finally, Charles stabbed the seatbelt release and wrapped his fingers around the door handle. “I’ll take my chances.” He pulled the handle at the same time Claude grabbed his sleeve.

His brother pushed his sunglasses up with his free hand and locked his bloodshot stare on him. “Think rationally. Squash the ego. This isn’t about just you.”

Through clenched teeth, Charles responded, “You think I don’t know that?”

Claude shrugged. “Hard to say what you know. You want her to let down her guard, you’d best start opening up so she knows you’re more than the son of a demon. You might as well be a cardboard cutout for all she knows of you.”

A growl rumbled in Charles’s chest, and Claude let go of his jacket sleeve, scoffing.

“Heed my words, Charles. Your own mother would tell you the same. I wish you’d let me bring her through.”

“Why, so she can tell me I’m just like Pop? No, thanks.” Charles pushed the door open and jumped down onto the asphalt. Leaning back into the Jeep, he said, “I’ll catch a ride with Marion and Clarissa.”

Claude pulled the driver’s seat back up into the upright position and wrenched the key in the ignition. “I’ll call you. Gonna follow up on that lead on Ross and keep an eye on him.”

“I know you’d rather be doing other things. So, thank you.”

Claude shrugged and cracked the barest grin. “I’ll probably need a favor soon. Don’t thank me yet.”

Charles slammed the door, and Claude peeled out of the strip mall. Turning toward the clinic, Charles shoved his hands into his jeans pockets and mentally rehearsed excuses for his presence.

I was in the neighborhood and had a few minutes and saw the car
. He rolled his eyes and took off at a lope.

Maybe he’d just try the truth, since that seemed to be in such short supply in their relationship.
I was worried about you, and you won’t talk to me.

Yeah, right.

He gave the office door a gentle tug and drew cool air into his lungs as the ten or so people in the waiting area all turned to look at him at once. Ignoring the appreciative glances from the desk clerks, he maneuvered around the coffee table and took the empty seat next to Julia and across from Marion. He folded his hands onto his lap and assessed her wide-eyed stare.

She held her black ink pen still over the clipboard full of forms.

He cleared his throat. “I didn’t know if I’d make it.”

Marion set down the pen and pulled her bottom lip between her teeth.

Clarissa pulled some knitting project out of her oversized purse and crossed her legs. “Glad you’re here. You can pay the bill.”

“That’s fine. I can pay the bill.” He’d need to get the woman insurance. He didn’t need it for himself for obvious reasons, but she and the baby should certainly have it.

Marion’s lips parted as if she were going to say something, but then she shook her head and cast her gaze down at the paperwork on her lap.

Julia covered her mouth with her hand and whispered to the side, “What made you decide to come?”

“Because I care,” he said loud enough for all to hear.

Marion blew out a sharp breath and cast her gaze downward.

The nurse called out her name, and she looked at Clarissa, probably for reassurance, but her grandmother seemed to be pointedly refusing her gaze.

Sighing, Marion looked at Charles and gave him a long, quiet stare.

“Marion Wilder?” the nurse called out. “Are you here?”

Julia leaned forward and grabbed an issue of
The Watchtower
from the table beside her. “If the exam room is more than twenty feet bird’s-eye from here, let me know and I’ll come tail you. I think that’s about as far as I can push the power out.”

Charles stood, and gestured toward the waiting nurse. “Go on,” he said softly. “I won’t touch you.”
Yet.

Marion drew in a breath so deep that her shoulders shook, and swiveled her honey gaze up to his face. She rocked on her heels a few beats before following the nurse through the door.

“Is this your first one?” the nurse asked as Marion stepped onto the scale.

Marion cast her gaze toward the ceiling, away from the digital display, and responded, “First and likely only.”

Charles turned his back to the anger he knew was written on his face.
Only
, his ass. He was going to give her the family she so obviously wanted. It wasn’t her fault she didn’t know such a thing was possible, but she wouldn’t believe it if he told her. Oh, he’d tell her, though. He’d just need to put some bodies between her and him first, because he suspected the first touch she’d want to bestow on him would be a bruising one.

• • •

Nurse Donna handed Marion a hospital gown to put on and told her to undress. When Donna had left, Charles sank onto one of the faux leather seats beneath the curtained windows and entwined his fingers, as calm as he pleased.

How dare he?

“You could at least do me the courtesy of not watching me undress,” she said, not bothering to smooth the burr of agitation from her voice. She heeled off her boots and nudged them beneath the spare chair, giving Charles’s leg a wide berth. For a moment, she fixated on the texture of his gray pants, wondering if she’d ever found corduroys attractive on anyone older than the age of ten before. The man could probably wear burlap and make it look couture.

She wondered why he’d claim to want a frumpy mess like
her
, and then rolled her eyes at her own stupid thoughts.

He was an incubus, and she was a warm, fertile, female body. That was all.

He closed his eyes. “As you wish.”

She scoffed. “Just that simple, huh? I don’t trust you as far as I can throw you.”

“And as I’ve been on top of you in recent history, I’m sure you remember precisely how heavy I am to work out those physics.” He tented his fingers and stared at her over the tips. “I doubt you’d really want to throw me off, though.”

Heat rushed through her core and burned her cheeks.

Damn him.

She turned her back and angrily clawed at her shirt’s buttons. “Leave.”

“I’m not here to pick a fight with you.”

“Then why are you here, huh?” Somehow she managed to unfasten her shirt without actually seeing it. Her vision had gone hazy from anger, and pulse pounded so damn hard in her ears she could barely hear herself think.

She turned and saw him sitting there looking so serene, as if he hadn’t abandoned her for weeks on end
again
. How dare he show up like this, as if it were his right? As if he had a
say
in what she did with her body?

“Are you going to answer me or just stare dumbly?” She tossed her shirt toward the empty chair, and believe it or not, he kept his gaze above her neck. Next, she pushed her leggings down to her ankles and stepped out of them. This was the first time she’d left the house in ten weeks, and she’d hoped to savor the experience. It looked like she’d instead spend it arguing with Charles. Shit, they could do
that
at her grandmother’s.

The truth was, she’d hoped he’d show up. She’d even changed the appointment twice, fretting over it because she’d been so damned afraid. She wasn’t just terrified of carrying a child who may not have technically been human, but of
everything
lately. She was half angry that she hadn’t left the house in almost three months, and half content with never leaving it again if it meant she could hide from all the scary things people kept warning her of that she hadn’t yet seen. It was hard to be brave, sometimes, in the face of the unknown. It wasn’t like protecting herself against assault or robbery while out on the road. This was a matter of her immortal soul. Her body meant
nothing
in the greater scheme of things.

“Marion, sweetheart, I’m here because you’re pregnant with my child. You’re both important to me, and not for political reasons.”

She opened her mouth, and closed it, balling her hands into fists at her sides.
Liar
was what she was going to say, but his pained expression seemed so sincere. What did she know, though? She barely knew the man. Probably eighty percent of what she knew of him she’d learned through third parties.

She took a bolstering breath and let it out, attempting to calm the encroaching histrionics. “You have a funny way of showing it,” she said in a soft voice. “I see more of you going than coming. I—”

Pressing her lips together, she turned her back and fidgeted with the tie of her sweatpants. She’d grown up to become used to people leaving her, so what was one more person?

Charles didn’t owe her anything, not even pity. She could pay her own damn bill for the appointment.

She hadn’t thrown up in a week, but suddenly a nauseated feeling settled into her.

For the rest of her natural life, she’d be linked to this man because of the child they shared, and they couldn’t touch.

Even if he learned to love her, he couldn’t so much as kiss her hand.

“Are you all right, sweetheart?” he asked, rousing her from her mental meanderings.

“Huh?”

“Your hand. You just pressed it against her chest and what I could see of your face went pale.”

She forced a lump down her throat and drew in some air. Was it hot in there all of a sudden?

What man would want the mother of a half-demon baby?

No, the better question was, would she want anyone besides Charles?

As much as she tried hating him, she just couldn’t. He’d claimed he hadn’t done any magic on her, but how could that be when she couldn’t so much as look at another man without thinking he didn’t measure up to Charles?

“I—” She swallowed again and reached for the gown. “I’m fine.”

That eyebrow of his fell back to its usual place, but the flat line of his lips hinted that he didn’t believe her.

Carefully, she hoisted herself up onto the exam table and crossed her legs at the ankles. Pulling on the gown, she stared ahead at the canisters of cotton swabs and tongue depressors. “They’re probably going to ask about your medical history,” she said.

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Got lies prepared? What if they ask how old you are and for your Social Security number or something?”

“Do you want me to leave?”

“Yes.”
No.
He couldn’t leave. That’s all he ever did.