Page 71 of Grave Curse

“Yeah, but that cocksucker Red Flag no doubt reported back as soon as he could that I was ready to go to war just because he was there in your shop. The way I see it, I might as well make it official so no one thinks you’re up for grabs. Because make no mistake, you’re definitely not.”

Aww. “Red Flag the spy.”

“Mm-hm.”

“Red Flag, the sucks-balls spy.” I dumped loads of sugar and pumpkin spiced creamer into my coffee. “I’d be willing to bet that dude doesn’t know squat. You guys had a fight in my shop. That hardly means anything.”

“He’s a man, baby girl. He knows I called you my property, because I told him that’s what you were, despite you trying to muddy the waters on that. He understood the situation perfectly.”

“Maybe he didn’t have a chance to report back. For all we know, he didn’t even survive the massacre.”

“I’d be willing to bet he did, since the snitches I’ve got all around town would’ve reported him showing up in a hospital or emergency clinic, or even a morgue. Gotta keep a close eye on my shady-ass family members.”

I froze with my mug halfway to my mouth. “Wait, what?”

“Red Flag is Hades’s son, which makes him my cousin.” He shrugged and took a casual sip of coffee. “Or as someone else recently put it, Marvel’s replacement. His size alone was a dead giveaway, and he also has those weird light brown eyes that seem to run in my family. He’s definitely blood.”

I couldn’t seem to get my jaw up off the floor. “Wow, I can’t believe it. Though I did describe him once as a black-haired version of you, so maybe I can believe it, after all. Where on earth did he come from?”

“Beats me. From what I understand, Hades had some kind of existential crisis when his son Marvel bought it—made H realize his legacy and everything he’s stood for was now going to die with him. The reality of not having a Colgrave to head the Chicago Gravediggers obviously hit him where it hurts—his pride—so he started an all-out search to bring in all his bastard kids to show the brothers in his club that he was still the Man.”

“I guess that must mean Olive is your cousin, too,” I said, thinking back to that brown-eyed, frightened, somehow defeated girl, and felt immediate sympathy. Poor Olive. My life had been bad enough being the sort-of stepdaughter of Hades, but Olive was his actual kid. The only thing worse would have been finding out that Satan was her daddy. “At the time, I remarked that they didn’t look too much like siblings. Red said they had different mothers.”

“I’m sure he didn’t lie. Uncle H was always too selfish to become an actual, settled family man, but I’m sure he knocked up more than a few bitches, just to prove how macho he was. Now that he’s got more of his seed walking around with him, he can be a real cock of the walk and show the world that he’s once again solidified his legacy.”

“Is that why you’re so baby-bonkers? You want an heir to solidify your legacy in the Gravediggers?”

He snorted and polished off his breakfast. “I don’t give two shits about heirs or legacies, Snap. I’m wild about making babies with you because that’s what we were meant to do. And it’s the biggest damn turn-on to think about you getting big with my baby,” he added, turning his head to let his gaze slide down my body as I sat beside him. I felt touched everywhere he looked, and my toes curled in my slippers in heady reaction. “What about you? Do you ever think about having my baby on board?”

“I guess your baby fever must be catching,” I began, then frowned at the noncommittal tone that came out of my mouth. Without warning, Misty’s words came back to me—don’t hurt Tyr. The last thing I wanted to do was hurt him. But keeping my thoughts and feelings to myself, and never fully letting him in, was a kind of neglect he didn’t deserve. I knew all about neglect, thanks to dear old Audrey. It was selfish. Uncaring. If I really gave a damn about this man—and I did—I would give him as much as he gave to me.

All I had to do was be brave enough to do it.

“Okay.” Putting my coffee down, I turned on my stool to face him fully. Somehow everything felt more real if I made myself look at him head-on. “If we’re going to talk about babies, then let’s go ahead and do that by talking about everything that comes with them. Are you up for this conversation?” I had no clue if I was ready for it, so the question was valid.

He took a long sip of coffee, his eyes never leaving mine before he nodded once. “I’m ready. Shoot.”

Here we go. “Generally speaking, guys are all about making that baby, you know? They’ve got to prove to the world that they’ve got the juice to knock some chick up. But that’s about as far as their caveman thought process goes. No knock against men, that’s just the truth. I need to know what’s going on inside your head, Tyr. I need to see if you’re aware there’s a helluva lot more involved in making babies than knocking me up and then going back to your brothers to thump your chest about it.”

“Is that how you see me?”

I shook my head. “It’s not about how I see you, Tyr. I’m talking about how you see yourself. Are you just a babymaker, or can you imagine yourself as a family man a year from now, or five years from now, or however long it takes?”

A corner of his mouth curled. “I get the feeling you expect me to be a deadbeat dad.”

“Again, this isn’t about me. If we do decide to make a little human together, that little human is going to tie us together for the rest of our lives, because it will deserve a family. A real family, Tyr, and not the insane shit we grew up with. If we really do choose to bring a baby into this world, I want them to have what I never had.”

“Which is?”

“Love.” The word popped out of my mouth with such ease it made me blink. But it felt right, so I kept on rolling. “Thiskid should have a mom and dad who will always put them first, because that’s how it’s supposed to work. I mean,” I added with a vague shrug, “Ithinkthat’s how it’s supposed to work. My biological dad didn’t want anything to do with me even when I told him Audrey had died and I was alone in the world. He literally called me a mistake that should never have happened, then told me to get the fuck away from him before he called the cops on me.”

“Motherfucker,” Tyr growled, a dangerous light sparking in his eyes.

“And Audrey… well, we both know how that went. Unlike you, I never had siblings to love, so for all I know I’m way off-base about how this love stuff is supposed to work. All I know is that the things I didn’t have in my life while growing up—love, stability, parents who know how to put their kid first—I missed out on all that. I didn’t even know what they were, but I did miss them. I missed them so much that there were nights when I’d cry myself to sleep without even knowing why I was doing it. All I knew was that I had this huge emptiness in me that made me feel so cold and alone it actually hurt to breathe.”

“Snap.” Something bordering on pain moved through his expression as he reached out to smooth a hand over my hair. “Baby.”

“I just want to make sure our kid gets everything they need, that’s all. Question is, are you fully prepared to make that kind of sacrifice?”

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