Page 66 of Finding Closure

Now I was extra glad to do this, and I wasn’t the only one who noticed the mood and emotional response. I had the hobgoblins take shots with their kids and also as a big group before joining as well.

We honestly tookso manypictures my head was spinning.

For real.

And that was just before second lunch.

I changed and so did all of my guys. I smiled when I saw Darby was in one of the new suits he’d been fitted for. Neldor had actually taken him to the tailor he liked in Paris and gotten him squared away. It was really nice of him, and Darby had said Neldor had taught him a few things and had been genuine.

I loved when they got along like that. I truly did.

We took more pictures with my dad and then as a couple. I noticed Lucca snuck in a few with just Hudson and me, and I was glad they got the chance to have that as well. They didn’t really do much without me in the picture, but I’d seen them share a few kisses or touches when no one was looking.

Especially recently with everything that Lucca had been going through. I wasn’t sure I would have been enough to get him through it. Hudson was really such a rock for both of us.

I was fairly sure that was why dragons were really called rock heads instead of a slur against their intelligence.

One of Freya’s new nannies brought her, so we took a few pictures and then with Izzy and Claudia who snuck in just for the quick shots when Izzy texted her their turn was coming up. They took a few very cute couple shots and then a few with Freya.

The level of cuteness was unreal.

“I’m so,soproud of you that you have all of these people in your life and on your side, Daughter,” Lageos whispered as he moved next to me. I’d been standing off to the side watching it all and taking it in. “It warms my heart to know so many will love and help you. It makes it easier on my guilt that I must leave you.”

I blinked back tears. “I think I fooled myself that it would get easier knowing it was coming, but I guess it was always going to be too much to ask from both of us, huh?”

“Yes, yes it was, and I regret agreeing with your mother,” he admitted for the first time ever. “I wish we had taken you and run, and I know that’s horrible and selfish, but—I wish we had. I wish she’d let me do more and—”

“You couldn’t have,” I told him gently, turning my head and meeting his gaze. “I felt Elora’s power, Dad. It’s different than yours. You might be a demigod, but she was top of a whole world. It’s like water and oil and don’t always mix like you know. Both are just different.” I swallowed loudly. “But one is flammable, and it wasn’t yours.”

Shock flashed in his eyes and he nodded, understanding that it wasn’t only my mother’s kind heart that kept him out of the fight but that he wouldn’t have won. She was willing to give her life for this fight and protect me—all of Faerie, but not Lageos’s.

Not directly. Not when she would live on.

And she knew she would have. Lageos gave his immortality to be mated to her. She simply mated. She could have survived the loss of him.

Physically, at least.

That was the answer to why this was the path that I’d always missed. It was both of them or neither of them… Even if Lageos joined her a few decades later.

They were truly one and soulmates like that. It was touching even as it was tragic.

I reached over and took his hand. “No regrets. We had more fun and good times than most father-daughter duos get even in a handful of years. We’ve laughed, we’ve drank too much, we’ve eaten out restaurants, we’ve taken down cartels and illegal gambling rings.”

“You are the best heist partner I’ve ever had,” he chuckled. “Much better than your mother. She was always too much like a deer in headlights, shocked I was misbehaving even if she knew what we were going to do.”

I laughed at that, glad when he squeezed my hand. “I’ve forgiven her a lot now that I understand more. I’ll forgive her this too. I’ll see you both again, Dad. I just can’t—it’s limbo for her. She’s trapped in that moment of death and it was setting Elora free. Mom deserves the same no matter how much it hurts both of us.”

“You are certainly the best thing we ever did, Daughter,” he rasped as he kissed my hair. “And I’m so happy we shared this day too. I never thought—this was magical, and not an ounce of power was involved. Just you. You were the magic.”

Not just me, but I knew what he meant.

There were more pictures, and honestly my head spun… And the photographer looked exhausted. His assistants and everyone with the studio looked ready to drop. This definitely wasn’t the normal day or speed, but I was glad we fit it all in.

I was really,reallyglad we’d made it work and finally made the time for it.

“I hear you were supposed to be valedictorian,” Izzy said after we wrapped up and were all going out to dinner.

I went to reply but then froze. “How did you know that?”

---