Page 40 of Bonds of Magic
“No,” I said finally. “I didn’t know I was an incubus my whole life. I was raised by my mom, and she had no idea. It was my father who—” I broke off. Best not to go too far down that road.“Suffice it to say, he found me right before I turned eighteen. Explained what I was. He was able to teach me how to control things, tell me what to expect.”
“That must have been helpful,” Cory said wistfully. “I wish I’d met him before all this started.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. Things had gone sour so quickly with my father. I regretted ever meeting him. He’d made me regret being born. But I wasn’t going to go into that now.
“My father had other traits that would make you think twice about that.”
“Couldn’t be worse than my dad,” Cory said darkly.
I wasn’t sure that was true, but saying that would only invite follow-up questions. Besides, there was a chance Cory’s fatherwasmy father.
“What was your mother like?” I asked.
“Don’t know.” Cory shrugged. “I never knew her.”
“What happened?”
“My dad said she left almost as soon as she had me.” His face contracted for a moment, like it wanted to crumple in grief, but he smoothed his features with effort. “He never let me forget that. Stuck with a kid he never wanted. A kid who disgusted him.”
“How could you disgust him when you were less than a year old?”
Cory snorted. “I’m pretty sure babies can be gross even if youdowant them. But I mostly meant when I got older.”
“I guess it could be hard,” I said slowly. “Raising a kid you know isn’t yours. But that’s still no excuse for him to—”
“What?” Cory broke in. “What do you mean I wasn’t his?”
“I don’t mean that there’s anything wrong with that,” I said quickly. “But some guys can be assholes. They decide to take it out on the kid, the fact that they’re not blood related.”
“Uh, my dad and I were definitely blood related,” Cory said with a mirthless little laugh. “Believe me, I wished over and over again we weren’t. That my mom would come back, or some other guy would sweep in and tell me he was my real father. But my dad and I looked way too much alike. I would never really have believed it, even if someone told me he wasn’t my real dad.”
I frowned. “But if you’re related to your dad, then that means—” I tilted my head to the side. “If your dad wasn’t an incubus—”
“Then my mom was,” Cory finished for me. “Yeah, I’ve thought it through. It has to be her. My dad was a terrible human being, but a human being, nonetheless.”
That put things in a different light. If I wasn’t related to Cory… Well, it still didn’t matter. I wasn’t going to do anything with him anyway. But it was…interesting.
“I’ve never heard of a female incubus reproducing with a human man,” I said slowly. “Hell, I’ve only heard of one male incubus reproducing with human women.”
Cory’s eyes widened. “Really? Wouldn’t that mean all half-human incubi are related?”
I nodded. “It would. It does.”
“Well, I guess that explains why Romero said we were so rare,” Cory said. “But I’m still pretty sure my dad is my biological parent. Everyone always said I had his eyes.”
“That would mean a female incubus had to take human form, conceive, and then stay in this world until she gave birth. That’s much more involved than—well, it would take a lot of effort. You’d have to be really motivated.”
“And yet my mom went off and left me anyway,” Cory said with a smile that wasn’t a smile at all. “I guess it wasn’t just my dad who sucked.”
“Wait a second. You keep talking about your dad in past tense. Did something happen to him?”
Stupid question. It was obvious something had.
“He died. When I was sixteen.”
“Oh,” I said, feeling stupid.
Cory didn’t say anything else. Now would be the time for him to elaborate, but he looked back at the cactus, like it were the most fascinating thing in the world.
