And then he pulls out Roma’s ax—the one she left behind when she ran—and extends it in JJ’s direction. “Here. Do me a favor and touch this.”
JJ’s brain short-circuits. “What?”
Ez goes still. “Obie. You don’t think?—?”
“One way to find out.” Obie sets his jaw. “Jackson?”
Unease creeps down JJ’s spine. He glances over at Cass, but Cass looks just as confused as JJ feels. “All right,” he says, and he reaches forward, wrapping his hand around the ax’s handle.
Pain instantly sears through his fingers. He lets go with a gasp, yanking his hand protectively against his chest. “What—what just?—?”
Cass grabs JJ’s wrist, pulling his hand out to show it in the light. Angry red blisters are dotting his palm and fingers, raw and oozing and nerve-numbingly painful.
JJ has seen those injuries before. His eyes widen. “Those—those are corrosion burns.”
“Looks like it,” Obie says grimly, and he drops the ax back into its pocket dimension. “So, ah. Speaking of consequences? I think you accidentally made your boyfriend half-demon, Cass.”
JJ chokes on nothing.“What?”
“Half-demon?” Cass repeats incredulously. “Is that even a thing?”
“Well, I’ve never seen or heard of it before,” Ez says, looking thoroughly nonplussed, “but the shoe fits.”
“I’ve never seen it before, either,” Obie admits, and the fact that the demon who’s been alive for millennia looks genuinely taken aback makes this more real to JJ than anything else. “In that case, Cass, I—I think you might be half-humannow, too. It’s like you both ended up with half of each other’s soul.”
“Half-human,” Cass says slowly, his gaze darting to JJ. “Well, I can honestly say I didn’t see that one coming.”
JJ forces down a hysterical laugh. “Me, neither,” he says, and he squares his shoulders, threading his fingers more firmly through Cass’s. “But we’ll figure it out, though. Together. Right?”
Cass’s eyes soften. “Together,” he agrees.
“Don’t forget about me,” Ez protests, eyes narrowed. “I’m going to be studying you two like specimens under a microscope until further notice.”
“And me,” Obie adds, crossing his arms over his chest. “You idiots clearly can’t be left unattended for more than a few hours without altering the laws of nature.”
“I want to help, too!” Desi says brightly, snuggling between JJ and Cass.
“Of course you can help, sweetie,” Cass says, leaning over to press a kiss to the top of her head.
And with Cass by his side, Desi curled up between them, and his two newest friends close by, JJ knows that no matter what the future has in store, they’ll be just fine as long as they have each other.
EPILOGUE
Two Weeks Later
JJ’s grin is huge as he beams down at the firm card stock in his hands. “We should frame it.”
Cass rolls his eyes. “It’s a legal document, JJ. We need to put it in a lockbox for safekeeping, not display it for every potential robber.”
“Then we should make acopyand frame it.” JJ’s eyes are shining with excitement, and Cass can’t resist smiling back. “I mean, I’d say that getting our daughter’s birth certificate is a reason to celebrate, right?”
Honestly, Cass can’t disagree. Maggie really came through for them with Desi’s registration documents—not only did she send them the standard birth certificate, passport, and Social Security card, but she also filed all the legal adoption paperwork for them.
The paperwork that lets Cassius Chin and Julian Jackson be listed as her parents, a section that’s left blank for most demons. Now, Cass and JJ are officially dads. Desi Jackson-Chin is officially their daughter.
It’s been true since the beginning, of course, but Cass has to admit that having the piece of paper feels damn good.
JJ traces a finger over the raised lines of text, pausing when he hits his and Cass’s names. “It’s okay that my real name is listed, right? Even though I’m sort of, you know. On the run from multiple agencies?”
