by S. E. Babin
“It’s safe there,” Artie reminded me.
My lips pressed together. I stood up, still gently cradling my son. I walked over to Rafe, touched his shoulder, gave each of my friends a long look and disappeared.
4
There were a million places I could go. Not a single one of them was safe for us right now. We'd been forced out of Olympus. Danger lurked at every corner.
For someone who was supposed to be uniting everyone, I was sure doing a crap job of it. I had a newborn, a sometimes crazy angel, and I was now homeless. I had to settle down somewhere safe for at least the next few months. My son needed it. He needed to be somewhere we didn't have to flee every few hours.
And, thanks to his proclivity for immortal fires, we needed it to be fireproof.
The Underworld fit the bill. My friends were right. But there was no way I could face the man who might or might not be my husband. He looked like my husband. He acted like him. Technically, he was him.
But was he?
God had managed to seriously confuse me with that one. I knew he was in Heaven being tortured. But he was also in the Underworld, making a life with his duplicitous wife. And waiting for his new heir to be born.
The heir I was holding right now.
But from a different woman. A different timeline. A different son.
I held back a sob, focused my thoughts, and transported us to the one place few people knew about.
Tennessee was beautiful. I loved everything about the place, but the last time I was here, I ended up dead. Technically.
I got us to the porch and sank to my knees, exhausted, mentally, physically and emotionally. Childbirth had drained the limits of my magic and my body.
Rafe gently took the baby from my hands. I whimpered in protest, but he whispered gentle words to me I couldn't understand. What felt like only seconds later, he came back and lifted me up and carried me into the farmhouse.
Hermes' farmhouse now. It was only a matter of time before he realized where we were. But we still had a little while.
Rafe laid me on the couch, his hands strong and sure. He reached over me and grabbed a soft white blanket that he lay across my lap.
"Where's my baby?" I murmured.
He motioned behind him. "In the bassinet. You need to sleep, Goddess of Love. No one is meant to bear all the things you have in a day. Rest and when you wake, we can talk."
"I need my son." I started to get up, but Rafe gently pushed me down.
"After everything we have been through together, I hope you know I would never endanger your son."
My gaze broke from the infant and met his. Honesty, truth and hope rang through. I swallowed hard and nodded once.
"Good." He adjusted the blanket around me. "Rest. Allow me to care for him."
My eyes were already flickering shut.
When I woke up, the room was cast in a soft yellow glow and the smell of basil and rosemary drifted through the room. The blanket fell away as I sat up and looked around the room. Rafe was standing in the kitchen, an apron tied around his waist, stirring a massive pot. He whacked the spoon against it a couple of times and set it on the spoon rest right next to the stove.
He looked over in my direction and smiled. "You're awake!"
Rafe wiped his hands on a towel and headed over to me. I started to get up, but he motioned for me to stay. With surprising efficiency, he lifted my son from a bassinet that wasn't here the last time I visited, and brought him over to me.
Wide silver eyes studied me. I gasped as magic swirled inside of them. I lifted my gaze to Rafe.
He shrugged. "The child is possessed of ancient power. You should take Clotho up on her offer to help bind his magic."
At my look, he chuckled. "For now. He is a danger to everyone, including himself. He is far too young to understand what he is."
I sighed. "What is he?"
"He is our salvation, Aphrodite."
And with that cryptic statement, he headed back to the kitchen to stir his sauce.
I looked down into my child's face. "I need to name you."
He blinked.
"I think Draco is fitting, though."
"You can't name him Draco, Abby!" Rafe's voice drifted back to me even though his face was staring into a pot.
"It can be his nickname," I whispered. "Do you like that?"
My son smacked his lips together.
"Your father is going to kill me."
The side of Draco's tiny lip lifted to the side.
Rafe could cook. He was like a mix of Ina Garten and Sam Winchester. Smart, self-possessed, quiet, yet a total snob about ingredients. While I was sleeping, he'd gone into the back and foraged through the unkempt garden, bringing back basil and rosemary, and a handful of heirloom tomatoes he used to whip together a pretty incredible spaghetti sauce.
"The garden out there is a gem," he said, as he used a pair of tongs to drop a massive amount of pasta into a bowl. He handed it over, and told me to get a spoon out of the drawer.
I obliged, leaned over the massive pot he made the sauce in, and inhaled deeply. "Dang. Where'd you learn to cook?"
A half smile tilted one side of his mouth up. "There was a chef who entered the gates. We bartered things sometimes."
Color me interested. "Bartered? What kind of stuff?"
A blush deepened Rafe's cheeks.
"Music," he answered after a moment. "She missed music, so I offered to gather it for her if she would teach me how to cook."
"She?" I asked.
He nodded. "Her name was Julia."
The spoon I was holding clattered against the pan. "Julie?" I parroted. "As in Child? Julia. Child?"
He blinked. "Yes, I believe that was her name. What?" he asked. I was staring at him like he was an alien.
"Don't they have music in Heaven?" I asked him instead.
He nodded. "Yes, but she wasn't in Heaven yet. She was in the waiting area while the administration tried to decide exactly where to put her. The process is...not short." A smile played over his mouth. "Sometimes I would venture in to see if anyone interesting was coming through."
I snorted. I couldn't help it.
"I met Julia after she'd been there for some twenty years. She was nice." He frowned. "But her voice was a little weird."
I blew out a snort laugh. Rafe was adorable.
"We talked for quite awhile and when I found out she could cook, I asked her for lessons."
I shook my head as he talked.
"She asked me if Nirvana was there."
I pressed my lips together.
"I had never heard of them before, but I was able to find one of the band members."
I choked on laughter. "Kurt Cobain?"
He snapped his fingers. "That's it!"
"Oookay."
"They hit it off way better than I expected. So Julie was able to listen to her favorite music, and she taught me how to cook. Last I heard, they were roommates in Purgatory while they awaited their next assignment."
I stared at him, waiting for him to tell me I was being punked. But, Rafe just continued getting our dinner ready. He bent down to pull the garlic bread out of the oven.
"Tell me you're kidding," I finally said.
He gave me a guileless look. "Why would I be kidding?"
I opened my mouth, closed it, then opened it again. "Never mind," I muttered. I picked the spoon back up, filled it with sauce and spread it all over my pasta. I snagged a piece of garlic bread and headed over to the kitchen table. After setting my food down, I tilted a finger, slowly using magic to pull Draco's bassinet over to where we were sitting. Baby coos sounded as I peered over at him. He was swaddled in a blue and white blanket and wore a little blue hat I'd never seen before.
"Did you just change him?"
Rafe shrugged and poured more sauce on his food. "I have to use my magic somehow. Might as well benefit someone with it."
I gave Draco a little wave and dug into my pasta. He gurgled back at me. My
fork froze in mid-air.
"He has to be hungry. How come he isn't hungry?"
Rafe shrugged. "I fed him."
My fork slowly lowered. "You did?"
He nodded, but didn't elaborate.
I strove to breath slowly and surely. Draco was still alive, so whatever he ate must have been fine, right?
"And what exactly did you feed him?"
Rafe grinned at me. "So paranoid, goddess. I am here with you. I chose to stay with you. I will treat your child like my own. We are friends, no?"
I tilted my head as I studied him. "You're weirding me out, Rafe. I know you chose to stay with me, but you never really told me why."
He wiped his mouth with his napkin. "You are kind. Generous. Loving." He shrugged. "These are things that aren't considered to be good traits where I am from."
I sighed. "That isn't what the humans think."
He held his hands out. "Don't get me wrong. We can be benevolent and loving, but it is rarely of our own volition. We are warriors. God's warriors. There is no kindness in war, Aphrodite."
"Abby," I corrected automatically. "First, tell me what you fed my baby. Then we'll get back to your really screwed up childhood."
"Manna mixed with ambrosia."
My eyebrows shot to my hairline.
"Relax. I removed the ability to intoxicate the child. The ambrosia will nourish his magic. The manna will nourish his body. I am not unaware of child care."
I swallowed hard. "What about milk?" I asked, realizing that I had absolutely no idea how to care for a baby.
He looked confused for a moment. "What milk? I am unfamiliar in the ways of most things, but I do not believe dairy is good for children. Humans are the only people who still drink cow milk out of infancy."
I shook my head. "No. Mother's milk."
He scraped a hand over his face and stared at me with barely veiled confusion. "Immortals do not produce milk, Aphrodite. They produce ambrosia."
I opened my mouth to laugh, realized how serious he looked, and abruptly shut it. "You're serious."
He pursed his lips. "Of course I'm serious. Why in the world would you produce milk?"
Was I really having a conversation about breastfeeding with a fugitive angel? "Because..." I said, then paused. Why had I believed I'd produce milk? "Because I'm an idiot?" I guessed.
He snorted. "You're Olympian. Cow's milk only exists on Earth. Ambrosia is the nectar of the gods." He chuckled then. "It is not only used to get drunk on."
I blushed. "So the manna isn't too advanced for him?"
Rafe sighed. "Your child is not human. You must remember that or you will have a difficult time. I will show you how to mix his food later." His gaze flicked down to my chest. "But you will also need to learn to nurse. At least for the next few weeks. Mother's ambrosia is best."
I shut my eyes for a moment, embarrassed beyond belief. Rafe would have been a good nurse. "Yes. Right," I said. "Nursing. That's what moms do, right?"
One of his eyebrows rose. He shoved a bite of pasta in his mouth and didn't respond.
Probably for the best.
We finished eating dinner in silence. I was feeling both awkward and embarrassed over my lack of parenting knowledge. But Rafe didn't seem to be judging me over it. He stood and tried to clear my dishes for me, but I waved him away. "You cooked, I'll clean." The spaghetti he made was delicious. How had I not known he could cook like that?
"Rafe?" I asked as he left the table. He stopped and turned back to me, his blond hair waving against his face. "Yes?"
"You like staying with me?" I felt another blush creep up my cheeks. I had nothing to be embarrassed about, but I was uncomfortable. I liked Rafe. Not in a lovey, dovey way, but in a comfortable way.
He nodded. "There is a gentleness, yet a fierce spirit that resides in you that I like. We are different in many ways, goddess, but if you allow me to stay by your side, I will defend you."
I stood up and started clearing the dishes away. "What about your family?"
He shook his head. "We are family in every way but the ways that actually matter. For years, I was their tool. I spouted their prophecies and did their bidding. When you came along, I saw a chance. They never talked to me, got to know me, or saw me as anything other than their tool. Eventually I realized I was nothing to them, so I became what they wanted me to be."
I remembered when I met him. All he did was spout gibberish nonsense. Very few things he said made sense. Until he got away from Heaven. Now he was a regular Shakespeare with how clear his communication was.
"We mess up a lot," I admitted.
Rafe laughed out loud. "You and your friends have been the most entertaining things I've ever experienced in my entire life."
"Well," I said, unable to keep the smile off my face, "considering I'm trying to do a breaking and entering job into your old home, I can honestly say you probably haven't seen much yet."
He gave me a little bow. "I look forward to it."
I shook my head as I carried the dishes into the kitchen. He might, but I certainly didn't.
When I finished, I snagged Draco out of his crib and sat down beside Rafe. The angel had made himself comfortable with the old blanket I'd used and a book that looked to be a romance novel based upon the naked man chest on the cover.
I tilted the cover up to see the title. "Hellion's Surrender," I murmured. "Sounds saucy."
Rafe barely looked up from his novel. "Their first sexual encounter is on a horse. Considering the hellion was a virgin, I'm not entirely sure how she enjoyed that so much. From everything I read about humans, the first time is usually awkward and painful." His gaze flicked to my wide one. "And how in the world he had enough upper body strength to keep her from falling, I don't even know."
A choked wheeze gag came from me. I hacked out a laugh, gave up and laughed so hard tears leaked down my face. "It's fiction," I finally wheezed out. "It's only meant for entertainment, not reality."
"Well," Rafe huffed. "Thank goodness. I can't imagine how the poor horse felt about it."
Laughter shook my shoulders, shaking Draco against me. "Yeah, he probably got the worst of it," I said, barely able to keep a straight face.
Rafe set his book down. "Would you like me to show you how to prepare Draco's food?" He winced after he said his name, as if it offended him that my baby was named after a dragon.
I nodded. "Please. He doesn't get as hungry as I thought he would."
Rafe sighed. "He isn't human," he reminded me. "Stop treating him like he is."
I nodded, embarrassed once again. He sat his book face down on the table and went to the kitchen. I watched him get a bowl, a spoon, a bottle, a small pack of a powdery substance and a bottle of golden liquid. He brought it all back over to the table. "He only ate about 4 ounces last time, but his metabolism is much faster than ours. I'd expect him to grow at a much more rapid rate than you'd expect. Maybe we should double his food this time."
I nodded because whatever he said seemed to make sense considering if it were up to me, I'd probably still be figuring out why my boobs weren't producing milk. He measured out a couple of tablespoons of powdery substance into the bowl. After pouring ambrosia in, the substance turned into an odd pearlescent purple color. I looked up at him.
"It's normal," he said, sensing my hesitation. "When Hades was first tossed from Heaven, he told me it was an...experiment to figure out what he could and could not eat. There had never been a hybrid Olympian and angel. For the longest time, all he ate was the manna mix."
I blinked. "You knew my husband that well?"
He shook his head. "No. Not really. But I was one of the people tasked with checking on him as he adjusted."
"Huh. So he can eat angel food and Olympian food."
Rafe nodded. "And I recommend he eat both for at least the first few years of his life. He is tethered to both the Angels and the Olympians. You can experiment as time goes on, but as his magic grows, he will need fuel from both realms." Rafe
stirred the mixture and poured it into his bottle.
I peered into the bottle. "The powder seems to be completely gone."
He nodded. "It make it easier for him to eat." He winked at me. "After all, he doesn't have any teeth now, does he?"
I laughed. "Maybe he will have some tomorrow," I sighed.
Rafe laughed and adjusted my arms to help me prop Draco up. When he was properly situated, he handed me the bottle. Draco's mouth immediately started rooting from side to side as he smelled the food. "He didn't even cry," I exclaimed.
"Whether that's normal," Rafe said, "I can't say. All babies cry, but he seems to be a little different."
I cooed down at Draco. “Don’t listen to the bad man. Being different is a good thing.”
“Not if he starves to death,” Rafe muttered.
I tsked and watched with delight as Draco chowed down on his weird Heaven/Olympian food. “Do you think he’ll poop glitter?” I wondered aloud.
Even though I wasn’t looking at him, I could feel Rafe roll his eyes. “It’s not made of glitter,” he said. “And I don’t think I’ve ever seen glitter poop.” He sounded somewhat offended as if not having seen glitter poop was one of the great regrets of his life.
“I’ve heard unicorns poop glitter.”
Rafe scoffed. “Now you’re just talking crazy. Unicorns don’t exist.” There was a hopeful note in his voice.
“Considering I just gave birth to a hybrid baby capable of setting magical fires not even an hour out of the womb, is believing in unicorns really so far fetched?”
He was silent for a moment. “I hope we see a unicorn,” he said wistfully.
I grinned. “Me too, bud.” The baby finished his bottle, and I pulled it out of his mouth with a little pop. I propped him up on my shoulder, and patted him lightly. Rafe was staring at me weird.
“What? Please don’t tell me immortal babies don’t burp. If you do, I’m just going to throw my hands up and start letting Draco raise himself.”
“I didn’t say that. I’m just surprised you knew to do that.”
