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Bonded, happy, maybe even parents.
“Seriously?” Remi asked.
Jeremiah sucked in a breath. It was far too easy to forget Remi could hear his thoughts now when they were particularly strong.
Remi cradled his cheek again. “You seriously want a kid with me?”
Jeremiah’s eyes cut to the side, and he shrugged. “Hellhounds are still abandoning their children like they did when I was young, and Demons are a close second. Sometimes I wonder what kind of person I’d be if someone had found me and loved me.”
He felt Remi’s little pulse of pain in his chest like it were his own. “I hate that you ever went without feeling loved and cared for.”
Jeremiah shrugged. “It made me who I am today. It gave me the family I have, and I can’t regret that. But yeah. I mean, I’ve thought about it.”
“Someone should do something about that,” Remi said after a long beat. He wrapped his arms around Jeremiah and held him close, even as his knot started to deflate and he slipped out. They floated in the water a little farther away from the edge of the pool, and Jeremiah could feel Remi’s mind turning through thoughts. “Maybe I could do something like that, you know? Start some sort of organization or charity for those kids.”
“An orphanage?” Jeremiah said, his nose wrinkling.
Remi shifted his body and swished his tail through the water. He was so fucking beautiful when he shifted, and Jeremiah wanted to trace the length of him with his tongue. The desire made Remi laugh and splash him. “Insatiable. And also, no. Or, well, yes, I guess? Orphanage just sounds so medieval and cruel. I want a place where these kids can go to feel loved and wanted.”
Jeremiah let out a small sigh. “Hellhounds don’t breed very often, so there’s not, like, hundreds of them wandering the streets or anything. But you need to know that you’re not going to be able to find families to take them in. Not unless the stigma changes.”
“So maybe we do that too,” Remi said. He let go of Jeremiah, turning on his back to float at the top of the water. His eyes were closed, and in the late-afternoon sun, his scales were luminescent. All of him was breathtaking. “We do the opposite of what that fucker Thad was doing. I don’t want to live in a world where people look at the most amazing man I know like he’s worthless.”
Jeremiah shrugged. “It’s just the way people are.”
Remi opened his eyes and held Jeremiah’s gaze. “But it doesn’t always have to be that way. Just… maybe that’s what I was meant to do, you know?”
Jeremiah wanted to keep arguing, but he felt something in the bond—something that told him this was right. Maybe not for him. His job was his calling. But Remi needed something, and he felt settled and sure for the first time since Jeremiah had met him.
“You know the agency is here for whatever you need. All of us are.”
Remi looked over and smiled. “I love you so much.”
Jeremiah couldn’t help but kiss him after that. “I love you too.”
* * *
Stepping out of the shower later that evening, Jeremiah wrapped a towel around his waist and followed the sound of the TV to the living room, where Remi was sitting on the edge of the couch, his eyes fixed on the screen. Jeremiah glanced over and saw it was a news report of some building, smoke billowing black and heavy toward the sky.
“What’s happening?”
“An attack,” Remi said, his voice stunned. “In Midlona. But it was a human shop.”
Jeremiah’s mind immediately went to the cozy little bookstore Priest made any and every excuse to visit whenever he had a chance. Shit. But what were the chances?
He said a small prayer it wasn’t Priest’s human’s place, but then his phone began to ring, and his stomach sank.
Running a hand down Remi’s arm as he walked past, he went over to the table where he’d left his phone, and he hated that he wasn’t surprised to see Priest’s name on the screen. He didn’t even get a chance to say anything before Priest started talking.
“I need you,” Priest said, his voice thick. “Something happened.”
“I saw on the news. Are you there right now?” Jeremiah asked.
“No. But Knight and I are on our way. I… I felt…” He stopped and cleared his throat, but his voice was still unsteady when he said, “Can you meet us there?”
Jeremiah turned to look over at Remi, who was nodding like he knew what Jeremiah was being asked. “Yeah. We’re on our way. Hold tight, okay? I’m sure he’s fine.”
“I don’t think he is. And I—” Priest cut himself off with a small, shaky sigh. “Never mind. We’ll talk when you get here.”
