kissed-by-moonlight, Rakhibul hasan [golden son ebook .TXT] 📗

to my soul like a parasite, and it was enough to wake me up screaming at night. As far as my new inner voice was concerned, the Specter inside of me seemed almost content. Even if it wasn’t trying to brainwash me on behalf of the Fae, I wanted the little guy gone. Sonya said she knew an exorcist and I was trying to build up my courage to call the guy. Gabriel thought I was being ridiculous, but he wasn’t the poor shmuck in danger of projectile vomiting pea soup.

 

“Why do you even bother looking at the menu?”

 

Speak of the devil. I looked up and narrowed my eyes at him from over my menu.

 

“Because this is America, and I have the right to choose whatever I damn well please to eat.”

 

“You always choose the same thing though,” Asrai piped up, and I scowled at her.

 

“Snitches get stitches,” I warned caustically and Gabriel snorted.

 

Sonya rolled her eyes at me.

 

“You do realize you’re the whitest white girl I know right?”

 

I grunted in annoyance and went back to perusing the menu. Gabriel shook his head and leaned back in his seat, throwing a companionable arm around Asrai. He had become Asrai’s new guardian, and living together seemed to give them an ease with one another they had lacked their first meeting.

 

It made me feel strange seeing them together like that.

 

I wasn’t jealous that the child was getting his attention. It just made me feel sort of homesick. As if I were watching a family I was meant to be a part of live their life and grow without me.

 

With a gasp of delight, Asrai finished off her third chocolate milkshake and shoved the empty glass away.

 

“Hey, Phaedra?” she asked.

 

“Yes, dear?” I answered absently.

 

“Can you and Sonya take me shopping today?”

 

“I’d do it but I have a meeting to get to,” Sonya and I looked at one another. “I’ll give you one of my credit cards,” Gabriel added when the silence at the table grew thick.

 

“Yes, please, and thank you; I would be delighted to take you shopping little girl,” Sonya’s answer was immediate and enthusiastic and Asrai beamed. I put my menu down and folded my hands together on the table.

 

“Why?” I asked. That was me. Continuously suspicious.

 

“Well, Gabriel says that I can start school in a few weeks.”

 

“I just have to finish up some paperwork proving I’m her legal guardian and get her enrolled.”

 

“Do you think that’s a good idea?” We had declared war against two very powerful groups and he wanted the most vulnerable, and perhaps the most important, member of our team to attend elementary school? I didn’t have to voice my concerns out loud. Gabriel could feel them.

 

“I think it’s an excellent idea,” Asrai answered primly. Gabriel nodded, gaze meeting mine.

 

“Yeah. What she said.”

 

“Why can’t you just home school her?” I asked, and Sonya raised a brow at me. “You have something against public schooling?”

 

“There’s nothing she can learn at a public school that we can’t teach her from the privacy of our own homes.”

 

“And who would teach her?” Sonya asked, clearly amused. “You?” When Gabriel remained silent, I nodded.

 

He sighed as if pained by the thought of some great task he had been entrusted with. “I can give you three reasons why that’s a bad idea,” he said.

“Oh really?”

 

“Spell onomatopoeia,” he challenged, and my mind went blank. “Don’t make up words,” I snarled.

 

“It’s not made up, Phaedra,” Sonya whispered, and I my nose wrinkled. “Can you use it in a sentence?” I asked desperately.

 

He shook his head and held up a finger. “There’s reason one.” Shit. I could see where this was going.

 

“What’s the square root of 62?”

 

Panic had me floundering and my mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water. Another finger joined the first.

 

“Reason two.”

 

Sonya’s laugher filled the restaurant and I slammed my hands down on the table.

 

“Damn it. I’m a journalist, not some math genius vocabulary guru.” I snapped flustered, “God invented spell check and calculators for a reason.”

 

“Fair enough,” he conceded, obviously trying not to smile. “One more. What’s a conjunction, Phaedra?”

 

Goddamnit.

 

“Um,” I was sweating now. Didn’t I watch a video on this in like the second grade or something? Conjunction junction, what’s your function? I hummed the lyrics to myself but the part of the song that actually explained the purpose of a conjunction eluded me.

 

“It conjunctifies…stuff?”

 

A third finger popped up, sealing my fate, and I thumped my head down on the table in shame.

 

“Here’s her school supply list,” I reached out and grabbed the folded piece of paper he slid to me blindly, my ears burning in embarrassment.

 

“I’ll come by your place and pick her up tonight after I’m done with work,” he told me, and I nodded without looking at him. Thirty minutes later, we were finishing up lunch when he handed me his MasterCard and tousled Asrai’s hair in silent farewell.

 

He inclined his head politely in Sonya’s direction and she chuckled. It was only when he met my eyes that a hint of mischief worked its way into his gaze.

 

“See you later, Kryptonite,” he said with a grin, getting to his feet and throwing on his coat. I mumbled something unintelligible, my face hot, and he walked out of BB’s whistling.

 

Sonya nudged my shoulder and I looked up to see both her and Asrai looking at me with strangely knowing eyes.

 

“What was that about?” Sonya asked suggestively, and I shoved the finger she was poking into my side away in irritation.

 

“Nothing.”

 

“No, that was something all right.”

 

Asrai sighed loudly. “Guys. Get your priorities straight.”

 

I frowned, then I saw that she was staring at the credit card in my hand and it all made sense. She was absolutely right. Out of the mouths of babes.

 

“Ladies,” I said solemnly, all of my worries and doubts from earlier nothing more than distant memories. “We have work to do.”

 

 

 

 

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Publication Date: 06-27-2015

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