“Kaylee, look at me, please. I need to know that you know I’m not just being cruel.” He closed what little distance stood between us and pressed his chest against my back. He ran his hands slowly down my arms, and finally I met his gaze in the mirror and saw the truth swirling in his eyes.

Regret. Disappointment. Fear.

He didn’t like telling me what he was telling me, but he felt it had to be done.

“If we help Traci bring another incubus into the world, he’s going to do what his father did, to hundreds of girls your age or younger. Maybe thousands over his lifetime. But I can’t live with the knowledge that he did it even once, and we helped make that possible.”

Finally, I turned, and he was so close I had to crane my neck to look into his eyes. “But you don’t know that. Incubi don’t have to feed during sex. They can feed from lust. Without...touching. Traci could raise him to do that. Surely nurture has as much as nature to do with how any kid turns out. Even incubi.”

Tod shook his head slowly. Sadly. “Kaylee, that won’t happen. Yes, it could happen, but it won’t. That’d be the incubi version of living on nothing but cabbage. He’d slowly starve until he got so desperate for sustenance that he gave in to hunger. And maybe that’s not entirely his fault. I’m in no position to judge a creature for doing what’s in his nature. But would you seriously want your teenage daughter anywhere near Traci’s son when he hits puberty and his appetite kicks in?”

“I’m not going to have a daughter.” Ever. Nor a son.

Tod exhaled slowly. “I know. Me, neither. But you get my point, right? What if it were you? What if you weren’t a bean  sidhe and Beck had made you...do things?” The swirling in his eyes grew angrier and more intense at the thought. “But what if you didn’t know he’d made you do it? What if you thought you were just the kind of person who’d cheat on her boyfriend, or sleep with a teacher, or give away something that should mean something? What if that had been your first time?”

My stomach churned. What if I’d lost my virginity to my evil math teacher with no idea I’d been under the influence of incubus pheromones at the time? What would that have done to my relationship with Tod? What would that have done to the rest of my life?

“Do you really want some other girl to go through that because we helped bring an incubus into the world?”

I shook my head. “But I promised Emma I’d try.” And I wasn’t going to let those horrible things happen. If her son grew up to be dangerous, I was both prepared and willing to do what had to be done. At least, I would be by then. Surely.

“You did try. And it’s a moot point anyway, because I don’t have any extras. Reapers never have extras, unlessthey’ve gone rogue.”

I’d only met two rogue reapers, and that was two more than most people would ever meet. But one of them was dead, and the other—Thane—I had no way to find. And I wouldn’t go looking for him even if I knew how, because there’s a big difference between risky and dangerous. Between determined and stupid.

And anyway, I wasn’t that desperate just yet. There was still one more possibility....

But I clamped a lid on that thought before it could show in my eyes. I rarely disagreed with Tod, and I wasn’t sure this was actually one of those times. I needed more time to think, and there was no use worrying him before I knew there was anything for him to worry about.

Chapter Nine

I stayed with Tod, and we made the most of the last half hour of the day, then, when he had to go to work, I blinked into my room at home to check on everyone.

My dad was asleep in his recliner in the living room with the TV on, his crutches on the floor next to the chair. “Dad.” I shook him awake, and he blinked at me slowly. Groggily. “You fell asleep in your chair again.”

He pulled the lever to retract the attached ottoman and I helped him stand, then handed him his crutches. He glanced at his watch. “Tod went to work?”

“Yeah.” No sense denying where I’d been until midnight.

He adjusted the crutches beneath his arms. “I know you don’t sleep here anymore, Kaylee. But I’m not mad. You’re as grown as you’re going to get.”

“I don’t sleep anywhere, Dad. Try not to read too much into that.”

He wouldn’t have said that if he were fully awake. If he weren’t on pain pills, because the stab wound in his thigh still hurt like hell. It bothered him that curfews, healthy meals, and a good night’s sleep were wasted on me. It bothered him that I spent so much time at Tod’s, where there wasn’t a door to leave open. It bothered him that there was little he could do to protect me now, and it bothered me that he seemed to think that meant I no longer needed a dad.

Nothing could have been further from the truth. I still needed him. I loved him more than ever. And there were days when I wanted nothing more than to be a normal seventeen-year-old, worried about her dad watching the clock on prom night, which was coming up in...four days.

How the hell had that snuck up on me?

Em and I had picked out our dresses together. She’d sworn that prom was exactly the motivation she needed to return to school after her own murder and that dress shopping would help her get to know her new body, but I saw her face in the mirror every time a slinky, sparkly gown fit too loose in the bust and hips and fell too long over her legs. She didn’t want to go to prom as Lydia.