Page 35 of Sins of the Fathers

“She doesn’t suspect that you know who’s behind the murder?”

“I don’t think so, but something tells me that even if she did, she wouldn’t want to know. She’s trying to deal with the knowledge that the man she loved probably killed people and set the building where they lived on fire.” They may never know for sure what happened that night, but Archie didn’t think they needed proof. Whatever the hunters had been thinking, the results didn’t change. They’d killed people and had changed lives, including Jasper’s and Emric’s.

Archie clapped his hands. “All right. Who’s ready for family dinner?”

*

SINCE JASPER’S APARTMENT was bigger, that was where they headed. Corey, Kerry, and Jasper would be there, too, and it made Archie feel some kind of way to think that he actually considered all three of them family. They weren’t biologically related, but it didn’t mean they didn’t belong together. They did, which was amazing considering that both they and Jasper were ex-hunters.

That was the past, though. They’d been nothing but welcoming to him, Cullen, and Braith. It wasn’t a hardship to sit at the table with them, listening to Corey and Kerry bickering as he sipped a glass of wine. Jasper was sitting next to him, still tucking into his steak and salad, a smile on his face. He was more relaxed since he’d met Emric, and Archie hoped that would continue. No matter what happened with Emric, Jasper was finding a huge part of himself. The past was unchangeable, but it could change the man Jasper was now, and it was already starting to. Even though Jasper had lost his birth parents, he’d found out where he came from. It was easier for him to accept that Leroy probably didn’t love him. It wasn’t because he was defective or wrong. It was because Leroy was an asshole and hated monsters, even though he’d adopted one.

Jasper knocked his shoulder against Archie’s, getting his attention. Archie turned to him, arching a brow, turning his head to look when Jasper tilted his chin toward the end of the table.

Braith was sitting next to Cullen, who was giggling at something Braith had said. Braith was giving him an indulgent smile, and his arm was around the back of Cullen’s chair. That meant that Cullen was tucked against Braith’s side, but neither of them seemed to find that awkward. If anything, they both seemed to quite enjoy it. It was cute, which wasn’t something Archie usually thought of his best friend. Braith was as far from cute as anything could be, but Cullen brought out a different part of Braith’s personality.

“Do you think there’s anything there?” Jasper asked.

Archie hummed as he took another sip of wine. “It sure looks like it,” he said.

“They might need a little push.”

Archie snorted softly. “If you push Cullen, he’s going to end up in Braith’s lap.”

“I don’t think he would mind.”

“I don’t think he would, either, but maybe we should let them decide the pace. It’s none of our business, is it?”

Jasper pouted. “You’re no fun. I wanted to meddle.”

Archie looped his arm around Jasper’s neck and pulled him close so he could kiss the top of his head. “Don’t meddle just yet. Give them a little bit longer to get their heads out of their asses. If they don’t, you can meddle all you want.”

The smile Jasper gave Archie was everything. Their family dinner was exactly what Jasper had needed after everything that had happened. It showed him that even though none of them were related by blood, they still loved each other and him. No one at the table cared that he had monster blood. No one cared that he wasn’t a hunter. They only cared that he was Jasper, because that was the only thing that mattered.

Epilogue

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JASPER WAS HAVING A nice evening. He and Archie were at Archie’s apartment, relaxed. Their stomachs were full of food Archie had cooked, and even after everything that had happened, Jasper somehow managed to feel at peace with the world.

He didn’t think his father had ever loved him, and that was okay. He could have left Jasper to die or killed him, but instead, he’d taken him in. Jasper still didn’t know if Leroy had killed his parents to get to him, or hell, if he’d been the one to kill his parents, and he wasn’t sure he would ever find out, but he decided it wasn’t something he could allow himself to obsess over. That way lay madness, and he had too much to focus on, especially the monster stretched out on the chair on the balcony next to him.

Archie was holding Jasper’s hand and stroking his knuckles. They were both staring at the sky and the stars, and it was peaceful in a way that Jasper wasn’t sure he’d ever felt. The rest of his life was chaos, but here, he could breathe. With Archie, he could be himself, no matter who he was—human, monster, or a bit of both.

But he still had a lot of questions. He still didn’t know much about his birth parents and what had happened to them. Maybe he’d find out, and maybe he wouldn’t. Only the future would tell.

“You know, there’s something that’s been bothering me,” Archie said suddenly, looking away from the sky.

“What?”

Archie sat up and turned to face Jasper. He didn’t let go of his hand, squeezing it instead. “Did Kester know I was having him followed when he went to the sanctuary to find those documents? How did he know about them? What did he take from the box?”

Jasper groaned. “Do we really have to talk about it right now?”

“We don’t. If you want, we can stop talking entirely.”

But the peace Jasper had been feeling evaporated. It could only be there if he ignored the problems he was leaving outside the door of Archie’s apartment, and Archie had just ushered them back in. Jasper supposed that the two of them would have a chance at peace once this mess was over, but for now, it was far from it.

He also straightened in his chair. “I don’t know what Kester wanted from those documents or how he knew about them, but it’s clear that he’s somehow linked to the sanctuary and the people who died there. He wouldn’t have known they were there otherwise.”