“My mother’s a drug addict, so what? Our parents don’t define who we are,” Shea had declared.

They were right. Yes, Asha would have some powers to contend with, but so did I. If I could learn to control them and use them for good, then so would she.

A warm, muddy hand landed on my shoulder. “She couldn’t have hand-picked a better mother,” Raphael told me, obviously picking up on my thoughts.

I spun to face him, and burst out laughing. He was covered from head to toe in mud, looking like some kind of winged Loch Ness Monster.

My gaze dropped to the muddy handprint on my shoulder and shook my head. “I’m gonna have to pay you back for that.”

“Oh, really?” Michael’s voice came from behind me, but it was too late to react. His arm wrapped around my waist, and then I was being hauled upward and out to the ocean, where Emberly was tackling Lincoln.

Raphael grinned as he watched Michael drag me out to sea.

‘We invite these archangels to one beach party, and they’re already acting like drunken teenagers!’ I commiserated to Sera.

‘Want me to blast him a little? Nothing to leave a permanent scar, but I could burn his thigh a bit,’ she called from her place at my hip.

I chuckled. ‘Nah, we’ll let him win this one.’

Sera sighed. ‘Good plan. He smells too good for me to really want to hurt him.’

We were at the water’s edge now.

‘What exactly does he smell like?’ I’d been dying to know the answer to that question for far too long.

Sera sighed dreamily. ‘Like true love, or your first kiss, or the day someone throws you a huge surprise party, and you’re so excited you just can’t take it.’

I couldn’t hold in my laughter. ‘Sera, those aren’t smells.’

She didn’t miss a beat. ‘They are to me. Michael smells like that.’

‘Well, simmer down. He’s married.’

Sera paused. ‘For now. His wife’s human. I can wait.’

Oh my God. I couldn’t even dignify that with an answer.

Michael chucked me out into the ocean then, and I shrieked as I plunged into the frigid cold water.

My head popped up to the surface just in time to see Emberly take her father down, and drag him into the water too. Lincoln swam over to me and pulled me into him as I wrapped my legs around his waist, hooking my ankles behind his back.

“Mrs. Atwater-Grey?”

I grinned. “Hmm?”

Leaning in, he kissed my neck, dragging his lips along my jawbone, before claiming my mouth. When we broke apart, his eyes were alight. “I think Asha needs a little brother sooner rather than later.”

Laughter pealed out of me. “Let me get one out of diapers before we have another.”

He shook his head. “No, I hear it’s better to have them close together, get through that phase quicker. Maybe we’ll get lucky and have twins.”

I smacked his arm. “Lincoln Grey, don’t you wish that evil on me!”

His hearty chuckle vibrated against my belly, and I smiled up at him.

“Are you excited to start teaching the humans next year?” he asked as we floated in the water.

Grace had already formally hired me as a professor for her growing Demon Hunter Academy.

I nodded. “They have no idea how badass Mrs. Atwater-Grey is about to be.”

Lincoln chuckled. “If you need any pointers, I’ll be around for a consult.”

A smirk pulled at my lips. “I got this.”

The world was still overrun with demons, but I planned on helping clean it up. I was going to teach others what I knew, in the hopes that my children would one day grow up in a world free of Hellspawn.

Lincoln leaned forward and kissed me again, that time with more passion than before, and I ran my hands down his biceps, tracing the scars on his wrists. I’d been through Hell and back with this man, literally, but we’d come out on top. I couldn’t ask for anything more.

“So, I’m teaching. What’s next for you, Captain Grey?”

Lincoln looked over at Emberly, who was swimming with her dad and playing in the water. “I made a promise to a certain barely sixteen-year-old girl, that I wouldn’t rest until I’d trained her to rid San Francisco of its demon stronghold.”

I chuckled. “I guess we both have our work cut out for us.”

He nodded, landing one more kiss on my lips. “That we do.”

I didn’t mind working on the demon problem for the rest of my life, as long as Lincoln, my friends, and family were by my side.

Shea appeared at the edge of the water, holding Asha out and away from her body. White spit-up coated my best friend’s hair.

“Okay, you can take her back now.”

Everyone burst into laughter and Lincoln looked at me. “Not it.”

With an eye roll, I pushed off him and headed for the shore.

Mommy-hood was about as complex as fighting demons some days, but I wouldn’t change it for the world.

THE END