Page 33 of Reluctant Rebel

She snapped her head up. “Huh?”

“You were really lost in thought. I figured you found something,” Eric explained, looking at her curiously.

“Oh, no. Well, I don’t know. Maybe.” She turned the book around so Eric could see. “Royal family pedigree.”

Eric studied the page in silence for a moment before he looked at her knowingly. “Look at all these triplets. Wild, huh?”

“Yeah. Wild,” Jinx agreed, her fingers tracing over Mikhail’s name. “You know,” she began, her voice barely above a whisper. “I never had much of a childhood myself. And it’s not like I had a good role model for a mother, but …” She trailed off, old pain flickering through her body before she pushed it aside.

“But …?” Eric pressed gently.

She closed her eyes, allowing herself to picture three small faces, their eyes bright with wonder and laughter. In her mind's eye, she saw tiny hands reaching for her, soft and trusting. “I think I would have liked nurturing three babies. Giving them everything I never had.”

“You can still have that. There’s no need for wishes or what ifs.”

Jinx shook her head vehemently. “No. Because those three babies come with a royal father. I don’t know why I’m suddenly thinking about this now. It's pointless.”

“We can’t always turn our thoughts and feelings off,” Eric reminded her, patting her arm. “Besides, I’d say you have cause. I mean, it's not every day you find out you're meant to have three royal babies—at the same time!”

Jinx smiled. She could feel the weight of her unborn children, children destined to stay that way, pressing against her heart. Trying to shake the feeling, she smirked at Eric. “It’s for the best. What would three demon-tiger-shifter hybrids even look like? Sounds like a recipe for disaster.”

“I think three stripey, demonic babies sound absolutely adorable, personally,” Eric said, making Jinx laugh.

Shaking off the fantastical thoughts, she turned the page only to frown. “Damn. The pages have been ripped out.”

“For real?!” Eric gasped, grabbing the book and flicking through the next few pages. Sure enough, there were about ten pages missing. “These pages would have held the identities of the earliest generations. As well as all the extended family members.”

“Right,” Jinx agreed. “All the historical information that’s likely to have been forgotten, including all the off-shoots.” She flipped to the fae section, finding a pedigree updated to about fifty years ago and going back two hundred years, just like the demon line. But anything further back was missing. She looked at Eric. “It’s gone, too. Want to bet Z stole these pages?”

Eric snorted, turning page after page and finding more missing chapters. “That’s a losing bet.”

Jinx sat back, closing her eyes. “So, Z knows the identities of all the descendants of the Founding Fathers.”

“And he’s been at this for years. Who knows how many random distant cousins he’s managed to kill? It wouldn’t havedrawn attention because their connection to the original line wasn’t widely known,” Eric pointed out.

“And thesignificanceof that connection wasn’t known. Itstillisn’t.” She was getting seriously frustrated and empathised with how Mikhail, Brax, and Sabre must be feeling, given they had been trying to figure it all out for years. When Eric remained silent, she opened her eyes. “Eric?”

Eric’s grey eyes were wide, and he looked suddenly pale. “Umm, maybe it is.”

Jinx leaned over, speed-reading the page Eric was pointing at. She was about to ask why he was so worried when two words caught her attention.Soul foundation. The pair of them read on in silence, the gravity of the information seeming to suck all the air from the vast space.

Eventually, they looked at each other. “We’re fucked,” Jinx said succinctly.

“So fucked,” Eric agreed. He fumbled with his phone in his pocket. “I’m messaging Sabre. Oh, wait, she just sent me a message one minute ago. It says …”

Jinx wasn’t paying attention, too focused on the implications of what they had just discovered. But she did hear his loud, resigned sigh and what she thought was a quick apology.

Presently, he flashed her a roguish grin. “Find anything else, gorgeous?”

She scrunched up her nose, repeating, “Gorgeous? Are you feeling okay?”

Eric laughed. It sounded a little strained. “How could I be anything but perfect when I’m with you?”

She was worried he was having a stroke or something, so she pushed the book away, giving him her full attention. “Are you practising your pathetic pickup lines or something? Is now really the time for that?”

“You wound me, darling,” Eric clutched at his chest in mock pain. “Besides, what's wrong with multitasking?” He leaned in close to peer over her shoulder, his chest pressed against her back. His breath tickled her neck as he whispered, “I think I found something.”

Jinx pushed him away with a laugh. “What’s gotten into you?”

---