Page 3 of Demon Daddy's Baby Girl

It's a woman. Young. Curled on her side, one arm thrust out as though she'd been crawling toward the street. Her dress—little more than a rag—rides up to reveal legs streaked with dirt and scratches. Her other arm cradles a swollen belly.

She's pregnant. Very pregnant.

I crouch beside her, scanning for immediate dangers before focusing on her fully. Deep auburn hair, matted and filthy, plasters against her temples. Her bare feet are bloody and caked with grime. Her breathing comes in ragged, shallow gasps.

"Hey. Can you hear me?"

No response. Not even a flicker of her eyelids. But her chest rises and falls in an uneven rhythm.

I press my fingers to her neck, feeling a thready pulse beneath skin that burns too hot. She's running a dangerous fever. Dehydrated too, from the look of her cracked lips.

Something twists in my chest—an ugly, forgotten feeling I've spent years burying. My sister Mara's face flashes in my mind.

"Not again," I growl.

I look closer at the woman's exposed upper arm. There it is—the mark. A brand of ownership. Some noble's property. A runaway slave, then. And in labor, judging by the wetness beneath her dress.

"You picked a damned spot to collapse, woman," I say, though she can't hear me.

It would be simpler to call for a transport to the public infirmary. Let the healers deal with her. That's protocol. That's what's expected of the city guard.

But the infirmary would report a runaway slave immediately. They'd return her to her owner once the baby was delivered. If she survived at all.

I glance around the empty alleyway. No witnesses.

"Fuck protocol."

Her scent is familiar. Human, but threaded with something else—demon blood clinging faintly in the air. I inhale deeply, my heightened senses picking apart the layers. Fear. Exhaustion. The metallic tang of blood. Beneath it all, the unmistakable sweetness of a half-breed child growing inside her.

She's been claimed, mistreated, likely hunted. Desperate enough to collapse in a back alley rather than risk being seen. Just like Ada had been when Dezoth first found her—wild-eyed, clutching her child, expecting death rather than shelter.

I glance around once more, confirming we're alone before making my decision.

"Come on. Let's get you somewhere safe."

With practiced efficiency, I sheath my sword and slip one arm beneath her knees, the other supporting her back. Her body is featherlight against my chest despite the swell of her belly. Too thin. She's been starving herself to keep the baby fed.

I lift her carefully, adjusting my grip to cradle her properly. The woman doesn't wake, her head lolling against my shoulder, breath hot and rapid against my neck. Her skin burns through the thin fabric of her dress.

"That's a fever that'll kill you if we don't get it down," I mutter, more to myself than to her.

My fingers brush against something tacky on the back of her dress. Blood. Fresh. The labor's already started.

"Shit."

I hesitate only briefly before heading home, instinctively choosing the route with the fewest eyes. Down the service alley behind the taverns, through the abandoned courtyard with the dry fountain, past the crumbling shrine to forgotten gods. The weight in my arms feels oddly right, like something I've been meant to carry.

A distant part of my mind recognizes the dangerous territory I'm entering. Harboring a runaway is punishable by flogging. Harboring a pregnant one carrying noble blood could mean execution. The rational part of me—the part that's kept me alive for decades in the guard—screams to turn back.

I ignore it.

The woman whimpers in my arms as I navigate a particularly narrow passage, her face contorting in pain even through unconsciousness.

"Easy now," I whisper, softening my voice to a gentleness I rarely use. "Almost there."

A group of young demons rounds the corner ahead. Guards off-duty, faces flushed with amerinth. I duck quickly into a shadowed doorway, pressing my back against the cold stone. The pregnant woman shivers against me.

"Hold still," I breathe into her matted hair. "Just a moment longer."

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