“We can do this,” I said.
Bael clapped his hands.
“Everyone give them space!”
Every single demon and other creature in the room moved and formed a circle around us. I could do this. We all shifted, and the entire room went silent. I didn’t know much about the various types of demons, but I was pretty sure they had nothing like Kimon, Pavlina, Demos, and Tryphon down here.
Everyone straight up started clapping for us. We shifted back, and I saw Bael clap Barbatos on the back proudly.
“You did well with that one. Her mates are impressive too.”
I guess I got through my whole demonic reveal party, and the King of Hell approved.
Epilogue
River
I
always told myself one day, when I was much older, I was going to be less busy and travel more. After delivering six healthy puppies for Cerberus and Lis, I got my wish. I still had a bustling vet practice in the Underworld, but I took more time for myself now. We had a standing dinner date in Hell every Sunday night with my father, and we’d even gone back to Olympus a few times.
We took a trip to Earth to check on Hera and visit with her. She’d settled in quite nicely, and so had the humans who left Olympus to go with her. I remembered how hard it was getting my vet practice started and running. There was so much paperwork, then I had to work at getting clients to stay in business. I didn’t think I’d be sharing starting a business war stories with the Queen of Olympus, but there we were.
Hera had to spin things hard from Earth to make Olympus seem like an excellent place to live for several realms, but eventually, people started wanting to immigrate. Witches and warlocks, in particular, wanted to go try to learn Olympian magic. Demons weren’t interested in going, but the Fae were curious. Eventually, their king agreed things were safe enough for them to try living there.
The new trade between the three realms was great. Hell and the Fae had all kinds of medicines and remedies. Pets were a universal thing in every domain. With Hades's approval and blessing, I got to totally nerd out and travel to Hell and the Fae realm to learn a little from their vets on animal care.
It helped me with delivering Lis’s puppies since she was a Hellhound and could melt any equipment with her fire. I needed that because I had a feeling Cerberus wasn’t going to stop at six puppies. I learned so many ways to heal animals were totally within my scope. It wasn’t magic like Charley. It was hard science that got my rocks off, and I had access to Hell and Fae science whenever I wanted. It was a nerd’s wet dream.
Seeing Hades with his growing brood of four Olympian babies gave us all baby fever. His children were just so fucking cute, and they said the damnedest things. We decided we wanted our own after Hades and Persephone had their first child.
Bael got interested when I first fell pregnant. I didn’t know demons were so into babies. Bael wanted to know who the father was because he wanted to know if demons could mate with Olympians and the Underworld citizens.
We got our answer when my first child was a little demigod that looked exactly like Hephaestus. I needed a lot of time to learn how to use my fire, but our daughter frequently set things aflame when she didn’t get her way. I adored everything about her, even her tantrums.
Being a mother was hard, but I had full-blown baby fever now. We were going to space it out, so we didn’t go insane, but we were already planning for little phoenix, Minotaur, and Kraken babies with my powers too. We were planning on spoiling them rotten, and I knew they would all make amazing fathers.
I was so angry when I realized Hades had kidnapped me. He still deserved everything I threw at him after that. We went through epic amounts of shit, but honestly?
Getting kidnapped by the King of the Underworld was the best thing that ever happened to me. I’d never tell Hades that, though.
Afterword
Remember that Kitsune Barbatos has to help break out of prison? She’s the new lead in the next Scorchwood Supernatural Penitentiary shared world spin-off. You’ll see some familiar faces and meet some brand new ones. After Scorchwood was closed for renovations, several lifers got transferred to Silverhold Detention Center for the Magically Delinquent. So, be prepared to meet some psychos.
You can grab it here.