Deliverance [malexmale]

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Twenty-Nine

This is it.

The moment we'd been waiting for, and I hadn't expected this much fear to be pooling in my gut. I instinctively curled my hand around the tiny one in mine, wishing I could just swing Amenti up into my arms and take her back home and never let her go.

But that would be cruel, and selfish.

Amenti was at the age where she needed to be educated, needed to make friends, to begin a lifelong journey of self-discovery. She already proved to be strong and intelligent. She loved the color purple and her favorite animal was a chipmunk. She loved wearing dresses with pants and doing her hair up with rainbow hair-clips. She refused to eat anything that wasn't sweet for breakfast, but her ultimate favorite food was a bacon cheeseburger with a side of macaroni, or as she pronounced it "maci-roni".

Now she was going to build on all that.

Yeah, but why can't she just do it at home?

Because there's no way I could teach a small child how to read and write and do mathematics, and whatever else they planned to teach her within the walls of her school, a school that stood in a brilliant section of Hell.

The building was two stories, made of bright blue siding and white windows and a big green door. A large sign was tacked just above the door, but I couldn't read the lettering, though, something told me it was the name of the preschool, which Arikos had told me was called Nature Academy for Children. The building was settled among a throng of trees, and the smell of the stream in the back wafted in the air, along with fresh wood and paint. A small white fence went around the back where the children's play area was, revealing toys and playground equipment.

Parents and their children converged on the building, children laughing and playing, some crying and trying to hang onto their parents. At the door, the principal was smiling and waving children inside, greeting parents. He was a tall, thin man with a feminine touch to him I couldn't quite place, a strong aquiline nose and square jaw, his hair a long strawberry blonde that he coiled up in a loose bun. He didn't appear threatening. I'd asked Fiona to do a background check on him that revealed nothing dangerous.

An average male fae from a country in the mortal realm called the United States, specifically a section called New York. A husband of twenty-six years, a vampire from Colorado, also in the United States. They, too, had a child in the building named Jared. The principal himself was named Rowan O'Brian.

I had deemed them safe, and Arikos had spent an hour lecturing me about invading people's privacy, but I couldn't help it. How could I trust these strangers with Amenti? What if they hurt her or tried to sell her or worse?

My anxiety spiked and I squeezed Amenti's hand, seriously debating turning tail and taking off with her.

"Menny," Amenti said after a moment and I looked down at her. She was looking up at me with those big green eyes, staring out of a heart-shaped face of innocence. Her black curls were held back from her face with two colorful butterfly clips Arikos had bought her for this special occasion, she wore a cute purple corduroy dress and black lacy leggings, cute little ankle boots that lit up along the sides to reveal a glitter rainbow design. She wore a tiny backpack on her back that we spent an hour packing and repacking last night to make sure she had everything she needed. I still wished I could sneak something in to protect her, but Arikos had assured me that was not a good idea.

"You can't give a child a weapon to take to a preschool, Menoetius," Arikos had chided me while packing Amenti's lunch for the day. I scowled, moving into the kitchen beside him.