“I don’t know,” I said, thinking about what Danica had told me in the hospital. “Danica’s messed up so badly that she can’t have kids. Ever. And now I’m wondering whether her case is a rarity, or just another awful part of the pattern.” I turned to Alec as he swallowed another bite, and Sabine and Nash followed my gaze.

“That’s pretty typical of an incubus miscarriage, and it would have been worse a couple of centuries ago.” Alec shrugged without setting his fork down. “Before modern medicine, your classmate would have bled to death. At least this way she’s still alive.”

“Yeah. I’m sure Danica will be thrilled to hear how lucky she is.” I pushed my own plate away, untouched.

“Damn,” Sabine swore softly. “I have to feed to survive, but I never did anything that messed up. I swear.”

I tried not to remember how hard she’d tried to break up me and Nash, which I’d personally found pretty messed up.

“Is that how you think about me?” she demanded softly, like she might not really want the answer. “Like some kind of monster?”

“No,” I said, and she pretended to believe what I pretended was true. But she looked more wounded than I’d thought possible.

“The internal damage is an unfortunate side effect for women not strong enough to carry an incubus’s baby to term,” Alec said, obviously trying to draw us back on track. “That’s why they usually target younger, healthier women, who are more likely to survive the pregnancy.”

“Which is why he’s teaching high school,” Nash said. But that rationalization did nothing to soften my horror.

Alec shrugged. “The age thing probably doesn’t mean anything to him. A couple hundred years ago, girls in his target age range were considered marriageable.”

I crossed my arms over my chest. “Yeah, well, now we’re jailbait.”

“That won’t matter unless he’s a complete idiot,” Sabine said. “And if he were an idiot, we’d have heard about him hitting on students before one of them miscarried in his class. And anyway, if Danica’s any indication, he’s picking juniors and seniors—girls at or past the age of consent. Which is seventeen, in Texas, in case you were wondering.”

I scowled at her. “I wasn’t wondering.”

“My point is that even if he was scared of the human justice system—and he’s not. Hell, I’m not—he’s not doing anything illegal, technically. He could get fired, but I seriously doubt he gives a shit. He wants a son, not a pension.”

“Okay, so we agree that he’s going to try to spread his seed beyond just Emma,” I said, thinking aloud.

“And the next girl will probably be a junior or a senior,” Nash said, glancing at Sabine to acknowledge the agerange she’d provided.

“She’ll be one of his own students,” the mara added. “Someone having enough trouble in math to warrant personal attention, which will make his interest in her look like legitimate academic concern.”

“And opportunity,” Nash said, pushing his empty plate away. “He’ll be looking for someone whose parents aren’t going to get in the way. You said Farrah’s dad’s a trucker, so he’s gone a lot, right? And didn’t you say her mother’s dead? And Danica’s mom’s been in the hospital for a while, so she wasn’t there to notice anything going on.”

“Yeah, but Mrs. Sussman’s only been in a coma for four weeks, and Danica said she spent one night with the baby’s father about a month ago,” I said. “So it’s entirely possible that Danica got pregnant before her mom got sick. Or at least right around that time…” My voice trailed off as another possibility clicked into place in my head.

“What?” Sabine called when I pushed my chair back and headed for the living room, to grab my laptop from my bag.

I set the laptop on the table and turned it on as I pulled my chair closer. “Danica’s mother’s brain-dead, according to the nurse, and Farrah’s mother is just plain dead.”

“You think that’s more than a coincidence?” Nash asked, scooting his chair closer so he could see the screen as I opened my web browser.

“What have we learned about coincidence, boys and girls?” I typed the keywords: Combs, Farrah, obituary and Crestwood, Texas into the search engine and hit Enter.

“There’s no such thing,” Nash mumbled as results began to fill the screen. The third link led to the Dallas Morning News online obituary page entry for Lynne Combs. “There.” Nash pointed and I clicked, and Sabine and Alex got up to look over my shoulder as I read aloud.

“Lynne Erica Combs, 38, passed away in her home on August 29. She is survived by daughter Farrah Combs and husband Michael Combs, of Crestwood, Texas, and sister Emily Meyers of Dallas, Texas.”

“August,” Sabine said, as I pressed the print screen button. “Almost seven months ago.”

“Lydia said Farrah was twenty-eight weeks pregnant.” I closed my laptop without bothering to shut it down. “That’s seven months, right?”

Nash nodded. “Are we all thinking the same thing?”

“He fed on the mothers and bred with the daughters.” My stomach pitched with disgust, and suddenly I was glad I hadn’t eaten anything. I twisted in my chair to face Alec, who looked as grim as I’d ever seen him—which said a lot, considering how he’d spent the last quarter of a century. “Is that proof enough for you? Has he earned a permanent end?”