Hell's Gates (Urban Fantasy) by Celia Kyle, Lauren Creed

boy. You love him as much as if he were your own flesh and blood. That’s something your mother has never felt and it’s all you need to take care of him—to be his mother.”
    I scoffed. “If that were true, he wouldn’t be sick.” I rested my elbows on the table. “I love him with all of my heart, as much as I can, but I don’t know if I can do this. I’ll kill anything, fight until I’m dead and gone, to keep him safe. I’ll provide him the best of everything. But what if I can’t make him better?”
    He gave me a sad smile and shook his head. “Little Bell,” I groaned at the nickname but he ignored me. Apparently, when I was a kid, my laugh was as pure as snow and tinkled like a bell. I think he was high on something when he came up with that nickname. “Do you think it’s any different for human mothers? Plenty find themselves in situations like this, facing illness that they don’t know how to handle. It’s natural to feel powerless, but you’re doing everything you can. In the long run, that’s all that matters.”
    Right. If only that made this terror disappear. “I’m scared.”
    I’d faced green-eyed zombies, a killer crocodile, and losing my mate nearly all at once and didn’t even flinch. But this… This was different.
    He looked me in the eye. “I think that on some level, you’re more scared about your relationship with him. That one day, after he’s grown, he’s going to look at you the same way you look at your mother. You can’t bear the thought of him hating you like that.”
    I stared at the tabletop, fingers tracing the fine grain of the wood. I wasn’t going to tell him he was right.
    Because I couldn’t stand my mother, not today and not when I was younger. I remembered the way she’d treated me, and it filled me with horror.
    And on some level, I was capable of the same things. I thought back to the fight in the bar, right before I got the call about Bry. I’d been itching and twitchy, eager for a fight and ready to inflict pain.
    For no other reason than boredom. Nice.
    What kind of person did that make me? What kind of mother? I didn’t want to believe I could ever take pleasure in my son’s pain the way my mother enjoyed mine. But I did find enjoyment in the agonizing cry of others. My mother’s blood, her influence, was deep inside of me, twined around my soul and filling my veins. It was far too easy to look at her and see my future reflected there.
    “How do I do better? How do I just… not?”
    “By trying.” He said the two words as if they were the answer to the universe. “No one is perfect and it’s foolish to try, but you know what your problems are and you can face them.”
    “Really?” Because that sounded a little like getting a participation medal for soccer.
    He gave me a wry grin. “Why not? I know you, Caith Belinha Morningstar. You have your dark side, but you got a lot from me and your fathers, as well. You have everything it takes to raise this child right.”
    I sniffled, but I wasn’t crying, bless it. I stood and padded around the table, not stopping until I was in Papa Finn’s arms, hugging him tightly. He was always the most sensible of my dads, the one who taught me I had some good inside me.
    Yes, in me . Satan’s niece.
    Papa Finn finished checking over the house, just the case of water being the only thing infected with whatever the hell was going on. I locked the door behind him and then went to Bry, anxious to be near my sweet boy. His face remained flushed and hot, the fever still gripping him tightly.
    I laid beside him, careful not to disturb the charms that surrounded is small body, and brushed his hair off his face. “I’m gonna take care of you, little guy. Tempmomma promises.”
    When I’d first rescued him, I’d dubbed myself “tempmomma.” It hadn’t felt right to try and take his mother’s place so soon after he was left an orphan. I hoped that when he started talking, he’d drop the “temp” portion