159. Happy Birthday, Jackson King

Jackson watched the sleeping baby in his arms and blinked back his tears. He was leaving his precious little girl in chaos. All his efforts to find the witch had failed. She’d disappeared after Amber and Miss Roberts had failed. He assumed the witch knew there was no point now. She’d already achieved her goal of making the rest of his life miserable.

“I’m sorry, Hope,” he whispered. “I know you’ll become a better person than I was, even in any adversity. Do you know why? Because you also have your mother in you. You are going to be magnificent.”

The more he said it, the more he would believe it. But it was hard to see any such future in a helpless three-month-old.

“What the fuck was I thinking?”

His chest squeezed as it had done all day.

“It’s not your fault.”

He looked up to see his mate in the bathroom doorway, a vision in a green, body-hugging dress. It had thin straps, so his mark was on show. For a second, he felt pride in it. But he remembered it was nothing but a death s