And as Sumi flipped through more, she couldn’t help smiling at the pictures of Hauk holding the human babies and children. They were so tiny in comparison to him. He looked awkward and scared in some, and in others – later ones – he was much more confident. One of the most adorable was a more recent image of him with a girl around a year old. She was dressed in a frilly tulle gown that filled Hauk’s muscular arms with pink fluff. Laughing, the girl had her hands tangled in his braids while she laid her little head against his massive shoulder.

Tears filled Sumi’s eyes as she thought about her own daughter, and wished Kalea could grow up with a doting father who would cradle and protect her so adoringly. Unlike Sumi’s own callous bastard progenitor who had donated his sperm to her and her sister, and begrudged them everything else. Never mind the rank dog who’d tried to murder her when he found out she was pregnant with his child.

She flinched at the memory of Avin’s violent reaction when she’d given him what she’d stupidly thought was happy news. “You got pregnant on purpose just to trap me in this godforsaken job I despise, didn’t you, you bitch! I hate you!”

Part of her didn’t believe that any man could be a decent parent, or person for that matter. It just wasn’t in their genetic makeup.

And yet…

She wanted to believe that there really were decent and kind men in the universe. Somewhere… probably microbial fathers, living under a rock on some remote backwater planet.

She drew a ragged breath, hoping she was wrong. Surely, statistically, they couldn’t all be assholes. Could they?

Maybe I am nothing more than an asshole magnet, after all. It certainly made sense, given her dating record. Yeah, I take perfectly nice guys and ruin them.

Forcing her thoughts away from that uselessness, Sumi paused as she discovered a picture of Hauk around the age of five with his brothers. She hadn’t realized Keris was that much older until she saw them together. Fain, however, didn’t appear more than two, maybe three years ahead of Hauk. With their arms slung over each other’s shoulders, and bright smiles, they were the epitome of loving siblings… until she flipped to the next one that was time-stamped a few seconds later. Then, they were in an entwined heap on the floor, viciously fighting.

She laughed in spite of herself. How very Andarion.

For that matter, how very male.

The next was of Hauk in his late teens or early twenties in an Andarion government IT contractor uniform standing back-to-back with Nykyrian Quiakides, who was wearing a League assassin’s battlesuit that held the command assassin rank on the sleeve. Arms folded across their chests, they appeared ready to take on the entire universe.