His smile had a disarming quality to it lent to those genetics his grandmother meshed together with her daughter and grandson by breeding them with Dark Fae. It was apparently a common practice that even her grandmother had followed through on. Therefore while Abel passed as human, smelled human, he was more of a cocktail of all the things the Haskel ancestors wanted except he was male. Clarinda Haskel, his grandmother, hadn't been able to get his father Samuel to play the stud, and she should have realized grooming Abel since birth with those perfect manners, careful tutoring of his control, and mastery of his own capable talents would have made him just as opposed to it.
It was all or nothing with his grandmother, either he fell into line with her and started bedding any of the witches she wanted pregnant with the next Haskel generation or she would play dirty. Kaylee had come straight out of left field. The golden opportunity for the 'wizened' old woman. In a move to protect Kaylee, Abel had left his guard down and taken the brunt of her grandmother's nasty ability to manipulate people through chemical persuasions. All it required was touch. Therefore the aftermath of all that ended up with Kaylee thinking him a bastard, Tristan getting the girl then running away, and him blood oathed to a creature he wasn't sure what it was anymore. Angel or demon. Certainly he wanted to spend as much time apart from her as he could. Especially after seeing her so cold. That wasn't the woman he had come to know and love.
Abel flashed Roxy another smile as he pulled his thoughts away from the past and settled on the future. He wanted things to work with Roxy, but it required certain assurances only to be gleaned from this meeting. "You can teach me later, kitten, promise," using a smooth honeyed voice prior to Mr. Moreau arriving. The foot remained tangled up with her legs, she was right to realize it was intentional, and while he could have healed if she needed to move swiftly, there'd always be the awareness that she let those emotions he spoke about her controlling better get in the way of things. Abel refrained from chiding her often, it was a vast improvement.
He sat with more ease in him demonstrated by the lazy recline in the chair than he ever had before. No longer burdened with the lives of hundreds of people, Abel seemed to handle things better. As a Warden for the coven, it was only his duty to tackle things Mr. Lyonel pointed him towards. The position awarded him the luxury of a generous stipend to afford the place he purchased with the red head besides him. His old house was sold and most of the funds garnered from it served as a down payment for the house Roxy practically squealed over when she saw seals near it. It meant her dear friend Erick would be around more, no doubt provided her with booze and catnip, but Abel had things to make up for, an absence to compensate for and the decision to let Mr. Palais invade her mind that day. He was doing right by her for once and she didn't seem to mind it at all. Which was good. There'd be no kids, no wedding, no joint checking again (ahaha, yeah right), but he at least had one person who stood by him that wouldn't turn away. So help him, if some guy tried to whisk her away, he'd drop them into the water for Erick to eat.
Roxy's joke earned a soft shove of his foot against her leg, an amused smile sitting on his lips with that perfectly calm exterior becoming the facade he hid before. His green hazel eyes settled on the familiar blues. "Mr. Moreau. Good of you to join us, how was work?"