by Amy Sumida
“Show me,” Arach commanded imperiously.
The dogs went running into the castle, and Arach chased after them, Brevyn laughing as he was bounced along.
“Son of a bitch,” I muttered under my breath, forgetting that Rian was with me.
“Son of a bitch,” Rian repeated with just as much irritation as he stared after his father.
“No, no, no,” I chided my son as we raced after our family. “That was bad; don't ever say that again.”
“Then why did you say it?”
If you have children, then you know the pain of the “whys” and can sympathize with me. I get that children are naturally curious, but when every instruction is met with “why” it becomes so tedious that the word starts ranking up there with the likes of the F and S words.
“I was being bad,” I told him. “But you are a good boy, so you don't say things like that.”
“Why?”
“Because good boys say nice things.”
“Why?”
“Because if you don't be a good boy and say nice things, I'm going to take away your flying privileges for a week!” I growled in my mommy voice.
“Oh,” Rian said softly.
I put Rian down and let him run on his own, while I held his hand. He was just too big for me to carry as I raced after Arach. We went all the way through the mountain/castle to the other side. A wide tunnel led us to the main entrance of the castle, and we rushed out, our footsteps pounding hollowly across the drawbridge. There we found Arach waving forward one of our royal carriages. The cŵn annwn were racing down the Road of Neutrality in the direction of the Earth Kingdom. I scowled at that; the Earth Kingdom had brand new monarchs, and I didn't want to bother them with this madness. I glowered after the dogs as I went to stand beside Arach.
“Where are they going?” I asked him as if he might actually know.
“Doggies go bye-bye!” Brevyn shouted in glee and waved at the dogs. “Bye-bye, doggies!”
“Are we hunting?” Rian asked his father, just as excited as Brevyn.
A carriage pulled up before us. A phooka in human-form held the reins of the four phookas in horse-form who were pulling the carriage.
“I don't know yet,” Arach answered as he yanked open the carriage door and plopped Brevyn inside. “But we'll find out soon enough, Son.”
He scooped up Rian and deposited him inside as well, then automatically reached for me.
“I can get into the carriage on my own, Daddy,” I teased Arach as I climbed in.
“Sorry, A Thaisce.” Arach jumped in, shut the door, and then pounded on the roof. “I'm a little distracted.”
“Hold on, boys,” I said as the carriage lurched forward.
The children did the opposite of what I instructed; bouncing on their seats with their arms stretched to their sides, and then rolling around; adding their impetus to the jostling coach. Brevyn bounced up a foot off the seat.
“Children!” I snapped.
The boys settled down with sad faces. Arach pulled Rian onto his lap, and I took Brevyn.
“Thank you,” I said primly.
Arach was indeed distracted; staring out the window at the cŵn annwn. He watched them the entire trip, his eyes widening only slightly, when our journey ended at the Great Tree at the End of the Road: the only place to trace in or out of Faerie. The hounds sat patiently before the massive tree trunk, waiting for Arach to join them.
Arach started to get out of the coach, but I grabbed his bicep and stopped him.
“We can't chase after them with our children,” I said. “What if we end up somewhere dangerous?”
“Then we will protect our young,” Arach said as if it were a given. “Come now, A Thaisce; we are dragons, and you have power in you that can stop wars. No one will hurt our boys. If they try, they will be obliterated.”
“Fair enough,” I said with a sigh and followed him out of the carriage.
“We may take awhile,” Arach said to our driver. “Return to the castle and inform Duchess Isleen that we have gone on a family excursion. We'll fly home later.”
“Yes, my King,” the phooka said, then he turned the carriage around and started heading back to Castle Aithinne... at a much more sedate pace.
“I have to go into the God Realm before I leave Faerie,” I reminded Arach. “Otherwise, the others will be worried about me, and I can't do that to them.”
“Of course,” Arach agreed readily and kissed me goodbye. “We will await you here.”
Arach knew that I'd be back immediately, but for me, I'd have to stay in the God Realm until time caught up to that in Faerie—and I'd been in Faerie for over three weeks now. Which meant that for me, this would be a much longer separation. And without any warning.
I hugged my husband and kissed my sons goodbye. They whined a little (my sons, not Arach,) upset that they couldn't go with me—both boys loved visiting their uncles—but I gave them my stern mommy stare (it went with the voice), and they quieted. Leaving my children was the hardest part of using my ring, but I had babies in two of the realms now, and leaving my boys meant that I was returning to my girl. That made things a little easier for me.
I used my Ring of Remembrance to take me back to the last time I'd left the God Realm.
I was pulled through time and space with a zipping, electric feeling of being moved without moving, and then I reformed at the foot of my bed in Pride Palace. Lying on the bed before me were Kirill and Lesya; my husband's arms around our daughter's little body. Lesya was five months old now, but just like her brothers, she was growing much faster than a human child. She was closer in size to a one-year-old and had already taken her first steps. Sometimes my heart ached that these precious moments flew by faster with my children, but there were positives to the rapid growth as well. Like not having to wait so long for Lesya to say her first words.
“Mama,” Lesya said happily as I climbed onto the bed beside her.
She slipped her chubby arms off her father's neck and reached for me. Kirill came awake immediately, his brilliant blue eyes going unerringly to me. He smiled sleepily and pulled me closer, so we surrounded our daughter. Lesya giggled and gave me a loud, smacking kiss. I kissed the top of her head, nuzzling her silky, black curls and breathing her scent in deeply; fur and flowers. Lesya sighed, then looked up at me serenely with eyes that matched her father's.
“Is lizard king okay?” Kirill asked in his Russian accent, his sleep-roughened voice even deeper and sexier than usual.
“Arach's fine,” I said. “The cŵn annwn showed up in Faerie, and they want us to follow them somewhere, but I had to come back here first.”
“So time could catch up,” Kirill made it a statement, not a question.
“Yeah.” I scooped up Lesya and rolled with her, so that she sat on my belly. She laughed and swung her hands about. “And I'm glad I did because I missed my babies. This baby”—I kissed Lesya's belly, making her giggle again—“and this baby.” I turned my head to kiss Kirill.
Kirill growled low in his throat and pulled me closer. Then Lesya's little palm tapped my cheek and ruined the mood.
“Mama,” she said softly.
Her voice was the same as it had been in the Dream Realm, during the time when she'd been kidnapped, and I'd heard her crying for me. The echoes of that tragedy still haunted me, but having Lesya home with us was healing the hurt. I stroked her cheek, and she crawled back between Kirill and me.
“Daddy,” Lesya tapped Kirill on the nose as if she were declaring him as such.
Kirill smiled as if every dream he'd ever had, had come true. That one little word meant so much to him. It meant a lot to me too; Kirill's happiness had been hard won. We had fought and killed, nearly lost Lesya to war and kidnappers, and Kirill had even come back from the dead. Fatherhood had once been an impossibility for Kirill, and now it was his reality. For him, every breath our daughter took was a miracle.
“Come here, kotyonok,” Kirill pulled Lesya to him as
he sat up. “Nap time is over; now it's lunchtime.”
Kotyonok—KOTËHOK was the proper spelling of the word—meant kitten in Russian, and was evidently a common pet name for a little girl in Russia. Kirill loved how appropriate it was for our daughter, and had taken to calling her by it. I encouraged him to speak more Russian around Lesya, hoping that she'd pick up the language and be bilingual; something her mother failed at. A fact which her Uncle Arach gave me endless grief over.
“Daddy,” Lesya said again. She didn't have a lot of words in her vocabulary yet, but she loved to use the ones she did.
Kirill carried Lesya over to our dining set, sat her down in her high chair, attached the tray, and went to make her lunch. I went with them and fetched Lesya's bib. She may be advanced for a five-month-old, but she still made a mess when she ate. As we went about the business of feeding our daughter, Trevor walked in from the hallway.
“How's our little princess?” Trevor made a beeline for Lesya, and she immediately started smiling and reaching for him. “Can I have some of your lunch, Lesya? Uncle Trevor is hungry.”
Trevor leaned down to kiss Lesya's cheek, and she squealed with delight. I smiled to see her so happy. She'd been a quiet, somber baby when we'd first got her home, but we had lavished our love on her, and—just like me—she had slowly begun to smile more and more. After Lesya received her greeting, her Uncle Trevor gave me a kiss and then took the seat next to mine.
“You vant sandwich?” Kirill asked Trevor.
“What kind?” Trevor looked skeptically at the food Kirill had pulled out of the fridge.
“Turkey,” Kirill said. “The peanut butter and bananas are for Lesya.”
“Oh, okay then.” Trevor smirked. “Thanks, man.”
“No problem.” Kirill looked from Trevor to me. “Tell him of coon dogs.”
“Coon dogs?” Trevor asked.
“The cŵn annwn,” I clarified. “They showed up at Castle Aithinne.”
I told Trevor what I'd told Kirill, but Trevor didn't take it as well as my Russian werelion. My werewolf prince started to frown thoughtfully.
“What is it?” I asked him.
“Maybe nothing,” Trevor murmured. “Just be careful, Minn Elska. Those dogs may have been fey once, but they aren't anymore. They were Arawn's hounds—the only members of his Wild Hunt—and a canine's loyalty doesn't sway easily.”
“Neither does a cat's,” Kirill said with a wink to Lesya. Then he put her dissected sandwich down on the tray of her high chair.
“Daddy!” Lesya declared excitedly as she picked up one of the little pieces Kirill had cut her sandwich into. Lesya shoved the bite of sandwich into her mouth and started chewing vigorously as she reached for her second piece.
“Noted,” I said to Trevor. “I'll be wary of the cŵn annwn.”
“Good.” Trevor nodded. “Now, can we talk about when you'd like to try to conceive our child?”
“Trevor,” I whined. “Give my body a break. We're immortal; can't we take some time between babies?”
“Don't you want the children to grow up together?” Trevor asked. “I'd like our son to be able to play with Lesya, Rian, and Brevyn. If we wait too long, the other children will be too old to be his companions.”
“He has point,” Kirill put Lesya's sippy cup down beside the mess of banana, peanut butter, and bread that she had made into a finger painting rendition of Starry Night.
Lesya picked up her cup with peanut butter fingers and started guzzling milk. I shook my head at our daughter; she even had peanut butter in her hair. How had she managed that in thirty seconds? Talent, that's how.
“Vervain?” Trevor tapped the table with his knuckles to regain my attention.
“Sorry.” I looked back to him. “I can't, Trevor. Both pregnancies have been so traumatic for me; I need some time off. Besides, I'm not stopping with Vero, I'll be having Dominic and Sebastian after him, and then Samara. And Odin said he wants more children too. That's a lot of babies.”
“All right, Minn Elska,” Trevor said softly. “We'll talk about it later.” But his eyes strayed longing to Lesya.
That was the problem with having multiple husbands; it was like having lots of children—if you give one of them something, you had to give the same thing, or its equivalent, to the rest of them. The equivalent in this situation was a baby, and I wasn't ready to go through another supernatural pregnancy so soon. Honestly, I was a little afraid of them.
“How long do you have until time catches up?” Kirill asked as he set a plate of sandwiches down in the middle of the table and then took a seat beside Trevor.
“A little over three weeks,” I said.
“Good; that may be just enough time to handle the new mess you're in,” Morpheus announced as he walked in.
“Nope.” I twirled my finger in a circle. “Just turn your butt right around and get out if you're bringing trouble with you. I've got enough of a mess to clean up already.” I angled my finger over to include Lesya. “And this is the only kind of mess that I want to deal with.”
“Tough luck, love goddess.” Morpheus swooped in and grabbed a sandwich.
“Help yourself,” Kirill said drolly.
“Thanks, Kir.” Morpheus shot Kirill a smile before taking a bite. “Oh, this is good.”
“It's ze cranberry sauce, and stop calling me 'Kir.'” Kirill grimaced. “It sounds like faerie name. Or alcohol”
“And if you shorten Kirill, you actually get 'Key,' not 'Kir,'” Trevor pointed out.
“I don't like 'Key' either,” Kirill growled. “I am not a tool to be twisted.”
“No!” Lesya pointed her finger at Morpheus and gave him a scowl. It would have been ferocious, if not for the large chunk of banana on her nose.
“Zank you, kotyonok,” Kirill kissed our daughter's dirty cheek.
Lesya smiled and shoved more food into her mouth. Her work here was done.
“Wonderful.” Morph rolled his mist-filled eyes. “The whole lot of you are in denial. Well, let me clear this up real quick for you; the Olympians have sent Vervain a summons.”
He slapped a rolled up parchment down on the table.
Lesya reached for it with her dirty hands, but Kirill snagged it first. He handed it over to me without reading it and smoothly filled our daughter's grasping hand with another piece of sandwich. I unrolled the scroll and looked it over.
“The Greek gods have a court?” I lifted my brows at Morpheus. “Like a court of justice?”
“Yep.” Morpheus sat back and started enjoying his sandwich, now that he had my full attention. “And it's no joke, V. You don't want all of those bad asses mad at you. You know how big the Greek Pantheon is.”
“They can't summon Vervain,” Trevor huffed. “She's not a part of their pantheon.”
“Isn't she?” Morpheus shot back with a cocky, lifted eyebrow.
We all went silent, even Lesya blinked breadcrumbs from her eyelashes and regarded us grimly.
“Farfenugen!” I hissed. “Does Aphrodite's magic make me Greek?”
“They think it does,” Morpheus said. “And that's what matters.”
“Vhat could Greeks possibly vant vith you?” Kirill waved his hand toward the parchment.
“It says that a question had been raised in reference to me fulfilling my duties.” I scowled and looked over the summons again. “Do you think they mean that I'm not encouraging love enough in humans?”
“I doubt it,” Morph said. “It's not like all of them are constantly doing their part to look after the human race.”
“Then what?” Trevor asked.
“You got me.” Morpheus shrugged. “I'm just the messenger. They did say it would be best if you got this taken care of ASAP, and that they'd convene as soon as you were ready. I think they're trying to handle this as nicely as possible. Should I tell them that you're ready?”
“Where is this court to be held?” I scanned the paper again. “It doesn't say.”
“That's bec
ause all Greek gods know that court is held in the communal temple on Olympus,” Morpheus explained. “Zeus used to preside over it, but now it will be Athena.”
“Well, at least Athena and I are on good terms,” I said. “I think.”
“She won't be the only one judging,” Morpheus went on. “She'll be presiding over the judges, but the panel will be comprised of the Twelve Olympians. Although, now that Zeus and Hera have been banished, I suppose they're the Ten Olympians.”
“Which ten?” I snarled, getting more and more annoyed.
“Oops, make that eight,” Morpheus corrected. “Since you killed Aphrodite and Demeter.”
“Fine,” I growled, “which eight?”
“Let's see... it's Artemis, Apollo, Poseidon, Athena, Ares—oh damn; make that seven.” Morpheus gaped at me. “You've killed three Olympians! It's a miracle that you're on good terms with the pantheon.”
“Who else is on the panel, Morpheus?” I snapped.
“Um, Hephaestus, Dionysus, and Hermes,” Morpheus finally finished.
“What about Hades?” I asked. “He's not one of the twelve?”
“Because Hades rules the Underworld, he was excluded from governing Olympus with the Twelve,” Morpheus explained. “But now that their number has dwindled, and Zeus isn't ruling anymore, they may ask him to join.”
“I hope so,” I muttered. “It would be nice to have another friend judging me for whatever I've done wrong now.”
“Wait; if they're saying that Vervain is in their pantheon because of Aphrodite's magic, then doesn't that give her Aphrodite's place as an Olympian?” Trevor asked.
“It might.” Morpheus' eyes went wide. “But I don't think it makes a difference when she's the one on trial.”
“God-damned Greek gods,” I huffed, and then shot a worried glance at Lesya.
We'd been trying not to swear around her, but she only smiled at me and smacked her peanut butter lips together. Phew; I avoided the mistake I'd just made with Rian.
“So, should I set it up?” Morpheus asked.
“Fine, go tell them that I'll be over in an hour,” I agreed grudgingly.
“Excellent!” Morpheus shot to his feet. “I'll meet you on the top of Olympus in one hour. You can trace straight there; they'll be expecting you.”