Total pages in book: 149
Estimated words: 142050 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 474(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 142050 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 474(@300wpm)
“I think someone wants you,” Blay said with a smile.
Sure enough, Lyric was reaching for him, so they traded bundled young. Good timing. She was easier to do the one-arm, eating-hold with, and Rhamp was okay getting put in his high chair and given a teething ring to gnaw on. With that settled, the adults passed serving pieces around and filled plates, and between the bites and sips that followed, the conversation was heart-wrenchingly normal: No one’s tragic death was ruminated upon. No new bad, Lash-related news for the Lessening Society was reported. No seismic shifts on the Other Side were dissected.
Instead, they chatted about the human Christmas season and the recent snowstorm. The ice dam upstairs in the guest bedroom that everybody told Rocke not to even think about getting the ladder out for. There was also a discussion about how pretty the full moon had been the night before, and then came the most important open question following the presentation of the sainted lasagna:
“What kind of cake is for dessert?” Blay asked.
“Carrot,” the elder Lyric said.
As a cheer went up, Qhuinn toasted her with his beer. “Your cream cheese icing is a food group as far as I’m concerned.”
More laughter. More chatter…
It was all very nice. Too nice, in a way.
He paused with his fork. He’d been to this house out in the countryside around Caldwell’s suburban necklace of developments countless times… had sat in this chair, always this chair, since the first meal he’d had right after they’d helped Blay’s parents get moved in.
There was an expectation—never spoken by him or anybody else—that Family Dinner, a.k.a. Sunday’s Last Meal, would continue forever.
But that wasn’t the way it worked for mortals, was it.
Wrath’s death two years ago had taught him that. Taught everybody that.
As he felt a familiar ache coming on, he stared down at his daughter’s face. She was so like her mahmen, Layla, with tiny, perfect features, big pale eyes, and a dusting of blond hair. He’d heard that human children grew out of this proper baby/toddler stage after just twelve months, but he was glad vampires took much, much longer. He loved this bundle-of-joy shit, he really did, and given that it was impossible to imagine what their Lyric was going to be like when she was older, when she didn’t need him or any of the other parents in her life, the fact that he could still cradle her against the bulk of his biceps like this made him feel as if time was frozen.
Sure, that was nothing but a delusion. It beat worrying that any one of them could be gone in an instant, though.
Maybe by a bomb, set by the enemy… at the door to a house, regularly visited.
He tried not to think about how Wrath had been murdered—
As he forced himself to focus on Lyric again, he had to tell himself to quit checking her irises. There were so many reasons not to worry about whether they were going to be mismatched like his own, but as with tracking his son’s occasional dark moods, he couldn’t help it. He’d had that vision, when he’d been at the door unto the Fade… a daughter with one blue eye and one green.
Right now, she was showing no signs of his heterochromatism, and he’d be lying if he said he didn’t want it to stay that way.
But that was just his own PTSD talking, wasn’t it.
“How’s my girl?” he murmured.
She offered him a little stretch and a big gummy smile in return, and as that happiness wafted up at him like a warm breeze, it got hard to breathe. He couldn’t imagine ever shaming her for whatever color her eyes ended up being, or hiding her from other people, or shutting her out of the family. He’d been just like her once, born into the world needing gentleness and love. And protection.
Not what he’d gotten, but that was aristocrats for you.
Fortunately, neither of his kids needed to worry about being cast out. Hell, if anybody ever tried to hurt either one of them, he would go bare-knuckled, bloodbath—
“You okay, son?” Rocke asked softly.
Qhuinn jerked his head up. The others had paused in various eating positions, the elder Lyric in the process of lifting her glass of water, Rocke in mid-bread-tear, Blay putting his fork into his mashed potatoes. They were staring at him with their eyebrows at full mast—
Oh. He was growling, his fangs tingling as they descended.
“Sorry,” he murmured as he forced a tight smile. And then he felt like he had to tack on some kind of explanation. “Do you sometimes wonder what you would do to protect your children?”
There was a heartbeat of silence.
After which all three adults answered grimly: “No.”
He glanced around at each of them, the hellren he’d bonded with, the father he’d never had, the mahmen he’d always wanted… and then also these kids who he now couldn’t live without. He thought also about the other two parents who were part of the deal, Layla, the twins’ mahmen, and her male, Xcor.