Sevrin sits up and wraps Harper in a bear hug. “We’d be the best family in all the world.”
“I’d settle for ‘functional,’” Lucien says, sitting up and raking a hand through his wet hair. “Imagine what a Harper-Alaric combination would be like.”
“Unstoppable,” I say. “Terrifying to their enemies. Capable of complete destruction if pushed.”
Sevrin grins, eyes crinkling. “I want a daughter who breaks noses.”
Harper smiles back, and for a moment I can actually see it. A little girl with her grin and my stubborn chin, running wild through castle corridors, making the tutors cry. It makes my chest ache, but in a good way.
“I can imagine a daughter like Harper and I,” Gareth says, thoughtfully. “She would be strong. She could command an army of dragon riders.”
Harper shakes her head. “You guys and your all-powerful children. They could just be happy.”
“Being happy would be enough,” Lucien tells her.
“So, I guess we’ll have two kids,” Harper says.
“Or seven,” Gareth suggests.
“Seven? My uterus would explode!”
“Five could work,” Lucien says, grinning.
She groans. “Do you know what that would do to my vagina? You guys try squeezing a watermelon out of your weiner holes.”
All of us wince and cross our legs.
She laughs. “Maybe three or four. I could see that.”
I stroke her face. “Three or four we could handle.”
We stay like that for a while, just talking. About what it would be like, to be a real family. About where we’d live, what we’d teach our kids, whether dragons make good babysitters. Lucien argues that they do. Gareth says only if you don’t mind them having singed hair.
Even Sevrin gets into it, eyes brighter than usual, proposing a schedule where every child rotates dragon-riding lessons between the four of us. I wonder if he knows how much dragon riding means to us. To all of us. Maybe he does, and he pretends not to wish for his own dragon.
Eventually, the sun starts to dip, and the sky explodes into colors. Harper stands, stretches. “We should find somewhere to sleep. I’m not going back to the plateau; the dragons will be busy for hours.”
“We should try a cave,” Lucien says. “Less wind. More privacy.”
Harper gives him a sly look. “Privacy for what, exactly?”
Lucien shrugs, eyes all innocence. “In case Gareth starts snoring.”
“He only snores when he’s happy,” I say.
Gareth tousles Harper’s hair. “I am happy, for the record.”
We wander along the edge of the waterfall, past spiky trees with bark like gold and flowers that seem to glow from within. There’s a cave not far from the pool, high and dry, with a bed of moss and a little trickle of water running down one wall. It’s perfect.
We settle in, arranging ourselves in a tangle of limbs and laughter. Harper flops down first, then pulls me with her. Lucien slides in on her other side, propping his head on his hand. Gareth wedges himself at her feet, sprawling as only a man his size can, and Sevrin settles a little apart, leaning against the cave wall, arms folded.
Harper stretches, then curls into me. “If I fall asleep, promise you’ll wake me before dawn.”
“Why?”
“I want to see the sunrise from here.” She yawns, nuzzling into my shoulder. “I bet it’s insane.”
Lucien pokes my knee. “Tell us a story, Alaric. A good one. I can’t sleep unless someone talks.”
