Theodore, seeing his brother had bigger hands and therefore more impactful slaps, switched to grabbing Samuel by the biceps and giving him a good, brotherly shake. “So much! Didn’t you miss us? Huh?”
“For fuck’s sake…” Samuel sighed, and in one blindingly fast movement managed to not only slip from Theodore’s hold, but snag thembotharound their necks in shockingly efficient chokeholds.
“Must weeverytime I come home? Really?”
He gave them both a hard squeeze. Despite the fact that Samuel appeared quite a bit leaner than his brothers, he was by all accounts a superior fighter. That probably had something to do with the fact that he could predict exactly what his opponents were going to do the second before they chose to do it, but it wasalso because of the horrifying expectations their father had laid on his perfect heir — before Kaz was born, anyway.
“You’re menaces,” he said, still using that soft, raspy voice that never seemed to hold any anger or urgency. “Who raised you, anyway?”
“Hey!” Winnie gave them all the stink eye. Pointing one diamond-tipped claw at them, she ordered, “No sparring and no blackouts untilafterwe play a game. Understood?”
Always quick to do whatever Winnie said, Samuel immediately answered, “Yes, ma’am.”
He nearly released them, too, but Kaz choked out, “Suck-up.”
Throwing Theodore away from him, Samuel put the full force of his body weight into turning Kaz’s much denser frame toward the fire. “What was that? You want to see how flammable you are? You know, I’ve always wondered.”
Howling with laughter, Theodore stumbled backward and nearly smashed into the table. Their dinner was saved by Andy, who caught him by the scruff of his collar. Smiling, she gave him a good shake. “You started this. What kind of behavior is that for a future sovereign?”
“I didn’t do anything!” he complained, struggling to hide his laughter as his brothers twisted and contorted themselves in an attempt to force each other into the fire. It wouldn’t hurt them, but itwouldannoy Winnie to have to break out the fire extinguisher so early in the evening.
“Kaz,twistyour hips! Use your momentum, for pity’s sake,” Valen called out. “You have a weight advantage!”
Winnie threw her hands up in the air when Delilah cheered for Samuel. “Do not encourage— Samuel Thaddeus Solbourne, if you stick your brother’s head in the fire I am going to throw your gifts in with him!”
Shucking his suit jacket and carelessly tossing it onto the floor, Theodore rolled up his sleeves, clapped his gloved handstogether, and ran headlong back into the fray. A roar of laughter exploded from Kaz as they took on their older brother in an objectively unfair fight.
At some point, it stopped being about trying to throw someone in the fire and turned to simply pinning the wily red-haired sibling to the ground. While Delilah called out pointers and Valen criticized their moves, Andy and Winnie retreated to the couch, resigned to wait out their annual wrestling match.
Laughter erupted as they grappled, using every dirty trick in the book, and the golden light of the fire winked in the glasses their audience brought to their lips. All the while, their mother’s portrait watched over them, a soft smile on her lips, and the white-hot glow of his consort burned in Theodore’s mind, reminding him that no one was ever really gone.
They were with him every step of the way.
Wilson Family Dinner
It was an odd thing,welcoming someone new into a clan. He’d thought so way back when Seamus was born and again with every subsequent sibling’s entrance, but he figured it’d get a little less awkward now that everyone involved was grown.
I guess even I can be wrong sometimes,he thought.
Harrison leaned back in the armchair he’d claimed, a beer in hand, as he observed his littlest brother and his new mate setting out the good plates for their Moonrise dinner. He didn’t mean to stare, but he couldn’t help it.
Nelly was an odd bird.
He’d been away from Montague for years now, but he had no trouble imagining what the tiny town’s reception to the witch must’ve been. She looked hilariously out of place standing next to his grinning little brother — who, for reasons he’d yet to work out, wore a floral button down.
Knee-high to a frog, decked out in a frothy ruffled dress that barely reached mid-thigh, and…witchy,Nelly Ortega was the single strangest thing he’d ever seen in his mama’s kitchen. And that was saying something, knowing that things Clark and Penny got up to.
“I know hesaidhe’d found a mate,” Seamus muttered under his breath as he dropped into the chair beside Harrison’s, “but I still kinda thought it was a prank.”
Harrison sniffed. “Still kinda feels like a prank. A witch in a clan of orcs? C’mon.”
Seamus, a barrel-chested, green-skinned orc who made his living with his hands, rolled his massive shoulders back with a heavy sigh. “See, I thought the joke was that he met somebody before us. I mean, what’re the odds? And thatstory.Ran his truck into a tree only to wake up bondedandhave the kohl? All without having to leave the comfort of his hometown. Fucker didn’t even have to try.”
He couldn’t blame Seamus for his disbelief. The story was fantastical — like the convoluted plot to one of those cheesy films he did his best to avoid.
But the proof was in the kohl, as they said. There was no denying the dark tint to Clark’s hands, which he’d proudly showed off to both his brothers the second they swung into town. A mate was a mate, and their little brother was damn pleased with the one the gods had given him.
“Well, if some bullshit like that was gonna happen, it’d happen to Clark,” Harrison replied, lips quirking in a smile. “I guess it figures he’d end up with someone so…”
