Chapter Six
“Where is everyone?” I asked as I stepped out of the tracing room in Pride Palace.
“Mommy's home!” Lesya came running in from the veranda, her baby brother toddling after her.
“I am!” I declared as I bent to hug them both. “How are my babies?”
“Good,” they said together.
My son, Vero, had been a quiet, almost solemn baby, but he was quickly finding his voice now that he could form words. He had been born just a few months before I made Viper and that fact was so unnerving that I tried not to think about it. But even though Vero had just made a year, his Froekn genes had sped up his maturation, just as Lesya's Intare genes had done for her. Vero was walking and talking like a child a few years older.
I kissed his head, right over his dark curls, which were a shade lighter than Lesya's glossy black but an exact match to Trevor's hair. In fact, most of Vero was a miniature version of his father. The same could be said for Lesya and her father—she got a lot of her looks from Kirill—but I could see myself in both children now that they were getting older.
“Daddy said to tell you they went to visit Uncle Austin,” Lesya declared.
“Who went?” I asked suspiciously.
“Everyone,” Vero said solemnly then ruined it by giggling.
“Is that right?” I asked as I tickled them.
The children shouted and ran away, back toward the veranda. I chased them out, Blue and Viper on my heels, and found my friend Samantha sitting on a Victoria settee with Eztli. Zariel, Sam's daughter, was nearby, building a fort with Legos.
I hate Legos as I would an arch-nemesis.
Those damn things are sharp! Especially when you step on one and once you give your child a set of them, you are nearly guaranteed to receive a foot injury in your future. They're even worse than plastic doll furniture. And—as it goes with every annoying toy—my children love them. They can't get enough of them. Whoever invented those things is a monster. My only comfort was that I didn't have to pay their exorbitant prices only to be tortured by them. It was bad enough that they sold such deadly toys but to charge what they did for them was utterly Machiavellian.
I glared at the Legos (they had a stupid name too), trying to figure out a way to use my territory magic—a magic that can transform things in my territory into whatever I wanted them to be—to reshape the Legos to be less deadly. I had made them after all—it's why I didn't have to buy them—so I should be able to make improvements. You may be thinking it was my own damn fault if I'd made them, but I had no idea of how vile they were at the time. If I had, I would never have blithely handed them over to my babies.
“Vervain?” Sam asked when I didn't speak immediately.
“Sorry.” I blinked away my Lego issues. “Did the entire God Squad go to Texas?”
“All except for Eztli,” Sam confirmed with a glance at the vampire goddess. “It was Kirill's idea. He said that since Austin had the day off, they should be down there, learning about the area, instead of wasting time, sitting here, waiting on you.”
“I see,” I said in a tone that made clear that I was going to have a few words with Kirill. “Thank you for watching the kids.”
“You know I don't mind.” Sam waved it away. “If you want to head over and meet up with them, go ahead; we're good here.”
“Thanks. I appreciate it,” I said sincerely.
“We're building a fortress,” Vero said as he plopped down beside Zariel, miraculously missing the stray Legos. “This is my wall.” He tapped a plastic rectangle of bricks.
“Okay, just be sure to put all of the pieces away when you're done,” I said sternly. “Allof them.”
“Yes, Mommy,” two voices said.
A third voice added, “Yes, Aunty V.”
“And don't stay up too late. Your bedtime is pretty soon.”
All three children pouted.
“Which is another reason why I don't mind watching them,” Sam said with a grin. “In fact, I think we should go upstairs in a few minutes and get ready for bed.”
“Aw!” The kids whined.
“Once you're in your PJs, you can watch a movie,” Sam offered.
