I snorted. “I'll bet you are.”
Arach beamed at me.
“I'm not going to start popping out dragon babies every ten years just to avoid an empty nest, Arach.”
“An empty nest?” He scowled at me.
“A home without children.”
“Ah, well, we'll see.” He went back to looking smug. “You've become a very good mother, Vervain. That speech you gave the boys earlier was brilliant—worthy of a queen and a mother.”
“Thank you,” I said warily.
“I can't imagine you with no one to pass your knowledge on to. That would be a terrible shame.”
“Uh-huh,” I said skeptically. “And this wouldn't have anything to do with you wanting to single-handedly—or single-dickly—save the Dragon-Sidhe race from extinction, would it?”
Roarke tried to hold back his laughter and failed horribly.
Arach glared at him. “Mind your own business, Fire Cat.”
“I would have if your wife hadn't saidsingle-dickly,” Roarke shot back. “That's utterly impossible to ignore. I support your efforts though, my King. In fact, I think I should follow your lead.” He waggled his brows at Anna. “This single dick is up for the challenge.”
“Well, the man attacked to that dick will become single himself if he thinks I'm going to birth an entire race,” Anna snarled.
“I was joking!” Roarke said urgently. “Merely jesting, my love. My beautiful, understanding, gloriously kind wife.”
I looked at Arach as if to say,what she said.
“We have eternity, A Thaisce,” Arach reminded me. “That's a long time to go without babies. We'll see how long you last.”
“You mean, how long you last before you drop to your knees and beg me to give you another child,” I snapped.
“If I get on my knees for you, it will not be to beg,” Arach declared with a wicked grin. “But I promise to be convincing.”
Yep, I was going to have a lot of dragon babies.
Chapter Seventeen
We decided to spend the morning swimming in the new pool Arach had built for the castle. It was past the Pixie Village to the left of the back entrance, near the edge of the Warm Woods. The Weeping Woods, where the children had wanted to roam with their bow and arrows, was to the right, along the mountains that form a border between us and the Air Kingdom. Air's cool currents turned the heat of the Fire Kingdom into moisture that clung to everything in the Weeping Woods and dripped constantly, giving the woods its name.
The Warm Woods, on the other hand, was across a clearing from Weeping and wasn't affected by Air. The clearing itself only held patches of plant life interspersed with dry land and was veined by vents that ran down to the magma rivers beneath the Fire Kingdom. The heat rising from those rivers was to blame for the spotty greenery. Only the hardiest plants were able to grow near the fissures.
I stared down the channel formed by the clearing between the two forests. It went straight forward, into the kingdom like a road, following the path of the underground river. You could tell where the magma branched off by the way the terrain changed. Steam rose in misty ribbons, turning the strange landscape into something mysterious. Fey animals called to each other and the occasional bird took flight but none of them crossed the border of the hazy clearing. I don't think it was fear that held them back, or even the mist that rose from the narrow cracks—simply preference. Some animals didn't mind the humidity while others were more comfortable in dry heat. Fortunately, the Fire Kingdom could provide both conditions, mere feet away from each other.
We stopped at the Pixie Village since it was Summer and the Pixies were in residence. I said a quick hello to the smallest of my people, who also happened to be the most courageous. To be honest, I wasn't there for them. I circled back to the courtyard before the tiered village that was set into the mountainside facade of Castle Aithinne. There, within a plot of earth bordered by tiles the Pixies had made for her, grew Blossom. We brought her out here during the warmer months to enjoy another view of the kingdom and socialize with the Pixies. When it got colder, we'd take her back inside to live in a tall pot in our bedroom.
Blossom was a nostradim—a type of fey flower with yellow petals and lacy stamens that glowed like a stoked fire when you blew on them—but she wasn't just a flower. I had called her forth from the soil of Alfheim when I'd been imprisoned by Freyr. My Fey mother had made a bargain with the Norse Gods to help them build their territory in the God Realm in exchange for one of the Nine Worlds for her child to rule. I won't go into all of the details, suffice it to say that I was once connected to the magic of Alfheim (now Brevyn holds that link) and that magic had responded to me through Blossom. She couldn't speak exactly, but she could move and she used those movements to communicate. When I freed myself and left Alfheim, I took her with me and brought her to Faerie.
“Hey, pretty girl,” I said to Blossom as I stroked one of her petals.
Blossom stretched, then bent her head to brush my fingers. Dexter and Deidre bounded up to sit beside me, their black coats shining in the sunlight. Dex leaned forward with his narrow snout and nudged Blossom. She shivered as if giggling. Then the nurials ran off after Arach, who had continued toward the pool without me, well accustomed to my visits with Blossom. I watched them go with a smile. Dexter was taller than me now, a massive animal who I nonetheless thought of as a baby. I'd raised him from just a little nurial so he'd always be a baby to me.
Deidre was still a little smaller than her father despite being fully grown. As a female, she didn't have his neck ruff or horns, which made her ears more prominent. She'd likely leave soon, perhaps even next spring, to go and start her own family. I'd miss her, but I had hopes that she'd return to have her babies at the castle, as her father had returned after his mating season, and eventually brought her to live with us.
“Babies,” I said to Blossom. “So many babies. I hope King Fionn and Queen Breana will bring Eveline with them today. I haven't seen her since she was born.”
I'd helped the Air Queen give birth to her first daughter not too long ago. Okay, that was a bit of an overstatement. I was there when she gave birth and I gave the baby CPR after she'd been strangled with her umbilical cord. The Air-Sidhe midwife didn't know about CPR but quickly picked up the technique after seeing me employ it and then refined it with her air magic. The baby, who would have been assumed stillborn and buried without any efforts made to revive her, had recovered from her traumatic birth and lived. It was a close call—Faerie herself (that's the Consciousness of the Faerie Realm who likes to speak in my head at the most inopportune times, not the land) had spurred me to the Air Castle—but I'd made it just in time for the delivery.
