Viper chuckled. “We've had our first fight. It's not the end of the world.”
“No, we've seen the end of the world and this is not it.”
“Hell, baby, we came back from world domination, this little fight is nothing.”
“Yeah, but maybe next time we have an argument, don't run off and get frozen afterward,” I grumbled.
Viper's smile faded as he took a good look around and noticed the bodies littering the floor. “Those fucking snakes froze me! Did you get them all?”
“No, some escaped, but don't worry, they're being hunted as we speak.”
“You sent the lions after them?”
“No. The owls.” I grinned.
Chapter Twenty-Five
I incinerated the snake bodies, then we traced home to Pride Palace. It was early morning there and the sound of happy, hungry children filtered out of the dining hall to us. Viper headed toward the hall with my husbands, but I grabbed him and looked pointedly at his nudity.
He snatched a flower out of a nearby vase and handed it to me.
I scowled at him. “Is this your idea of romance?”
“No, this is my way of asking you to whip me up some pants. Although”—he looked down at himself—“I can see how you might mistake it for such. I do present a fetching picture.”
I rolled my eyes. “The Intare are all going upstairs to get dressed but you want me to magic you up some pants so you don't have to?”
“The Intare are probably going upstairs to sleep,” Viper countered. “And yes, I want you to magic me up some pants because I'm too hungry to go all the way upstairs for clothing. So, it's either magic flower pants or I eat naked. It's not as if the kids haven't seen a naked man before.”
Cries of “Daddy!” came from the dining hall and I realized that the other men had left us to our discussion.
“Fine,” I huffed and used my territory magic to transform the flower into a pair of jeans. “The kids may see naked people all the time but I don't want them thinking it's okay to come to the dining table naked. I'm trying to set some boundaries.”
“Good luck with that.” He pulled on the jeans and lifted an eyebrow at me. “They're a little tight.”
“You want magic jeans? I want Magic Mike.”
Viper's grin turned wicked as he pulled me close. His bangs, cut in that long, billionaire bad boy swoop, fell forward as he leaned down to kiss me. The kiss, instead of getting passionate, turned into a hug. His arms wrapped around me as he buried his face in my hair.
“I didn't dream,” Viper whispered. “It was as if I were nothing. But my last thoughts, before the cold took me, were of you. Regret for how I'd left things and hope that I'd have a chance to make it right. I love you, Vervain. I havealwaysloved you.”
“I love you too.”
“But if you want me to strip later, I think you'd better make these jeans a bit looser,” he teased. “Or I'll look ridiculous shimmying out of them.”
I laughed and ran my hands over his perfectly rounded ass. Under my fingers, the material expanded—just enough to give his family jewels some room to spread out and relax. Viper sighed in relief and lifted his head.
“I don't know how guys wear those things,” Viper said as he took my hand. “Every second took me closer to turning into a female.”
“We don't want that,” I muttered. “I'm strickly dickly.”
Viper stumbled to a stop and laughed uproariously. When he finally managed to catch his breath, he said, “Thank goodness for that. It's hard enough dealing with a bunch of other men, adding women to the mix would be a level of complication I'm simply unable to deal with.”
“You and me both, buddy.”
We walked into the dining hall, then down to the other end of the table where my family was congregated. Fallon, Samantha, Zariel, and Austin were there as well, having their breakfast with my children. I suppose it was dinner for Austin, but I wasn't sure what the hell it was for me. I'd been across time zones and time itself so often recently that I couldn't remember what day it was, much less what I last ate. Not that it mattered, I was too hungry to care. But I needed to do one thing before I ate. I grabbed a napkin from the sideboard and transformed it into a Hermes Birkin handbag in rose gold. I plopped it down in Sam's lap as I passed by her, and she squealed in delight.
“Thank you for looking after my babies without complaint.” I slid into a seat. “I love you, Sam. I couldn't do this without you.”
