“Lesya is normal,” Kirill said firmly.
“I know,” I said. “She is. For a shapeshifter. But you also know what I mean. We didn't get as long with her as a toddler as we have with the twins.”
“Da.” Kirill slid some eggs onto plates, then added slices of steaming bread. He brought two plates over, set them down before Az and me, then went back for his. He brought a jar of whipped butter back with him and his food. Setting everything down, he said, “It's both relief and regret.”
“Better than having a bunch of little ones terrorizing us for years,” Azrael said.
“I think we could handle them,” Odin said as he came into the room from the right-side tower, the one furthest from us. He headed into the bathroom, tossing a, “They're still sleeping,” over his shoulder.
One by one, my other husbands appeared, and we were able to have a peaceful breakfast without the kids. We had just finished and were sharing delighted grins, when the tower door on the left opened and the four kids appeared, sleepy-eyed and still in their pajamas.
Lesya was in the lead. She went up to her father and leaned against him to stare at his empty plate. “You ate without us?”
“You zink ve should have starved for you?” Kirill kissed the top of her head and eased her away so he could stand up. “Sit down, kotyonok. I vill make you some breakfast.”
Lesya sighed and slid onto Kirill's abandoned seat. Meanwhile, Vero went to his daddy and climbed up on Trevor's lap. I grinned to see him there, peering calmly over Trevor'sclean plate. He looked so much like his father that it was as if Trevor was sitting with a very lifelike doll of himself.
The twins were more lively than their siblings, jumping off the tower steps to fly over the table before landing behind a couple of empty chairs. They scrambled up onto them and stared at me expectantly.
“Juice?” I asked them.
“Yes, please,” Dominic said.
All I got from Sebastian was a nod.
“Vero? Lesya? Do you want some juice too?” I stood up and headed to the fridge.
“Yes, please,” they said in chorus.
As Kirill cooked pancakes and my other husbands distributed the leftover meat onto the children's plates, I poured glasses of juice for the kids. Fruit punch, but the good kind, made with real fruit and without any added sugar. They did not need extra sugar.
The kids perked up pretty quickly, the juice performing like coffee for them. Then we got them back upstairs and dressed for the day. By the time we made it to the first floor of the palace, Zariel was already outside playing under the watchful eyes of her parents. My kids hooted and ran for the play castle to join the werelion girl. The rest of us went to sit with her parents.
“We need to visit Hermes this morning,” I said to Samantha. “Can you watch the kids?”
“Yup.” She saluted me with her coffee mug. “No plans, as usual. I love my life.”
“Hermes?” Fallon, Sam's husband, asked. “Are you friends with Hermes now?”
“Not exactly. But Pan asked us to help. He's had something important stolen.”
Fallon sat forward. “No.”
“Yes,” Odin said. “We think the trickster may be back.”
“Up to his old tricks, as it were,” Re said with a grin. “Honestly, it couldn't have happened to a more deserving god.”
I snorted.
“Get it all out now,” Odin said. “I don't want us bickering with Hermes when we get there. We'll never get anything done.”
“I know my dad hasn't been the best to you,” Pan said as he came out onto the drawbridge/veranda. “But he's not a bad guy.”
“Oh, hey, Pan,” I said with an overly bright smile. “We know that. He helped us look for Lesya, and that makes up for a lot of things.”
“Zat vas before he advertised zat you had lost your godhood,” Kirill said.
“If I remember correctly, you weren't so nice to V during that time either, Kirill,” Pan said.
