On the verge of breaking.
“Gods damn it! I will clip your wings!” I roared as Miri did another dive bomb for the high table, giggling her cute butt off.
She was something to see—an Angel-Fairy swooping over the heads of dining fairies on feathered midnight wings dusted in lavender sparkles that matched her starry eyes. Her black hair was getting long, and between the dips and her flapping wings, it would be a mess by the time she landed. Still, it looked amazing against her pale pink dress. Dressed as a fairy princess, she behaved like a damn Pixie, causing mischief wherever she went. I adored her. Usually. This morning, I wanted to throttle her tiny throat.
I flung a hand out toward my daughter, Light Magic blasting from my fingertips. People shouted in dismay as both of my husbands and my father lurched to their feet and cried out for Miri. Sever was off the ground and shooting toward our wide-eyed daughter in seconds, arms outstretched.
But all I'd done was lasso Miri with light.
Even angrier than I was before, this time at my husbands and father, I yanked my baby girl down and into my arms. Sever floated down as well, expression relieved. The rest of the room exhaled with him, and then tense laughter circled, and the Twilight Fey returned to their meal. Miri was giggling too, even as she struggled against the ropes of golden light that bound her wings to her body.
“You are being naughty!” I tapped her adorable nose.
Miri stared up at me with big purple eyes glittering with silver striations. Those eyes were identical to Sever's now that he had some Fey magic in him, and their wings nearly matched as well, only differing in the shade of their sparkling dust. But the rest of Miri was me. Her hair had lost the wispy, feathery quality of a baby's and had grown in thick to curl around her cherub face and over her shoulders in midnight curls. My father said that if you ignored the wings and eye color, she could have been my twin when I was her age. Going by the pictures he had of me, I agreed.
It's hard to see yourself in your child's face and stay mad.
As if she knew it, Miri reached up and laid her palm on my cheek. “Mama, I love you.”
“Oh, you little devil!” I said playfully as I banished the Light and sat down to settle her on my lap. “You know just how to get to me. I love you too, my naughty girl.” I kissed her cheek and then put her in her high chair.
Maybe I shouldn't say Mirielle waslearningto talk and fly. She was actually damn good at both. It was more of a progressing situation now. Just shy of two, she had advanced quickly. Miri could fly like a bumblebee and speak in fullsentences. Her favorites included a form of, “I love you.” I think she liked saying I love you because she saw how much it delighted her targets—be it me, my father, or my husbands. Yes, her targets. She was a master manipulator at the ripe old age of one year. Closer to two years, really. I guess I'm supposed to say 22 months. That whole month thing seems silly to me once you pass a year. But there is a big difference between a year and 22 months, so just saying she's a year old isn't enough to fully explain the huge pain in the ass and absolute joy she was.
“Eat your breakfast.” I pointed at Miri's plate. “And if you leave that chair before you're done, I will wrap your wings in Light for the rest of the day.”
Miri pouted at me. But then she ate her breakfast. Her father was too soft on her. That was pretty much the case with three out of five of my husbands. Only Daxon and Tiernan knew how to properly punish a child. With Daxon, he was kind of the King of Punishment, and with Tiernan, well, it was more Falcas than him. Our son accepted proper punishment when he deserved it. He was a forty-year-old man in a little boy's body.
With Miri settled and admonished properly, I glared at my husbands and father.
My dad winced and gave me an apologetic smile, knowing he had been wrong not to trust me. Killian grinned broadly and shrugged—he knew it too, but he was unrepentant. Sever glared back at me.
“You scared me, Seren,” Severriel hissed at me over Miri's head.
“You . . .” I gaped at him. “What did you think I was going to do, Sever? Did you think I would blast our child out of the air with Light?”
He looked away.
“Son of a succubus,” I growled and stood up. I grabbed a pastry from the plate and my mug of coffee before I walked away.
“Mama!” Miri cried, offering me a piece of her toast.
“No, thank you, baby. I'll see you later.”
“Mama, come back!” Miri smacked her hand on her tray.
I kept going even though it hurt my heart. My heart was already bleeding from the stab of her father's dagger-words. The pain of her cry barely registered over that.
“Seren!” Sever called.
“Let her go, bro,” Killian drawled. “You done fudged up real good.”
“Why? I only spoke the truth?”
“Then it's even worse. And if you don't get that, you need some time to think about it good and hard.”
Killian's words helped a little. At least he understood me. I could always count on Kill for that. Yes, he had jumped out of his chair, but he had realized it was wrong not to trust me and felt bad about it. That allowed me to accept that it was probably a knee-jerk reaction, and I could forgive that. But Sever . . . nope. I couldn't deal. Not with all the other shit weighing on me.
Along my side came a reassuring pressure. I looked down to see Catriona, my Puka bestie. Cat for short. She shook her canine head, fluffy gray fur flying, and offered me loyalty in her big, dark brown eyes.
