“The portal will open again, won’t it?” My voice sounded small, as scared as I felt for my friend, even to my ears.
Elm snuggled closer, throwing an arm over me and in essence also over Kehl. Kehl didn’t seem to mind. “Dace smart,” Elm rumbled. “Help smuggle Maroumak all over places to find Cy and Elm to bring back to our Pru.”
“She did?” Trying to picture that, I couldn’t help but laugh imaging how that might have been accomplished.
“Dace puts mind to it, she figures it out. She find way,” Cy agreed with him.
That made me feel a little better. While I knew Dace was a tough cookie, I also was very aware of the other side of her, the one that startle fainted like a goat. “Maroumak look out for Dace,” Kehl rumbled, his eyes shut as if he’d fallen asleep, breathing nice and even.
“Promise?” I whispered as I placed my head over his heart and closed my eyes.
“All the pinkies promedthis,” Kehl swore.
I had no idea what occurred after that, drifting off shortly after.
The days that followed were slow to hectic, fun to flat out zany. Having three mates was a juggling act but I wouldn’t want it any other way.
It wasn’t much of a shock to learn Dad’s given name was Tabaroth, the human like Lo denaii Celuk had mentioned. There were still so many things I didn’t have answers to and had to make peace with the fact I simply wasn’t to ever know.
It was a hard pill to swallow but that’s life sometimes.
For my own sanity, I chose to focus on the good times with my folks and accept them as they presented themselves to me, as they preferred to live. I would always struggle with their choice to try and keep me separated from my mates but I chose not to let my anger over it consume me. There was no use in it—nothing good would come of it.
They were gone. I let them and their choices, questionable as they were, rest.
Living in the gift that is today, looking forward to tomorrow with the loves of my life, I embraced our new life.
Dace had made this all possible. She’d wanted me to be truly happy. The best way to honor that was just that, allow myself to not only exist but thrive in my newfound happiness.
That’s exactly what I did.
Chapter 23
The Picked-nick
“No peeksing,” Kehl rumbled.
“I swear on all of the Carebears and their cousins, I will not peek,” I swore.
Cy and Elm chuckling in the distance told me this was a joint effort, whatever the heck it was they were surprising me with.
“Cartoon critters with special powers and stories of helpfulness, adventure, and friendship, from our childhood,” I explained to Kehl.
Kehl let out a grunt that said he understood but had questions. He could pick my brain later.
“We go,” Elm announced.
We go where, I was just about to ask when I felt the fabric Kehl had covering my eyes loosen to slip free.
“Tah-dah!” Birch rushed in and flashed me some jazz hands fancy moves while standing over what appeared to be a picnic blanket laid out and a fat basket. The wig-beanie Dace had made me fit his fat head but only because he’d shifted back intohis more human-Lo denaii hybrid form, looking more hairy man than monster sized alien Easter Bunny.
Snatching my beanie from Birch’s fat head, Cy shoved his one minute younger triplet sibling out of the way of what was supposed to be a beautiful surprise picnic.
Elm snarled in warning at him not to ruin it anymore than he’s already tried, as well, but I couldn’t help but laugh at them. This was so much like when we were kids, of the silly, the sweet, the fun times. I loved the reminder.
I’ve admittedly been a smidge moody and melancholy of late. Sunny likened it to finding my burrow, my bonded friends family, which the loss of a burrowkin was often times painful for a bonded burrowkin.
Honestly, it all made perfect sense. I have to force myself to think outside the human in me sometimes. If it doesn’t make sense to me thinking like a human, does it as a being of Creeson— how I wish to refer to my Yeti person side instead of Lo denaii because we are all very much wanted here— or a Lepyr, I have to ask myself.
