Chapter 27 To Go Awry #2
“She calls him Koko?” My beloved sounded delighted by this, and I found myself fighting my own smile as my phone screen flickered, prompting me to accept a video call.
I tapped the icon immediately, and Seri’s face filled my screen, tear-streaked, but wearing what I recognized as a survivor’s smile. The fierce pride that surged through me caught me off guard.
I could see she was lying in the curve of Casimir’s body. My son sprawled on what appeared to be the floor of Evermere’s entrance hall, his face pale and drawn, eyes closed, one arm wrapped around Seri’s waist even in his unconscious state.
The camera angle widened slightly, revealing more of the scene.
Koa was pressed against Seri’s other side, his expression vigilant, concern etched in the lines around his eyes.
Zane slumped against Casimir’s other shoulder, barely conscious, his face ashen enough to make every freckle seem like a minute bruise.
Even the dire wolf pup was there, curled over Seri’s legs, warily watching everything.
They were a tangle of limbs and exhaustion, a family unit protecting each other in their vulnerability. Something the boys had learned to be simply to survive under my roof.
“Papa-in-law,” Seri said, interrupting my thoughts. “That’s so long to say. I think I’ll just call you the P. I. L.”
“That’s the exact same number of syllables, beloved,” Koa chuckled in the background, his voice tinged with an affection I had rarely heard from him.
“Pill,” came Zane’s weak voice, as gritty as sandpaper.
The sound alarmed me. I recognized the after effects of deep telepathic work layered with what the swan maidens called their “song.” A dangerous combination that could leave my son drained and ill for a long while.
“Please, sunshine, please call him Pill,” Zane rasped, his eyes still closed.
“Just Papa is fine, Seri,” I cut in.
Beside me, Kaori snorted into her linen napkin, her shoulders shaking with suppressed laughter. Sebastian was less restrained; he sprayed his cup of blood across the white tablecloth, coughing and sputtering, and I speared him with a look.
“All right.” Seri nodded solemnly on the screen, but her gray eyes sparkled with something that might have been mischief. “Well, since Koko wouldn’t call to ask, I am.”
She turned the camera, panning slowly across what remained of Evermere’s once-elegant foyer.
The front door had been completely blown off its hinges, leaving a gaping hole where it should have stood.
Shards of glass littered the marble floor.
My grandfather’s grandfather clock, a piece that had survived centuries of war, relocation, and the occasional supernatural attack, lay in splinters against the far wall.
And there, amid the destruction, was Amabel Harrow.
The teenage witch lay unconscious, her body rigid within the confines of a Hexenf?nger, a barbaric, but effective device.
She had also been hogtied with fae cord, her hands and feet pulled behind her back in what must have been an extremely uncomfortable position.
Someone—Koa, most likely, given his thoroughness—had taken no chances with her confinement.
Seri turned the camera back to her face, her eyes wide and innocent in a way that belied the battlefield she had just shown me.
“Do you know a good carpenter, Papa?”
The simple question, asked with such guileless sincerity, struck something deep within me.
This young woman, who had endured years of abuse at her stepmother’s hands, who had been siphoned to the brink of death, who had just survived what appeared to be a magical battle of significant proportions, her primary concern was fixing the broken door.
And she had called me Papa, as I requested. Just Papa, as if I deserved such familial warmth. If my dead heart could still hurt, it would have ached at that moment.
“I’ll dispatch a crew immediately,” I heard myself say, my voice steady despite the turbulence of my emotions. “And I will be there by dusk, daughter.”
Only I knew those words were not merely a practical response, but a solemn vow. It may have been Seri who called me, but I would be there for my sons. I would correct the mistakes I had made with them. I would continue to reach out, offering help and support, even if they spurned it.
I recalled the day they had asked for my help with the Claudio Kane situation.
The distance between us had seemed both insurmountable and yet somehow diminished.
There had been anger, yes, especially from Koa, who had never forgiven me for what he perceived as my callous reaction to his mother’s death, but there had also been something new.
A reluctant acknowledgment that we were, despite everything, still family.
And they had trusted me to guard their beloved while they hunted down the rogue who’d hurt her and still haunted her dreams.
“I’ll tell Brumous you’re coming!” Seri said with a smile. “He’ll be excited. He thinks you smell interesting.”
“High praise from a dire wolf,” Sebastian commented, leaning into frame so she could see him.
“Sebastian!” Seri’s face lit up. “Are you coming, too?”
“Someone has to keep Dad in line.”
I shot him a glare that promised retribution, but there was no heat behind it.
“We need to go,” Koa’s voice came from off-camera. “Cas is already out, and Zane’s going to join him any second now.”
“Fuck you,” came Zane’s weak mutter. “I’m fine.”
“Of course you are. That’s why you can’t even lift your head right now.”
“I’m conserving energy.”
“For what?”
“For telling you to fuck off again in five minutes.”
Their bickering was familiar and oddly comforting.
“I need to take care of them,” Seri sighed. “They’re going to be terrible patients. I can tell already.”
“They are awful,” I agreed, remembering countless training injuries and the stubborn refusal of all three to admit pain or weakness.
Of course, I’d encouraged that at the time.
“Thank you for sending help, Papa, and for coming here yourself.”
“Of course,” I said, because what else could I say?
That I had spent decades teaching my sons to be weapons rather than children? That I had buried my grief over Catalina in coldness and distance? That I was only now, with Kaori’s patient guidance, beginning to understand the magnitude of what I had lost in pushing them away?
“Rest,” I added. “We’ll handle everything when we arrive.”
After we disconnected, I sat in silence for a moment, acutely aware of both Sebastian and Kaori watching me.
“Well,” Sebastian finally said, “I suppose we should get ready to leave.”
“You will remain here. I need someone I trust to oversee the court in my absence. Besides, Mirabelle would pine for you.” I nodded my head toward his cat as she sat on her red velvet cushion, watching us with her judgmental golden eyes.
For a moment, I thought Sebastian might protest, but he only nodded in understanding. The traitor was still at large, and leaving the court without leadership was too great a risk.
“I could take my princess along, of course, but Brummy might terrorize her,” he agreed.
“I’d be more worried about her terrorizing him,” I scoffed, then turned to Kaori.
“I would prefer you stay as well, beloved. For your safety.”
“Not a chance,” she replied, already standing. “I’ve been wanting to meet your sons properly, and this is the perfect opportunity.”
I knew that tone. In the short time we had been together, I had learned which battles with Kaori were worth fighting and which were already lost. This was decidedly the latter.
“Very well,” I conceded. “We leave in thirty minutes.”
As we left the dining room, I found myself thinking not of the destruction at Evermere or the captured witch, but of Seri’s unconscious ease in calling me Papa. And of my sons, not as the weapons I had forged them to be, but as the men they had become despite me.
Perhaps there was still time to be the father they deserved.
#
Seri
I tucked the baby monitor into my pants pocket, its smooth plastic edge pressing against my hip bone. A reminder that in the room behind me, two of my husbands lay unconscious, recovering from a battle they’d fought for me. Because of me.
The thought sent an uncomfortable lump to my throat as I adjusted the device, making sure the volume was high enough that I could hear even a whisper from our bedroom.
I didn’t want to leave them, but Koa insisted we needed a break and fresh air and food.
Brummy lay sprawled in the hallway outside our bedroom door, a living barricade of teeth and charcoal fur. His blue eyes tracked my movements with vigilance, his tail offering a single thump of acknowledgment. I crouched to stroke his head.
“Good guardian,” I whispered. “The best boy.”
He huffed agreement, stretching his neck to lick my hand once before settling his head back on his paws, resuming his self-appointed duty.
I made my way downstairs where Koa was preparing tea in the kitchen. When he saw me fidgeting with the monitor yet again, his expression softened into something almost teasing.
“You know,” he said, placing a steaming mug in front of me, “most people use those to monitor actual babies. Not grown men who could bench press our SUV.”
My small smile grew when my eyes darted to his hair. While we watched Zane and Casimir sleep, I’d woven Koa’s shoulder-length locks into dozens of tiny braids while he read Emily Dickinson’s poems to me, both of us holding each other together.
And he’d left the braids in.
“Well, they’re my big babies now.” I cradled the mug between my palms. “I’m just glad you had a baby monitor in that hoard of gadgets you cannibalize to make your techo-wonders.”
“Zane will pop up fresh as a daisy,” Koa scoffed. “He’s like a rubber ball; he always bounces back. Give him a few more hours of sleep, and he’ll be demanding beer and wings like nothing happened.”
“I made sure we have both. The wings are marinating as we speak.”