“For saving me.”
He snorts, then reaches for my hands and tugs me closer. “Female, I’ll always have your back.”
“And I’ll have yours.”
“It’s the three of us against the world!” My father yells out from up ahead.
“Do you have to make it obvious we listen in?” my Uncle Latsil asks.
Grumpy giggles.
Chapter Eighteen
Six months later:
“GODDESS, SHE’S SO adorable. Uncle Lats, you ended up with two girls and two boys. How perfect.”
“And we’re done,” Aunt Joanna says, leaning over her baby curled in my arms. “As precious as she is.” Then she leans in to wink. “Your Uncle Latsil has a big head. My vagina’s the size of a garage from bearing four of his brats.”
Uncle Latsil clears his throat and speaks in a deeper than normal voice. “Nay, ‘tis not from my head, sweet.” He waggles his eyebrows.
“Ack! We kids can’t hear this,” Shalia says, then turns over her shoulder and calls out. “Boys, run outside before you’re scarred for life.”
Her little brothers, Silan and Latjo, come running out their bedroom and streak out the back door… naked as the day they were born.
I blink and shake my head. “Were they—”
Uncle Latsil sighs. “Your father explained skinny dipping to them. I’ll bet he’s waiting for them outside. I better go make sure they understand it’s wrong.”
He gets up and heads out the back door.
It always makes me smile that my dad and uncle pretend they can’t stand each other… but first chance they get, they head out in the same direction to casually bump into one another to hang out.
Aunt Joanna nudges me. “I’ve never been happier for spring so we could see you again. We’re dying to know how it’s going with you and Var.”
The mating has been the best gift my godfather could ever have given me. Now, it finally becomes clear why all the males made such a big deal over my virginity. They wanted an excuse to force who was considered the bastard son of a wicked king to bind with me. “He’s perfect. Life is perfect. The three of us go hunting together sometimes, but”—I lean in to whisper, my eyes on the back door to see if my father will pop in— “King Jacovi’s sister returned home. She’d been mated when she was young and lived with the Sarkuut clan. She left her mate and traveled all the way home. My father found her, exhausted in the woods, and she remembered him.”
Joanna’s eyes widen, leaning forward. “And?”
“Mom! We shouldn’t be asking,” Shally says loudly. “But, Sweet-Knees, if you want to go ahead and share more…”
“How did you get that nickname, anyway?” Aunt Hannah asks.
I sigh. “My father pointed out that despite my numerous scrapes and bruises, my knees were always undamaged. Unfortunately, Denruk and his friends heard and twisted it into something else. Said my knees were sweet enough to be wrapped around a male’s neck. I didn’t understand what it meant back then. They were teens at the time.”
Joanna shudders. “Hideous little bastard. How are his hands?”
My voice is cheerful. “Permanently damaged. Has to rely on others for the smallest tasks. Not that he was big on brushing his teeth anyway.”
“Does he have teeth?” Shally frowns. “When Bakog and I rode through on our way to Serenity, he mumbled a lot.”
“He is missing a few.” I smile broadly, glad that she’d noticed. “You see, Var found out why he and his friends used to taunt me with my nickname.”
Joanna gasps. “He knocked out his teeth?”
I nod eagerly. “And the teeth of his friends, Mitrek and Ugrik. He left their hands intact because technically, they never touched me. They’d only laughed.”
Joanna and Hannah grin and nudge each other, while Hisa and Shally full-out laugh.
