Chapter One

“I love my children. I love my children. I love my children,” I chanted, hoping the mantra would sink past my urge to murder the fruit of my lions—I mean, my loins. Ugh, that's an awful word—loins. Great, I just added revulsion to my murderous rage.

“Silence!” Odin roared.

The children, none of whom were Odin's progeny, went still, their eyes wide and locked on my husband. In case you aren't caught up with my sitch, I have seven husbands and children with four of them. Three of those children live in the Faerie Realm with my Fey husband, Arach. But the other four brats—I mean adorable little lights of my life—live with me and my other six husbands in the God Realm. Not that I don't live in Faerie. I do. I am everywhere at once—bwahahaha!

All right, so I'm not all-powerful, though I am a goddess. I'm able to be in multiple realms at the same time thanks to my Fey father's Ring of Remembrance which allows me to travel through time. The ring is supposed to be used to relive a faerie's memories. It takes a person back in time, but you can't change the past. You just experience it again. Relive it so you can refresh your ancient memories. However, there's a loophole. If you go to a realm during a time when you weren't there and therefore had no past to relive, you could function freely. So, I bop back and forth between the realms, returning seconds after I left so that I essentially never leave. It can be a bit mind-boggling, but I've been working with the magic for years and it's only once bit me in the ass. In my defense, that one was all on Arach .

But I digress.

Lesya, my daughter by Kirill; Vero, my son by Trevor, and the twins—Sebastian and Dominic, my sons by Azrael, all gaped at their Uncle Odin. Not because he had shouted—they were in one of those moods where shouting didn't affect them—but because the King of Asgard had invisible hands, or maybe arms, binding them. They struggled against the unseen hold, shoulders shimmying and, in the case of the twins, feathers rustling.

I laughed my ass off. And it's a significant ass, so it took a lot of laughing to get it off.

“Mom!” Lesya shrieked. “What's happening?”

“I've had enough of you four disobeying us,” Odin said while I continued to laugh. “One of you gets started and then the others fall in line as if disobedience were contagious. It's disgraceful!”

I laughed even harder. Ever since Odin shaved his distinguished beard and revealed the beautiful baby face he'd been hiding beneath, it was easy to forget how old and powerful he was. There was a reason he had worn that thing for so long. Facial hair—worn in the right way, mind you—can give a man a certain amount of gravitas. But with or without the beard, Odin was still the King of Asgard and the supreme god of the Norse Pantheon. He didn't take shit from anyone. Not even children. Especially not children. There's a reason they call him Allfather.

“Mother, this is so uncool,” Vero said.

Uncool. Vero's new favorite word.

I gasped upright, got my amusement under control, wiped my tears away, and said, “Baby, you are uncool for using the word uncool. It's cheurgy these days. Update your lingo.” I snorted a laugh. “You're so cringe, baby. ”

“And you're giving main character energy right now, starlight,” Viper, who did a slightly better job at keeping current with the pop-lingo, said with a smirk.

Tossing my hair, I set a hand on my hip and struck a pose. “That's because I am the MC. Duh. Look around.” I held my smirk for two seconds before bursting into laughter again.

“If you two don't mind, I'll just go back to parenting,” Odin said.

“Oh, yeah, sure, babe.” I sauntered over to him and kissed him on his gorgeous jaw that, in the words of Lady Gaga, went on for days, darling. Then I whispered in his ear, “I've never seen you use that magic out of bed. Well done.”

Odin's lips, set in a firm line, twitched as he slid his peacock-colored stare my way. “You thought I could only use the magic for—” He glanced at the kids, then added, “Playtime?”

“No, it just never occurred to me that it would have so many uses.”

“Um, excuse me?” Vero prompted. “My nose is itchy!”

“Are you done behaving like a pack of wolves?” Odin demanded.

Vero blinked.

Trevor snorted. “Uh, you wanna try that again?”

Odin grimaced as he realized his mistake—Vero, as Trevor's son, was a Froekn. Otherwise known as a werewolf. So, my husband amended his question. “Are you done behaving like ruffians?”

“What's a ruffian?” Sebastian asked.

I snorted. “You, my darling. At least sixty percent of the time. ”

“What's sixty percent?”

“A lot,” I said dryly.

Sebastian nodded as if this made perfect sense, then said to Odin, “I can't stop being a ruffy-in, Uncle Odin. I'm sixty per tent it.”

I burst out laughing again.

“Vervain!” Odin snapped.

“What? He's sixty per tent. He just can't help it. He's drawn that way.”

Odin rolled his beautiful eyes. “We're never going to make it to the fundraiser in time.”

Ah, yes. The reason for this particular tantrum-fest was a fundraiser on Earth. It was being held at the Golden Citadel and that alone made humans froth at the mouth to get their hands on tickets. No one cared that the price of the dinner was insane. I'm talking more than a car. A nice car. And they lined up to pay it. Not literally, of course. The people who could afford those tickets did not line up for anything. They had people for that.

I wish we had people to handle the children. I had a nanny to help with the kids in Faerie. I don't know why we didn't have one in the God Realm. Maybe because Samantha kinda played the part. She watched the children when we had god business to attend to. But she wasn't a nanny. She was a friend. I couldn't just shout for her help and expect her to come running. But I also had six husbands in the God Realm. So if the seven of us couldn't wrangle the kids, a nanny probably wasn't going to make a difference.

Back to the ruffians. I mean, ruffy-ins.

“We'll be fine,” I said as I patted Odin's shoulder. “Azrael's already there, hosting. He'll keep the guests happy until we arrive.”

“Yes, I know.” Odin grimaced at the twins. “If you recall, that's what started this round of excitement.”

I turned back to the kids. “Do you want to go to the party or not?”

“I do!” they all cried.

Normally, we wouldn't take the kids to a fancy party on Earth. But this was a fundraiser for the Wild Fey children. One of them had been kidnapped recently—or fake kidnapped, rather—by a trickster god who swore to have good intentions even as he made us play his game. The thing that really annoyed my husbands was that the trickster—who now had possession of Katila's Pasha, Jerry's holy tablets, and the power of all the Yamadutas of Naraka—really had helped us with that stunt. Humans who had been against us and saw the Wild Fey children—kids who'd been conceived when the Wild Magic had roamed the Earth—as monsters, now supported us and those kids. Especially the children. The kids had become nearly as famous as Azrael in his Faerie God form. They were celebrities.

And we were milking it.

On their behalf, of course. The profits from the fundraiser would be divided equally among the Wild Fey kids—put into trust funds so they'd have it to live off of when they became adults. It wasn't as if they had great job prospects. I mean, at this point, they could make paid appearances on talk shows or the like. But who knew what would happen in the future? It was smart of Az to bank on their fame now and get them set up for later. He really was a good dad.

“All right, then,” I said sternly. “You need to finish getting dressed.”

“Too tight!” Sebastian said .

Simultaneously, Dominic said, “Okay, Mommy.”

They were both part Angel, but they'd also been born when I was the Faerie Goddess. Long story. Basically, we weren't sure what kind of mix my boys were. But whatever it was that brought out the rascal in them, Sebastian had more of it than Dominic.

“If you don't wear the suit, you can't go,” I said to Sebastian as Odin released the children.

Lesya and Vero, who were old enough to dress themselves and should have been old enough not to be throwing temper tantrums, started putting on the last pieces of their outfits without a word. For Vero, it was his tailored jacket while Lesya had to get her satin flats on her feet. Yup, that was it. The twins, however, only had their underwear on. Specifically, Underoos—Iron Man for Sebastian and Batman for Dominic. They liked those superheroes because they didn't have magic. To them, that made the characters more impressive. Oh, and no, I don't think they make Underoos anymore. I made them with territory magic, going by my childhood memories.

Sebastian scowled at me but when I crouched in front of him and held out his pants, he set a hand on my shoulder and stepped into them. Odin did the same for Dominic, and we quickly got them dressed. Or as quickly as possible for dressing kids with wings. Their clothing had to be made to accommodate the joints at their backs, but that wasn't a problem with my territory magic. Underoos or tiny suits with wing slits—it was all the same to me.

“Lesya, I'm very disappointed in you,” Kirill said as he took our daughter's hand. His Russian accent made his tone sound even harsher than it was. “You are eldest. You should set good example.”

Lesya's huge blue eyes, the same rich shade as her father's, widened as she looked up at him, and her lower lip trembled. “I'm sorry, Daddy.”

Kirill buckled under that sad stare, but I cleared my throat, and he bucked up instead. “You are young lady now,” he went on. “You should be helping vith your siblings, not adding to mayhem.”

Lesya nodded, and a tear slid down her cheek.

Kirill sighed and crouched to wipe her cheek. “Don't cry, kotyonok. Just listen and do better.”

“Okay, Daddy.”

“You hear that?” Trevor said to Vero. “What he said. Do better, son. You're too old for tantrums.”

Vero grimaced, scratched his nose, and looked at me.

“What your fathers meant to say,” I took over, “is that the next time this happens, you will be spanked and privileges will be removed.”

“What's priv-villages?” Dominic asked.

“Privileges are things you like to do,” I said. “Like playing outside. Or flying.”

The twins gaped at me. To take away their right to fly would be like taking away their right to speak.

“That's right,” Odin said. “You will be punished. We don't have time for such measures now. But in the future, we will.” He narrowed his eyes at the kids.

Lesya and Vero grabbed their fathers' legs while Sebastian and Dominic rushed to me. I chuckled as I smoothed their dark hair back. They were handsome boys, with those black locks grown out to their shoulders and bright green eyes. The adult suits added to their adorableness, but I was their mother, and I could look beyond their cute faces.

“You get a pass this time,” I said to them. “But only this time. Now, come on. Let's go.” I picked up Sebastian so whoever helped didn't have to deal with the trouble twin.

Re, who'd been hanging back and watching the drama from the kitchenette table, set down his wineglass and came over to pick up Dominic. He slid his golden stare at Odin to say, “I think you'd better give them some space, Krampus. I'll take Dom.”

Odin—who some say influenced the Santa myth (but definitely not Krampus) grimaced when Dom clung to Re's metallic neck, but said, “I don't care who takes them as long as we get downstairs in five minutes.”

With those words, we herded the children to the elevator. We had to split up into two groups, but we made it down within Odin's five minute time limit. And then we were off to Lexington, Texas and the only Fey land on Earth.