Chapter Six

I slept in as late as I could the next morning. As a mother, that usually meant around 8 AM. And that's very, very lucky. But with the party wearing the children out, I got to sleep until 10. It was magical. I woke to the smell of coffee and baked bread, making it even more wonderful.

Stretching, I sighed, then sat up and looked over at the kitchen where Kirill was at the stove and Azrael was sitting at the table, sipping a cup of coffee.

“Good morning,” they said in harmony.

“Good morning.” I rolled out of bed on the bathroom side, which was opposite from them, and kept the momentum going, taking me into the bathroom. My legs stayed stiff and straight until they warmed up.

Closing the door behind me, I yawned, then went to do my morning business. After washing up, I pulled on my fuzzy robe—hung on a peg near the door with my husbands' robes—then went to join the guys in the kitchenette.

“Wow, some time to ourselves,” I said as I accepted a cup of coffee from Kirill. I kissed his cheek. “Thank you, babe.”

“You're velcome,” he said. “And, da, babies still asleep. Hopefully, zey vill sleep all morning.” He winked at me.

“They're not babies anymore,” Az said as I joined him at the table. He leaned over to kiss my cheek. “Our boys are getting big. ”

“Yeah, and that's with them maturing normally compared to the others.” I grabbed a sausage from the platter of assorted breakfast meat on the table.

“Lesya is normal,” Kirill said firmly.

“I know,” I said. “She is. For a shapeshifter. But you also know what I mean. We didn't get as long with her as a toddler as we have with the twins.”

“Da.” Kirill slid some eggs onto plates, then added slices of steaming bread. He brought two plates over, set them down before Az and me, then went back for his. He brought a jar of whipped butter back with him and his food. Setting everything down, he said, “It's both relief and regret.”

“Better than having a bunch of little ones terrorizing us for years,” Azrael said.

“I think we could handle them,” Odin said as he came into the room from the right-side tower, the one furthest from us. He headed into the bathroom, tossing a, “They're still sleeping,” over his shoulder.

One by one, my other husbands appeared, and we were able to have a peaceful breakfast without the kids. We had just finished and were sharing delighted grins, when the tower door on the left opened and the four kids appeared, sleepy-eyed and still in their pajamas.

Lesya was in the lead. She went up to her father and leaned against him to stare at his empty plate. “You ate without us?”

“You zink ve should have starved for you?” Kirill kissed the top of her head and eased her away so he could stand up. “Sit down, kotyonok. I vill make you some breakfast.”

Lesya sighed and slid onto Kirill's abandoned seat. Meanwhile, Vero went to his daddy and climbed up on Trevor's lap. I grinned to see him there, peering calmly over Trevor's clean plate. He looked so much like his father that it was as if Trevor was sitting with a very lifelike doll of himself.

The twins were more lively than their siblings, jumping off the tower steps to fly over the table before landing behind a couple of empty chairs. They scrambled up onto them and stared at me expectantly.

“Juice?” I asked them.

“Yes, please,” Dominic said.

All I got from Sebastian was a nod.

“Vero? Lesya? Do you want some juice too?” I stood up and headed to the fridge.

“Yes, please,” they said in chorus.

As Kirill cooked pancakes and my other husbands distributed the leftover meat onto the children's plates, I poured glasses of juice for the kids. Fruit punch, but the good kind, made with real fruit and without any added sugar. They did not need extra sugar.

The kids perked up pretty quickly, the juice performing like coffee for them. Then we got them back upstairs and dressed for the day. By the time we made it to the first floor of the palace, Zariel was already outside playing under the watchful eyes of her parents. My kids hooted and ran for the play castle to join the werelion girl. The rest of us went to sit with her parents.

“We need to visit Hermes this morning,” I said to Samantha. “Can you watch the kids?”

“Yup.” She saluted me with her coffee mug. “No plans, as usual. I love my life.”

“Hermes?” Fallon, Sam's husband, asked. “Are you friends with Hermes now? ”

“Not exactly. But Pan asked us to help. He's had something important stolen.”

Fallon sat forward. “No.”

“Yes,” Odin said. “We think the trickster may be back.”

“Up to his old tricks, as it were,” Re said with a grin. “Honestly, it couldn't have happened to a more deserving god.”

I snorted.

“Get it all out now,” Odin said. “I don't want us bickering with Hermes when we get there. We'll never get anything done.”

“I know my dad hasn't been the best to you,” Pan said as he came out onto the drawbridge/veranda. “But he's not a bad guy.”

“Oh, hey, Pan,” I said with an overly bright smile. “We know that. He helped us look for Lesya, and that makes up for a lot of things.”

“Zat vas before he advertised zat you had lost your godhood,” Kirill said.

“If I remember correctly, you weren't so nice to V during that time either, Kirill,” Pan said.

“I had spell cast on me,” Kirill growled. “Vhat is your father's excuse?”

Pan grimaced. “Fine. He was a dick. But he's still my father, and I need you to help me find his Caduceus. Not just for him either. That thing is powerful. We can't leave it in the hands of some unknown god.”

“Yes, you're right,” Odin said. “And we were just about to head to his territory when you appeared. Has Hermes opened the ward for us?”

“Yes, but I decided to escort you just in case.” Pan grimaced. “Dad isn't himself. ”

“Has it gotten worse?” Odin asked.

“It comes and goes—waves of forgetfulness and straight-up stupidity.”

“I thought he was normal without the Caduceus?” I asked Odin.

Odin shook his head. “It's hard to say how the loss of such an integral tool will affect a god.”

I looked back at Pan. “It sounds as if he'll need a chaperone until we find his Caduceus.”

“And you're here,” Trevor said. “Did you leave him all alone?”

“No, my siblings are with him.”

“All of them?” Odin asked.

Pan grimaced again. “Yup.”

“Why is that an issue?” I asked.

“Dad gets around,” Pan said with a lopsided grin. He waved at himself and added, “Like father, like son.”

“Well, he is the Messenger God,” Viper said. “Getting around is kind of his thing.”

“That urge got purified in me,” Pan said. “Pure getting around.”

I rolled my eyes. “And yet, you only have one child.”

“Actually, I have four more sons—Silenus, Lynx, Krotos, and Xanthos.”

“You have . . .” I gaped at him. “Wait. Silenus? Do you mean that drunk donkey guy who hangs out with Dionysus?”

“He's a horse, not a donkey, thank you very much,” Pan huffed. “And he only gets drunk to receive prophecies.”

“He's your son? How did I not know that?”

Pan shrugged. “I raise them then set them free to live their lives as they see fit. I don't hover.”

“A horse,” Viper said. “Makes sense.”

“Why does that make sense?” Trevor asked.

“Because Pan's a faun, right?”

“That's a goat. Part goat, I mean.”

“I thought fauns were part deer?”

“How is that any closer to a horse?”

“Hey!” Pan snapped. “I'm not a faun. I just look one when I choose to. Similar, but not the same. I am simply Pan.”

“Easy, wild man,” Viper said. “You're starting to sound like Re.”

Re stuck his tongue out at Viper.

“Why does that make me feel dirty when you do it?” Viper asked him.

Re licked his shiny lips. “Because I do it right.”

“Can we go now?” Pan asked. “My dad is waiting.”

“Sure, Pan,” I said and waved him inside. “Thank you for watching them,” I said to Sam.

“Hey, that's what you pay me for, remember?” Sam grinned. “No thanks necessary.”

“With these ruffy-ins?” I shot back. “Thanks are definitely necessary.” I waved and went inside with Pan and my husbands. I would have said goodbye to my kids but they were playing and they knew we were leaving. They'd be fine.

We piled into the tracing chamber, clasped hands to form a god chain, and Pan set his free hand on the tracing wall—the one at the back of the room. Most tracing chambers weren't like this. You didn't have to touch anything beyond standing on the floor. But my chamber had originally been just the wall, and I'd kept it out of habit.

As soon as Pan touched the wall, we were pulled into the Aether and sent shooting into another God territory.