Silas

Havoc stomps into the room, his silver eyes glowing with power. A power no one other than us and Moon know about. Some of his other fathers might suspect, maybe even all of them do, but they allow him to hide the truth.

“He’s so fucking stubborn! What the fuck did we even do to make him bail? Why won’t he answer our calls?” my son demands, and I pause. How does he know Wilder chose to leave? Chaos has been so angry with her mother, thinking Moon sent him away to an Academy so he could learn control.

We lied to all of them so they wouldn’t go looking for their brother and find trouble.

“Don’t look at me like that. Of course I knew! I know everything.” Havoc rolls his eyes, and I lift my brow. Clearly not everything… “Fine, a lot. I know a lot,” he rectifies.

I tilt my head in acceptance.

“It has to do with his eighteenth birthday. And Chaos. Or is it our fault? Fuck!” His power bursts out of him and slams into me. I’m tossed across the room and slammed into the wall of my study.

“My goodness,” I grunt.

“Fuck. Dad, I’m so sorry!” Havoc sprints to me, his eyes and skin still glowing. We expected the combination of Moon’s DNA mixing with ours would result in powerful and unpredictable children. We were correct.

Pierce is probably the one with the most control. Wolf isn’t far behind. Up until recently I would have claimed Chaos was the most controlled, but…well…that’s up for debate now.

I allow Havoc to help me stand, but much like his other fathers, I’m immortal and hard to kill.

It hardly even stung, mostly it’s my pride that is wounded. Then again, my magical defenses don’t respond to my children. If I did sense a threat I would never hurt them, not even to save myself.

“You’ll need to be more careful about that at the Academy, but you know I’m okay. Let's sit and talk.” I direct my son to the lounge and take a seat, waiting for him to do the same.

“How am I supposed to protect everyone, if they keep fucking splitting up?” He deflates into the couch, and I sigh in understanding.

“You’re not. You wait until they ask you for help. You learn to let them figure things out for themselves. You watch as much as you can, and you make sure they know you’ll have their back no matter what.” I stare right at him as I speak, chuckling when he groans dramatically.

“What do I even say to that?” he complains.

“Oh, I don’t know. You could try, ‘Wow father, you are so smart and so wise,’ something like that.” I smirk as he drops his head back, groaning again.

“I’ll pass.”

I snort. “I can’t blame you. Now, why don’t you relax and repeat after me? ‘My siblings are stubborn, but strong. They will ask for help when they need me, and I will allow them to grow on their own without my magical manipulations.’”

“I’ll chill. If they need me, they’ll tell me,” he grunts. Not quite what I said, but I guess that’ll do.

“This will all get more difficult before it gets any better. That’s just life. But you seven will always have each other, that includes when one of you goes off on your own for a while. We’re a family. We protect each other, even if that looks like doing nothing sometimes.”

“Stop being all wise and shit. It’s annoying.”

“Is that not why you busted my door down? You were just with Mayhem. Where’d he go?”

“Why do you think Mom let you guys name us Mayhem and Havoc?” His abrupt change of subject is an attempt to dodge the question about his brother, but I let it slide.

“Because Kili is mildly unhinged. He took one look at your brother and said Mayhem. Mom’s eyes lit up, and she simply nodded. With you I suggested several other names first, until you used your magic to dislodge Stone from your mother’s arms and I said he’ll cause Havoc wherever he goes. She smiled and started calling you Havoc from that moment on. I’d suggested Terrance.”

“Terrance!” Havoc sits up abruptly, eyes wide. “Thank fuck for Mom then. Damn.”

After that we fall into a comfortable silence, right until he jumps up and runs out of the room.

I head for the bedroom in search of my heart-bonded. I need to feel her skin against mine.

Kili

I was going to head to my mate’s side, but instead I find myself outside, shifted into my Shadow Wolf. I’m restless and nervous. Frustrated. On edge. I’m not sure why until Mayhem appears. Everything I’m feeling must be him projecting all that to everyone around him.

Not one to be outdone by his sister or father, rather than a shadow wolf like my own, he’s in a shadow dragon form. The vastness of our children's powers is extremely impressive. He’s not a true dragon like Chaos, but seeing as this form is born from shadows, it's his preferred one.

Once he sees me, he shifts his form into a wolf like mine. I find it incredibly lame that I do not share this ability.

We take off into the woods, heading for our favorite spot. I’d found it our first week living in this palace. I visit it often to quiet my mind when I don’t want to bother Moonlight.

Mayhem is faster, stronger, and sometimes bolder than I am, at least in this form. He also has the benefit of not being mentally insane. He realized at a very young age that I was slightly different from his other fathers in that way.

He started calling me monkey butt to prove that he was himself to me. It was wildly entertaining when he was younger. He hasn’t said it in years. I don’t blame him, children grow up and grow out of things they once enjoyed.

The moment we reach the waterfall, Mayhem jumps right in head first. When he appears above the surface, he’s back to his silver-headed self.

I do the same, and when I look at him, he’s frowning.

“You’ll have to let him figure these things out on his own.”

“Fuck that. Wilder is just being a jackass,” Mayhem snaps.

“Maybe, maybe not. He could be going through something you will never understand.” I am keeping things vague for a reason. I’m not going to tell Mayhem, or any of my kids, what Wilder’s dealing with because it’s not for me to tell them.

If Wilder wants them to know, then he’ll tell them. And right now, he very much does not want them to know. That’s the real reason he left. He couldn’t take them learning what he feels is this huge secret. It doesn’t matter that Moonlight, and Wilder’s other eleven dads, have tried to tell him that none of us care.

But he sees everything differently. He always has. I can’t tell Mayhem how fucking sad it makes me that my oldest son views himself as an outsider to this family. I have spent years trying to make sure he feels included and loved the same as the other kids. That obviously got worse when Wilder turned eighteen.

Things have been rocky with the other six since Wilder left. Obviously, they blamed Moonlight, which was what she wanted. We all say it was our plan, but to be honest, some of our original plans were to hunt our son down and drag him back home.

I tilt my head back and float, waiting for Mayhem to process what I just said.

“How bad could it be? What the hell could my big brother be going through that I couldn’t possibly understand?” Mayhem slaps the water, letting out a loud and frustrated sigh, though it’s more of a shout.

“Mayhem. Do you think he would refuse to tell you if it was something small? Think of all the moments you’ve shared with him over the years, all the mischief you little shits have gotten into. Has he not shared with you in the past?”

“Of course he has! That’s why this makes no fucking sense! He told me about the time he traveled to the Elven Realm to try and steal a fucking…” His words cut off, and I feel him glancing over at me.

“Oh, come on. Give me some credit. Of course I know what he was doing in the Elven Realm at sixteen.”

“You’ll forgive me if I neither confirm nor deny what happened. The point is, there was a time when he’d share fucking everything with us. Where he was going, who he went with, what the fuck he was getting himself into. But now, he’s just gone!”

I can hear the pain in my son’s voice, and the urge to take that from him is strong, but there’s truly nothing I can do at this moment. I can try to reassure him and tell him everything will work itself out eventually, but I know he doesn’t want to hear that right now.

“You’ll just have to accept that this is what he’s doing right now, there’s not much you can do about it. Remind him you love him, that if he ever needs you, you’ll be there.” I swim over to him, and rather than letting him mope in these feelings, I dunk his head under the water.

He pops back up sputtering.

“What the fuck, dad!” he grumbles. I splash him in response. He’ll have to be an adult soon enough, far away from his family, and out of our reach. We’ll keep an eye on them, of course, and if things go too south we will intervene, but they have to grow and learn for themselves.

But I can do this.

Give him a moment to feel like a carefree kid just splashing in the water with a father that loves him beyond measure.