Chapter 116

SEVEN YEARS AFTER THAT

"Twins don't run in my family – you can't blame me!" I yelled, ducking as my wife hurled a fistful of ice at my head and scooping little Tarin into my arms as I nearly trampled him in my attempt to escape.

"Don't go using the kids as a shield, it's your man bits that got us into this!" Roxy snarled, using a whip of air magic to snatch our two-year-old son from my arms and gently depositing him back in the playroom with his twin brother Rygar.

"My man bits?" I barked a laugh, ducking another ball of ice as it hurtled towards my head.

"You know the boys will have a field day with the word cock if I use it," she hissed.

"Cock," Tarin replied instantly, running back out of the playroom with Rygar right behind him as always. Tarin was wholly his mother's child, full of an impulsive need to find danger and make a game of it. Rygar was mine through and through – he bent the danger to his will and set his brother up to take the fall for any carnage that ensued.

We were in our manor which sat on the outskirts of Skybour Bay at the top of a cliff overlooking the sea, our private beach beyond that and enough land surrounding it that we actually managed to maintain some real privacy here from the pressure of being the royal family. Currently, we were inside, making use of the open plan kitchen and living area while we waited for the rest of our closest friends and family to arrive.

"What's going on?" Darcy asked, letting herself in through the front door and looking at me where I may or may not have grabbed Rygar and placed him on the back of the dining chair between myself and my possibly deranged wife who stood in the kitchen area.

Darcy's belly was so round now that it looked like she might pop at any given moment despite her baby not being due for another two months, and she rested a hand on her bump fondly as she looked between me and her sister for an answer.

"He can't fight back," Roxy growled. "Because he's gone and gotten me pregnant again."

"Which you were excited about until Gabriel showed up," I reminded her, shooting a poisonous look across the room at her brother who was lounging on my white couch with one eye on his wife's Pitball match which was playing on the TV and eating my damn snacks as if he was innocent in all of this.

"I saw the babies," he replied with a mischievous grin which told me he had known about this before today and had waited to tell us until he was here in person so he could watch Roxy lose her shit with me.

"Babies plural?" Orion asked as he followed Darcy into the house. "As in twins?" He looked between Rygar and Tarin for a moment then added, "Again?"

"Yup," Gabriel said, grinning over a fistful of chips before stuffing them into his mouth.

"Wow," Darcy said, looking from the boys, to her sister, to me. "You really don't do anything by halves, do you Darius?"

"Like I've been telling my dear wife, it is your genetics which predispose you to multiple births – not mine," I countered, ducking for cover behind the dining table set for twenty as Rygar escaped me and ran to clamber onto Gabriel's lap.

"Hmm, seems unlikely. I've just got the one bun in this oven," Darcy said thoughtfully. "And I'm pretty sure twins come from the male side."

"Bullshit," I spat.

"Bullshit cock," Tarin said happily, and Roxy scowled at me like that was my fault too.

"Come on, Rox, you love the boys. You can't be that upset over it-"

"I love them alright – and once they vacate the premises, I'm right here for it. But in the meantime, I will once again be playing host to two massive Dragon babies in my womb at once."

Darcy pulled a pained face, clearly glad not to have that particular issue to contend with in her own pregnancy and I broke a smile which was likely not the best move.

"You know I loved it when you were as round as you were tall. It was so cute-"

A fireball took out the curtains behind me as I just about managed to duck it in time.

"Never again," she hissed, glaring at me. "You are never again putting that thing near me after this." She waved a hand in the general direction of my dick and strode away from me, taking a place on the couch beside Gabriel.

I scowled at my brother-in-law who looked altogether too amused by this turn of events, and I could have sworn that he sniggered as he turned his focus to playing with Rygar.

"Hibberty gibbets, it smells like a Dragon popped a duffer in here," a voice announced, and I looked around to find Max and Geraldine letting themselves into my house – apparently none of them cared for knocking these days. Their one-year-old daughter Augustaline was riding on Max's shoulders while smacking him over the head with a cuddly flail. Max smiled between winces and set Augustaline free to run riot with the boys the moment the door was closed behind them.

"She's started influencing," he warned us, claiming a beer from the ice bucket by the kitchen island. "So no one give in to the impulse to get her ice cream all the damn time."

"Oh pish-posh, Maxy, you just find her rumbunctious cuteness too hard to resist. Our daughter is no snaffling Siren, you mark my words. She shall emerge as a Cerberus pup any day now." Max looked inclined to disagree, but Geraldine changed the subject before he could. "Is there a reason why the curtains do smoulder so?"

"Tory's having twins again," Orion said, throwing a handful of water at the blackened curtains while Geraldine fell to the ground with a pterodactyl shriek which soon became a cacophony of joyous tears, plus praises to the stars and my loins.

"See," I said, grabbing Roxy a beer then swapping it for a soda as I realised my mistake and dropping down beside her on the couch with it held out in offering. "Geraldine is praising my loins."

"So you admit that your loins are the issue?" she accused.

"Never."

"What's with all the sobbing?" Seth asked as he and Caleb strolled into my house like it was a free for all too. "I thought this was a death day party?"

"It is," I agreed, looking out the window at the darkened sky and deciding that now was as good a time as any. If anything was likely to put Roxy in a good mood again then it would surely be our traditional yearly burning of a Dragon made out of old sacks along with photographs of my father's smug face. "Come on."

I stood and hoisted Roxy into my arms, ignoring the way she punched my back as I tossed her over my shoulder and slapping her on the ass when she got in a good shot to my kidney.

She cursed like a hell cat while the boys both attacked my legs – on her side as always – and I fought my way to the backyard through a tangle of tiny child warriors.

By the time I emerged outside, I had a twin clinging to each shin and Augustaline thumping the backs of my thighs while Gabriel's kids both took turns whacking me with the nest sticks they insisted on carrying everywhere. But I didn't stop until I reached the huge bonfire that was stacked and awaiting our arrival to be lit.

Tharix stood in the shadows beyond it, his eyes trailing between the members of my family with interest and a smile lifting his lips. The four sayer dragons were predictably with him, one on his shoulder while another clung to his arm and the blue and coral ones had a play fight in the grass by his feet. Tharix had become as familiar as any of my loved ones, but when we all gathered together like this he still retreated as though feeling like he didn't quite belong. It wasn't something that any of us could fix for him though, and I could only hope that one day he would find a true peace that would allow him to put the last of his demons to bed.

"Put me down, jackass," Roxy demanded, and I yanked her from my shoulder and into my arms, dipping her low and stealing a ruinous kiss from those foul lips while the boys echoed her cursing at the tops of their lungs.

She fought me then gave in, biting my lip hard enough to draw blood, and I finally let her retreat with a smile on my face.

"Forgive me," I begged.

"No," she replied predictably.

"Are we all here?" Seth asked, doing a head count and barking at the kids to stop moving, which encouraged them to run in every direction and gave him the chance to take chase - which of course was what he'd wanted.

A whinny drew my attention up towards the dark clouds and I smiled as I spotted the three Pegasuses soaring out of the sky, Xavier in the lead.

They circled us then came to a halt on the lawn which swept away down the cliff towards the sea, and we all talked among ourselves as they shifted and dressed themselves again.

"I thought you were flying with us?" Xavier asked Tharix as he strode back up the hill with Tyler and Sofia right behind him.

"Next time," Tharix said with a shrug, his eyes on the stuffed green Dragon which was perched at the top of the bonfire, awaiting its demise.

There was no grief in Tharix's eyes, nor regret, but just like last year and the year before that, he had gone very quiet during this day. The kingdom-wide tradition of burning the False King and celebrating the peace which had been claimed beyond his demise was of course always both joyous and touched with grief but for Tharix, it seemed to send him into the depths of himself where something clearly haunted him beyond the end of those awful days.

"Darcy, are you ready?" Roxy asked, drawing my focus back to her and I let my attention move to the sack Dragon.

"Always," Gwen replied, stepping between me and her sister with a malicious smile on her face as Phoenix fire ignited in both of their hands.

"Tonight, as we do once a year, our minds linger on the long-departed Lame Lionel," Geraldine warbled. "As there are surely none in this lifetime who might grieve him, we come together on this day – the anniversary of his vanquishment – year upon year and remember him. We think of him like this for one reason alone; so that he may never pass on from The Veil. We wish for his soul to be tethered by the thoughts of the living, so that his suffering can go on and on eternally at the hands of those who fell prey to his evil machinations. So here is to Lionel Acrux – the Fae who shall forever be trapped within the hell of death! The Dragon who burned!"

With a whoosh, the bonfire ignited, the paunchy green Dragon on top of it going up in flames to the excited whoops of the children, and I let myself remember my father and all of his cruelty, smiling at the thought of him suffering for it in the beyond forevermore.