“Are you sure that’s how the story goes?” he teased.
“Am I telling the story, or are you?” I waited for his head to bob in surrender before continuing. “Sure, he was enthralling, but he was an arrogant, controlling, demanding man who infuriated me by simply breathing.” I smirked at my husband. “He was a total prick until . . . he wasn’t. Your father had a way of getting beneath my skin, and he dug so deep he clung to my whole soul. Your father taught me that my differences weren’t something to hide. So, while I was having my gigantic identity crises, he comforted me and taught me I was beautiful. I figured out I was madly in love with him when I was standing in front of a mirror—moments away from marrying Adam—and wishing it were your father I was about to marry.”
He awarded me with a wolfish grin and whispered, “That was the day I learned she held you inside her. The day I learned she carried my babes, and that in no fucking world, or way, would I allow her to marry anyone else.”
“So, you told her and you two ended up together?” Cade countered with interest in his tone, even as he scooted closer in his seat, almost toppling from the edge with his need to hear the rest.
“No, a bomb went off, and she was kidnapped.” Ryder laughed.
I peeked into my robe, finding my milk-drunk infant asleep. Slowly, I pulled him free of the fabric, and Zander stood and held his arms out. His eyes shifted to the babe and then lifted to mine.
“I have not held my brother yet.” His words came out in a rush, as if he thought I’d withhold the babe from him. “I’ve held the other babes often.” I smiled at his eagerness and carefully handed him Dristan before curling back into Ryder’s warmth.
“Who kidnapped you?” Cade asked me as he watched his brother settle back into his chair.
“My father and his wife, Madisyn, who I had thought was my mother but really wasn’t. They turned me over to your father, who, of course, made a huge production out of showing up, flapping his fucking fairy wings, and giving me a panic attack.”
Cade’s lips parted, and his head tilted to the side as if he were trying to puzzle it out. “Why would your father turn you over to Ryder, though? And why wouldn’t you want that if you were already in love with him?”
I glanced at Ryder, silently asking if he wanted to field this one, but he just smirked, so I turned back to our son. “The first question is a bit complicated, but to answer your second one, I didn’t know it was Ryder who I was being turned over to. He showed up in all his horde-king glory and collected me. It wasn’t until later that he told me I was pregnant, which, of course, I refused to believe at first.”
“And when you did, you still assumed it was only two of us,” Zander stated, holding Dristan against his shoulder and rubbing the babe’s back as if he’d done it a million times. “We hid Kahleena, and you didn’t discover her until they cut her from your corpse.”
Zander’s words made me wince before Ryder coughed and looked at me sheepishly, as if Zander’s words would have upset me. At least we could say they weren’t afraid to tell the world how they’d come into it, bloody and from my lifeless corpse. After a moment, I nodded silently, fighting the tears prickling my eyes. Ryder tightened his hold on me, kissing my head as he sensed my emotions churning.
“That day was the best and worst of my entire life,” he muttered. “I thought I lost your mother, but she left me with you three to heal that pain. Hours later, I found her standing by your cribs, and I almost ended her life.”
“He would have tried.” I grunted, but I ignored him. “I was a motherfucking goddess, and he’d have needed to pack a lunch to handle me.” I grinned at the memories. “The fact that I’d have wiped the floor with your face aside, I decided to play nice. He told me to prove I was me, but, really, how does one prove they are who they say they are?”
“So, what did you do?” Zander asked, waiting for me to continue.
“I did something I’d never done before. I gave up. I dropped to my knees, and I told your father that I surrender, and he knew it was me. After that, we spent hours, just taking in the most amazing creatures we’d ever laid eyes on. You guys were tiny and perfect. Then the realization came that the realm was rejecting Kahleena, and our world crashed down around us.”
“That was when you gathered the fae and led them to the tree. It accepted her, but then war came to Faery, and we were sent away to be protected,” Cade added, exhaling slowly.
“I need you to tell me what happened in the City of Gods, with Kahleena and the mansion,” I whispered, barely loud enough to be heard in the room’s silence.
Zander exhaled a ragged puff of air, and adjusted Dristan in his arms. “Destiny feared that Kahleena would be discovered, and stolen. The mansion hadn’t been opened, or used in over one thousand years, so she had been told. No one knew what waited within it, either. Like Faery and the human world, time moves differently in the City of Gods, and even more so in the mansion. For us, time was sliding by while we learned to fight, spent endless hours studying whatever Destiny wanted us to learn, and—” Zander paused, and Cade chuckled.
“Fuck, Zander. We learned to fuck gods and make them beg us for more.” He snorted, shaking his head while Zander peered down at Dristan. “He doesn’t understand a word we’re saying, asshole.”
“Obviously, dickwad.” Zander absently rocked his brother. “But, yeah, it was wild and shit happened. Add in the parties and the girls, and we fucked up. We let Kahleena down and never apologized to her for it.” He looked up, offering us a pained, apologetic stare.
“Destiny said she checked on her a few times a week,” Ryder corrected, thinning his gaze when the boys slowly shook their heads.
“I know we checked on her a couple of times, but time moves differently there. Shit, time moves differently everywhere we go. Faery is on one timetable, the City of Gods is on another, and then the mansion is on yet another. The mansion, though, we had no idea it was different. At least, not until we started noticing changes in Kahleena. She was reserved and didn’t act as she had when she entered that place. Plus, I spent a lot of time with Aphrodite, and she spun the time, which made it more difficult to decipher how long anything was or lasted.”
“You fucked Aphrodite?” Ryder smirked, and his eyes were bright with some kind of strange fatherly pride.
“She’s a needy thing. I don’t suggest anyone fall between her thighs unless they are prepared to end up ensnared there. When Spyder showed up in the City of Gods, he at least waited until we were done before asking where Kahleena was. Though, I could have done without his pointers.” Zander turned to fully face Ryder. “What the hell is a ladder, anyway? He said I should get one, but I don’t really see how a ladder would make sense—”
Ryder went from barely managing to hold back his amusement to being bent forward, laughing so hard I started to worry he’d pass out. “I’ll have him show you,” my husband said between breaths. I placed my palm over my lips, as if I could physically hold back the laughter. Zander looked between us, and then frowned when he realized we weren’t going to explain.
“Thanks. But, yeah, Spyder freaked the fuck out when I told him where Kahleena was. He left and pulled Destiny from some orgy Ares was hosting to demand she explain what she’d done. That was when we found out that one year in the City of Gods could be anywhere up to a few hundred years within the mansion but that there really wasn’t any way to track it.”