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said, smiling
politely. “I’m used to drinking wine, but I like single malts, on
occasion. Do you have any Laphroig?”
    “Ten year or fifteen year?” my stepfather
said imperiously. “Cask strength, quarter cask, or regular?”
    “Sweet,” Lash hissed with a wide smile. “I’ll
try the fifteen year and the cask strength. I’ve only ever had the
ten.”
    My stepfather widened his eyes at Lash’s
snake fangs. Forcing a smile, he led them both over to the bar.
    I took a long swallow of my wine. Please,
God, let this evening go well.
    * * * *
    “I think it went well,” Danial ventured to me
hours later, as we sat on my couch, Ghost and Darkness sleeping at
our feet. “I’m sorry if you were ill at ease.”
    “Dev was right to come. My mother will
tolerate him once she knows everything, even if she’s irritated
with me for having his child. She’ll love my babies, of
course.”
    “I’m glad there wasn’t a scene. I was sure
your mom would find out about ‘everything,’ as you put it so
well.”
    “She confronted me in the kitchen,” I
admitted. “She was curious about why they came tonight, but never
before now.”
    “What did you tell her?”
    “That we couldn’t bring Lash before because
he can’t hide what he is. That he was Dev’s best friend, and we
were waiting until they accepted Danial and Theo to have your
family visit.”
    Danial nodded. “Well done, even if Lash isn’t
what I consider family. What did Devlin want? He followed us to
your house to kiss you goodnight.”
    “To assure me that he would behave himself,
that he liked my parents, and that he was looking forward to them
becoming part of his family. Nothing bad.”
    “Good. Rest,” Danial said, holding me close.
“You need to keep up your strength, Sar.”
    “I’m just glad we got a vacation before you
got so busy.”
    “Me, too,” he said, satisfied. He hugged me
close. “Me, too.”
    * * * *
    Two more weeks passed quickly.
    On the last day in March, I put the finishing
touches on the final guest room at Hayden. Putting down the brush,
I surveyed the room.
    Pride washed through me. I’d taken my time
doing the guest bedrooms, and all had come out gorgeously. Each
room had patterns on the ceilings, done with rollers. While none of
them were as elaborate as Danial’s night sky ceiling with all of
its constellations, each one was eye-catching. The purple room had
blue, blue-violet, and light gray on the ceiling in swirls. The
orange room, a.k.a, the flames room, had a similar one with red,
yellow, and light orange on the ceiling. I’d done others as well:
green with a gold and shades of brown and tan ceiling, and dark
gray, with a blue sky and clouds on the ceiling, similar to the one
painted on Elle’s ceiling years ago. At Devlin’s request, I’d done
the last four rooms in shades of gray, with glazed ceilings all in
white and gold and silver.
    That had left one final room, this one. For
my finale, I had gone all out, doing the walls in metallic silver,
with glitter all over the ceiling. When the overheard light was
lit, the entire room shone. Today, I’d finished up the last of the
pearl trim.
    Congratulating myself on a job well done, I
washed my brush in the adjoining bathroom. This afternoon, after
lunch, I’d get started on Hayden’s gardens. There wasn’t too much
time left before spring. And being pregnant, the more time went by,
the less and less I’d be able to do. Thankfully that restriction
wouldn’t apply to baking and sewing.
    Serena and I had become good friends in the
few weeks I’d known her. She was a decent baker now, so it was on
to a new skill. To my dismay, no one had eaten the baked goods she
left out for general consumption. I guessed that the other women
who lived at Hayden had told their mates not to, and consoled
myself with her assurances that some of her patrons who had been
privately gifted with her creations had given her a lot of praise
for her efforts.
    Our first sewing