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He’d never been allowed to give his brother a gift. Until he’d seen his identification paperwork a few years earlier, he’d had no idea they had a birthday. It was an estimate and probably not correct, but it still meant something to young men who’d never had a birthday celebration or gift, or even been told thatthey were a year older. Nor had they ever been included in any Christmas celebrations. Harvesting the mint in the hothouse of the main coterie house, and using the dried lavender from the coterie’s gardens, had given him the idea. There’d been lots of dried flowers in the storage area off the hothouse, and he’d seen the resin in the woodworking area. He’d asked, and been allowed to barter extra feedings for some of each, and he’d made his brother a diamond-shaped suncatcher with daisies and some lavender, baby’s breath, and he wasn’t sure what the other flowers and leaves were, but he liked the way it’d turned out.

“Oh. Ezra. It’s beautiful! You aren’t an artist, but youknewhow much I’d like this.” He looked to Dev and back to Elijah. “But we aren’t allowed to have such things.”

“Brooke said it’s just flowers and some resin, no different, really, than putting flowers in oil for body oil. She said if I was an artist, it might be worth something, but since I’m not, she saw no harm in making it and giving it to you.”

“Brooke is bending the rules because she knows they will change in the near future if the two of you stay on the same track you’ve been on,” Dev told them.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Dev had no idea what Genie had gotten him, but she’d been stressed when she found out Brooke had bought him a car. He was guessing it was because her gift didn’t come close to a car, and not because she’d also bought him one.

She handed him a flat box, perhaps six by eight inches, and a half-inch tall. It was wrapped in silver paper he didn’t recognize, which meant she’d bought the paper and wrapped it at home, rather than using the wrapping corner in the craft room here. He’d shown her their workspace and told her she was welcome to it, but she’d apparently wanted to bring it in already wrapped. The fact she’d not only purchased the gift, but also the wrapping paper, made it seemmore.

His name was in beautiful red calligraphy, and he set the label aside to keep.

He neatly removed the paper, and it took him a moment to understand what he was looking at, but it suddenly came to him that she’d bought him a custom-made bed that would easily fit all four of them. She’d sent a picture of his current bed, and the artisan had returned a drawing of what he could create in a similar style, and Devlovedit. There was also a picture of it partially made, and the artisan was carving the wood to give it the details, so it was a huge undertaking. The four columns were even bigger than the columns on his current bed, and the footboard and headboard would have the same reinforced attachment points. The custom mattress had already been delivered, and was waiting at the main coterie house, so when the bed was delivered in another week, they would haveeverything they needed. He turned to the last page and saw that she’d also purchased three sets of sheets, as well as blankets and a bedspread in similar colors to the ones he already had, so it would go with the room. They were being custom made as well, and should arrive within a day of the bed.

He looked up at her in amazement, that she’d pulled this off, that she’d thought of it. “I don’t know how to thank you, not just for thinking of our needs, but for hiring an artisan who is making a fabulous piece of art for us. I knew we needed to do this, but I love my bed and thought I was going to be stuck with something functional when we replaced it.”

“I’d love to put your current bed into the room I’ll have here, so you won’t really be giving it up, if you don’t have something else to do with it,” she told him.

Dev realized he hadn’t told the twins anything, and they weren’t going to be forward enough to ask, so he showed them the original sketch, and the pictures of where it was as of a few days ago.

Everyone had to hug Genie again, and then it was time for her to give her gifts to Ezra and Elijah.

“I guess I cheated a little by purchasing the same gift for both of you,” she told them. “Both are identical except for the note from me, which is personalized, so I’m going to give them together, rather than one at a time.”

She handed boxes the identical size as Dev’s to both cats, also in the silver wrapping paper, and their names in the same beautiful calligraphy script. The capital E on their names were close but not exactly the same, which made Dev ask, “Is that a font you have, or did you write our names?”

“I learned calligraphy from the grandfather who taught me how to waltz.”

“What a wonderful grandfather. I’d love to meet him.” It was probably a little forward of Dev to ask, but she hadn’t outright refused the offer of moving in, so he risked it.

She shook her head. “He was actually my great-grandfather, and he died three years ago. It was a great loss, but I think part of him still lives every time I have an opportunity to use a calligraphy pen. No one’s ever tried to sweep me off my feet in a waltz before, so ya’ll brought him back to me a little with that, too.”

“Razor, the huge guy we met at the Carnival?” Ezra asked, still holding the paper explaining his gift.

“Yes. He taught me, and I guess I didn’t know ya’ll had been trained in bad-assery enough to take down a vampire, or I’d have come up with something else. I’m sorry I didn’t know.”

“He was a baby vamp!” Elijah said. “Ezra just had to take him down and then hold him without getting bitten or clawed. We have no idea how to actually fight! This kicks ass!” He looked at Dev. “Did she get the okay for this? Is it okay?”

“Brooke okayed it,” Genie said. “I didn’t go to Dev with any of it, because it felt like he shouldn’t know what I got ya’ll, either.”

“Brooke told me she’d okayed everything Genie asked for, and that we’d talk afterwards and make sure what was given was what she’d approved of, but I trust Genie, so if Genie says it’s okay, then it is.”

“It isn’t just personalized Krav Maga classes over video,” Ezra said, “but Genie will be there in person with us, so we can see her doing it, too. She’s had the classes already.”

“It wasn’t my intention,” Genie told Ezra, “but Razor pointed out it’ll be like a refresher course for me, since it’s been a few years. I can attest to the fact it really works. Someone came at me in the emergency room in Chattanooga one night, and the muscle memory Razor talked about just kicked in. Thankfully, it was all caught on video or I’d have probably been fired, but theasshole’s fist was headed at my face when I knocked it away and then slammed him to the ground face first. I didn’t even think about it — my body just jumped in and took over.”

“I remember your punch to my face,” Elijah said. “It fuckinghurt.”

“And you completely deserved it,” Dev told him before telling Genie, “I’ll feel better knowing the twins have skills to defend themselves when they’ve earned the right to walk around in public without me there to see to their safety, so thank you for gifting them this.” His little owl knew all the right things to say and do. Would she ever stop surprising him?

The point of the most powerful in the room being the first to open gifts from others and the last to give gifts out, was supposed to be that the Master gave the grand finale, a crescendo at the end.

He wasn’t certain that was going to be the case today, though. He thought he’d done well with Genie, but not being able to get the boys anything physical, a tangible asset, had been hard.

He told Genie, “You’re next in the hierarchy, but it’ll be easier if you get your gift from me last, and if I tell you why, it’s a bit of a spoiler, so I hope you’ll agree to it, but we can make it work if you don’t.”