Page 92 of A Fate of Blood and Magic (Fated #2)

Chapter

Thirty-Nine

TEDDY

As Kieren looked at the tulips he’d drawn, which we’d placed above our mantel, he smiled. We’d hung wooden tulips Brenton had crafted and painted on either side of the frame.

Although I was eager to go back to Respandora for our small camping trip, I’d wanted to wait for Kieren to arrive. It’d been an entire month since I’d last seen him, and I had about a million questions I wanted to ask him.

“Tell me as much as you can as quickly as you can before Elias drags me away,” I said, casting Elias a sideways glance.

I arched, rubbing my rounded belly as I stretched out an ache on my lower back.

“Do you want to hear about Javi outshooting everyone in archery, about Aidas vomiting on Guenthrie’s boots, or about me training with a broken foot?”

What? I gaped. They wouldn’t. “They made you train with a broken foot?”

“It wasn’t that bad.” He shrugged, giving me a playful smile. “More a broken toe and the top of my foot. ”

“You shouldn’t be training with a broken anything,” I argued, my hands going to my waist.

That was child abuse. Or endangerment at the very least.

“Do you want to hear about how Javier destroyed everyone at the archery competition?”

“I want to know who the hell made you train with a broken foot.” While I didn’t much care to be called a queen, I’d absolutely pull rank and have them stripped of their job.

Kieren tapped his fingers, his eyes taking in my hardened expression.

“I guess Javi was right, and I shouldn’t have told you.

” He brought his hands forward and folded them.

“It was my fault I broke it. I didn’t listen to orders and dropped some gear on my foot.

I can guarantee I won’t make that mistake again.

” His grin turned sheepish. “They sent me to a healer the very next day after we returned from our mock mission. I promise it wasn’t a big deal.

They’re training us to be warriors, Mama Teddy.

If I can’t handle training through a small break, I’m not fit to be a warrior.

” His eyes were wide and pleading. “I want this. I want to be a warrior, and I already have a lot to prove because I don’t speak aloud.

Please don’t say anything or have Elias say anything. ”

I hesitated, mulling over his words, and relented. Fae did things differently than we did, and even if I didn’t agree with certain things, I had to respect it. Especially when Kieren asked for that respect. “You shouldn’t have to prove anything. You can do anything any one of them can do.”

“You won’t say anything?” he asked.

I’d say something to Elias. Not so that he’d speak to any of them but because months ago, we promised not to keep anything from the other.

“Only if you promise me something.” I continued when he nodded. “I want you to show them how wrong they are for misjudging you. ”

He grinned. “I can do that.”

“Elias and I will be gone until tomorrow,” I reminded him.

“If you, Javi, or Aidas need to practice anything—swordplay, archery, whatever—you can do that here. Javi still has his bow and arrows in his room.” I moved my hand to rub my chest, where the pain and longing of missing Javier still lived.

“Donnie and some shifters will be here setting up for our movie night tomorrow, and there are always lirio in the woods. I bet the lirio would train with you if you asked.”

I didn’t ask whether he knew if Javier would be at the movie night. I hoped he would, though. Not for me, but for his sisters who missed him. But, yeah, also for me. I wanted to see him, talk to him. I wanted to see how he was doing.

Even if he stayed, I wouldn’t force him into speaking to me, though. It’d be enough to simply see him.

“That would be kinda great.”

When Elias put his hands on my shoulders, I protested.

“We need to go if we want Kieren finishing before he’s due back at the school.”

“No, but?—”

“He won’t be able to finish if he doesn’t start now.” Elias’s reminder was gentle.

“Would you mind leaving some of your swords out for Kieren to practice with Javi and Aidas if they come here?”

Elias ushered Brenton into our room. A few moments later, they came out with several swords, daggers, and bows and arrows. They placed them on our dining room table.

When Elias motioned me toward the front door, I pointed at Kieren. “I want details on everything when we get back.”

“I’ll think about it,” he joked.

“You’re mean. You know that, right?”

“Teddy,” Elias said, his dimples popping out .

“Leave the poor male alone so he can get to work,” Brenton said.

With a quick wave to Kieren, I let both Elias and Brenton lead me out of the house.

Outside, Donnie and Evander experimented with different white bed sheets by holding them against the side of our house.

Cierra and Ryenne went through the various DVDs the shifters had found at the newest region they’d established while Nate inspected the DVD player and projector.

I was only able to shout a quick greeting as Elias pulled me away from them. While the girls had wanted to come on our small camping trip, Elias and I had decided they should stay with Donnie or Ryenne so that Javier could see them.

For weeks, Alastor, the shifter mages, and I had worked at healing and restoring Respandora.

The forest was now full of Sali oaks and other trees that stretched far and high.

There were several bushes with flowers no one could name, but the fragrance they carried was so alluring we’d had several visits from fae whose homes bordered our land.

Despite their greatest efforts, neither Alastor nor any of the shifter mages were able to help the land covered in that grayish soot. They tried, even having several healers send their healing magic through the snow to the ground.

The angry magic that lived on that particular piece of land erupted with rageful waves of magic that lashed out at any fae close enough for it to reach them.

Alastor couldn’t find a solution for the sick land in the living book, so reluctantly, we all agreed to box it in with both an invisible shield and one made of iron.

It pained me to enclose it, and I hoped that as Alastor continued studying the book, an answer would reveal itself.

But just as he couldn’t find a way to help that piece of land, the living book hadn’t revealed a way to mend Elias’s blood that lived within our babies so that the land recognized the boys as one of their own.

Nor had it told him how to find the orb that was still missing or what was causing the fae’s magic to falter.

Alastor didn’t give up, though, and I knew he wouldn’t.

In spite of the setbacks, Respandora wasn’t just flourishing but growing.

I waved at the shifter mage who’d moved her family into a tent beside the vegetable garden they grew.

Esmerelda’s children tended to the already growing garden while her husband took his goats from one paddock to the other.

Elias and Brenton joined him, talking about the other livestock he intended to bring back from the human realm to Respandora.

“You’ll never guess what Randall brought back from the human realm,” she said, wiping her dirt-covered hands on her jeans.

“Can’t we keep at least one?” one of the older girls asked, her eyes filling with tears.

Curious, I arched my brows up.

“We’re living in a tent,” Esmerelda said, her tone lifted in exasperation. “A tent’s no place for puppies.”

“Puppies?” My heart did a strange dance.

I hadn’t seen dogs, let alone puppies, in almost a year. I figured none of them had survived the winter that came for us.

“Randall found puppies?” I asked.

“He found a mama dog,” Esmerelda said, her eyes alight with something I couldn’t pinpoint. “Soft heart that he is, he brought her back. Not even an hour after she got here, she birthed six pups. Two didn’t make it, but the rest are doing well. ”

“Can I see them?” I couldn’t help the delight that built. But puppies. Sweet, adorable little puppies.

She pressed her lips together, ushering me into her barn. “I was hoping I could convince you to keep them all. I know it’s a lot to?—”

“Yes.” I shouted for Elias. “We’re getting puppies.”

Randall laughed, slapping Elias on the shoulder good-naturedly.

“What does that mean?” Elias asked. He closed the paddock door behind him and Brenton before they followed us into the barn. “We’re getting puppies.”

I followed the small sounds of puppies whining and grunting, then I stepped over the baby gates they’d used to set up the puppies’ pen and knelt beside a sleeping puppy that was various colors of black and brown.

Mama eyed me from the corner, but when she didn’t seem to mind my presence, I lifted the tiny puppy to my face.

“It means Hee-haw’s getting siblings,” I told Elias.

Brenton took a spot next to the mama, who rested her large brown head on his lap with a deep sigh.

When he petted her long snout, she closed her eyes.

Reluctantly, Elias stepped into the pen with me.

When I handed him the puppy, he cupped the small thing in his hand and nuzzled his nose against the puppy’s nose.

I picked up another puppy, this one all white with a black spot over his left eye, and let its small body rest on my stomach.

“Do you want to keep all of them?” Elias asked.

“I want the mama dog,” Brenton said. “When her babes don’t need her anymore.”

“She’s all yours, but you better come up with a good name for her. I think she’s the last surviving dog in all the human realm. ”

“That can’t be,” Elias said. “How could she have become pregnant if she’s the last surviving dog?”

Shrugging, I brought my attention back to the puppy I held. “I think it’d be nice to have a puppy or two. I had some stray cats as pets but never dogs. And look at these puppies, Elias. The girls will be over the moon for them.”

“We can keep two. For the girls, of course.” He kissed the puppy’s little head.

Right, for the girls.