Page 163 of Phoenix's Fire

Holly snapped up the stuffed thing and immediately raced towards me. "To Kanik!" I told her, aware I was holding the baby.

Holly skidded in her tracks to change direction. Beside me, Saveah chuckled.

"That is definitely your dog," she said. "You know, Tasult wanted one too. He and Kanik used to talk about all the things they could do with them." She glanced over at me slyly. "They always talked about making the lot beside you into a kennel."

"Lot?" I asked, not knowing what she meant by that word.

"The empty land," she explained, pointing to the gap between our house and the next, where the boys were playing with my dog. "Zasen bought it a while back.He said it was for something to do with Moles. A better way to kill them." And she rolled her eyes.

"He really hates Moles, huh?"

She nodded slowly. "Zasen was studying to be a trauma doctor. He thought he'd be able to help with the people who got hurt in the attacks, but then he changed his mind."

"Because of his dad?"

She made a noise and rocked her head from side to side. "Yes and no. The type of doctor was because of his dad, and that's the excuse he uses. But his father died many years before he started the militia. I think it was when Lessa's father was killed."

"What happened to her mom?" I asked, worried she may have been taken.

"Shot when she was a kid," Saveah explained. "So, dead. Lessa's actually how I met Tasult. She and I were friends when we were younger, and she introduced us. Tasult was all but attached at the hip to these guys, so I basically inherited them too, and now I wouldn't trade them for the world."

I nodded, but all of this made me remember something else. "I met Rymar's mother. She said I have a grandfather?"

Saveah lifted her hands, silently asking for the baby back. "We do. Well, maybe not the way you think of one."

"I don't understand."

She shifted her daughter around to face me, then leaned back. "Ayla, most Dragons don't end up married. Being a couple isn't the expected relationship. I mean, it's fine, and no one thinks it's strange, but most people end up in a family."

"Like you and Tasult?" I guessed.

She made a face. "More like Jeera, Brielle, and Irrik. More than two, and it doesn't matter the makeup. Usually, there's only one tailless woman, but not always. I mean, there's no rule on it, but that's just how it often ends up. Then that woman has children with all of her partners."

"Which is why Rymar has a father, a dad, and a papa?"

She nodded. "Exactly. Sometimes it's easy to tell who is biologically responsible for - "

"What do you mean?" I broke in.

Which made her grin at me the way she often did with Tamin. "The man whose sperm fertilized the egg."

"Seed?" I guessed.

"Close enough. See, no matter how many men have sex with a woman, only one sperm will fertilize the egg. That means one man created the child with the woman. That does not mean she only had sex with one man. Sometimes it's one after the other. Other times it's all at once."

My mouth flopped open. "How?"

She giggled and flicked a finger towards where Tamin and Kanik were still playing. "You should ask him when Tamin's not around to hear things he shouldn'tknow yet. But our pawpaw was Grammy's partner, not Mom's biological father. He still raised her, though."

I nodded. "So how do you keep track?"

"Of?"

"Bloodlines, to make sure you're not related!"

Saveah laughed again. "Ayla, we don't have a problem with that. We just know our brothers, sisters, and cousins. Just like you know Tamin's related to you. And Taris!"

Who had fallen asleep. But all of this talk about families and relatives made me think of my own. "My father had many children with many wives," I said. "He married them until they died, so it wasn't the same, but I don't know all of his children. I only know Mom's children. Well, I mostly knowofthem. Down there, the Moles keep records of our relations so there won't be inbreeding. That's how Meri got out, actually. She lied and said her brother was the father of her child - but he wasn't! Callah just told her to say that because the child would be an abomination, so they wouldn't try to keep it."