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When all is ready, I head for the training room, where my mate works with our children. I can hear their violent little bellows from down the hall, and grimace to myself at how loud they are. While I’ve gone through hours and hours of training with Nassakth, most of mine has been of a more “dutiful” nature. It’s in my best interest to know how to defend myself, so I do it. But my children love battle time. They love training. They love hitting things.
Well…my girls do at least.
I open the door to the war room and gaze in at the sight. It’s like any other day, with my small son seated in a corner, coloring flowers on one of his father’s training plans. His sisters each have a staff in hand, the weapon larger than they are, and are striking at training dummies with a ferociousness that makes their observing father proud.
“Harder, Laina,” Nassakth commands, arms crossed as he watches their movements. “And Elkha, you need more precision in your hits.”
“I’m pounding his face, Daddy!” Defiant little Elkha tells my mate. Her cat mouth (just like her father’s) is screwed up in a scowl of concentration as she smacks the dummy. “He’s a mean man!”
Laina looks over at her sister’s dummy and then attacks it, too. “I’ll help!”
“Girls,” Nassakth says patiently. “You know your lessons. Stay focused—”
But Laina—always the follower to Elkha’s aggressive leader—lets out the cutest little feline snarl and pounces on her sister’s dummy. “Mean! Mean!”
Elkha shrieks with delight and flings herself onto her sister, adding to the dogpile.
My poor mate just rubs his forehead and sighs.
“Enough of that,” I call out, doing my best not to laugh at them. “It’s breakfast time.” I stride over to the corner and scoop up Keth, my sweet son. He shares none of his sisters’ warlike attitudes, for all that he looks the most like his father. Instead, my third-born child is all smiles and light and loves nothing more than drawing…or hugging animals. He smiles up at me with the most gorgeous miniature version of Nassakth’s smile and I wonder for the millionth time how any parent could sell their child into slavery. “I made everyone their favorite breakfast and if you don’t come in the kitchen right now, Mommy’s going to eat all of it!”
The girls squeal and race past my legs, heading for the table. Keth puts his arms around my neck and holds onto me, hugging my torso as Nassakth comes to my side.
“Lessons going well?” I ask my mate, trying not to laugh.
“They have the attention span of a grain-fly,” Nassakth grumbles, pressing a kiss to my forehead as he pulls me close.
“They’re three,” I point out, smiling. “Of course they’re not paying attention. They have all their lives to become warriors. If they want to play, let them play.”
My mate just mutters something under his breath about how fighting IS fun, and I heft my heavy son on my hip and follow the girls into the kitchen, where we sit at the table and eat breakfast together, like we always do.
As I watch my family eat, my heart surges with affection. I watch as Nassakth leans over and helps Keth cut his pancakes, while the girls cover theirs in sticky syrup and then promptly eat them with their hands. They chatter at me about their training session, and when Laina trots over to her father and puts a syrupy hand in his tail, he calmly detangles her, smothers her with kisses, and then hauls her to the sink to wash her hands.
He’s such a good father. Endlessly patient with the little ones, Nassakth always finds time in the day to spend with them, no matter how busy things might be. Right now, the meat-stock are pregnant and giving birth, and the noli back on my farm were recently harvested, so there are a lot of shipments going out and small details to be handled. I normally try to help out where I can, but keeping up with three children and making sure the house isn’t an absolute disaster pretty much takes up my entire day.
Once three little sets of hands are washed, Nassakth glances over at me as I pick up the plates. “You did not eat.”
“I’m fine,” I promise him. “Just not that hungry this morning.”
His brows go down and he watches me suspiciously, then grabs Keth and swings him under his arm. “It is time for more lessons, cubs. Come with your father. I will show you how to operate the bots to make sure the meat-stock are fed.” Nassakth looks over at me and there is a wry look of understanding, a secret sharing between us. “We will leave your mother alone for a few hours.”
As he herds the rambunctious children out to the barn with him, I’m struck by how much I love him, all over again. It’s been almost four years since we got married, a little over three since the triplets arrived, and he still takes my breath away every day. He wants me to have some alone time to myself, imagining me tired or sick (or both) and so he’s taking on the children even though he’s got a million things to tend to.
