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“No matter where we go?”
Sebastian wasn’t sure he liked the sound of where his mate was going. “Perry,” he said in a warning tone.
Perry disregarded it. “Please answer. Can you keep me and the children safe wherever we go?”
“Yes, but only because I will not allow you to endanger yourself or our family. Not even if I am there beside you.”
“Will you allow us a trip to the park?”
Sebastian thought of how vulnerable they would all be. Nine souls he needed to guard and only one of him. It was the stuff of nightmares. Nevertheless, he wanted to make Perry happy.
“Give me a day,” he conceded. “Or two. I’ll see what I can do.”
* * *
It ended up being three days. There was travel to arrange. Plans to disrupt. Hoards to secure. But in the end, they all came, just as Sebastian had asked. All that was left was for Sebastian to inform Perry that their plans could finally proceed.
He looked all over the house and finally found Perry in the atrium, sitting next to his tortoise. The creature had become quite massive over the last half millennium and was much larger than Perry, although that wasn’t much of a feat. Despite Sebastian’s attempts to put some meat on his omega’s bones, Perry had stayed slender all these years, although never as miserably as he’d been when they’d first met. Pake, however, had grown into a formidable creature that even Sebastian would pause before trying to lift.
He was, in a word, a boulder.
An ancient, plodding boulder.
One who spent most of his time sleeping, but who was doted on all the same by Perry, who loved him to the moon and back.
Perry did not look up when Sebastian entered the room, but he no doubt knew he was there, as Sebastian had brought along the whelps, and they were a noisy bunch.
As the children flew across the room to join their father and his tortoise, Sebastian called out to his mate. “My love, I have a surprise for you.”
Perry did look up then, but his eyes were dreamy, as if he’d been lost in a fantasy. “What sort of surprise?”
The children all settled around him and began to stroke Pake’s moss-covered shell. Pake stretched his neck to look at the whelps on one side of him, then the other, before affectionately rubbing his head against the nearest whelp, Hadrian, who laughed and returned the gesture.
“The good kind,” Sebastian assured him. He came to stand by Perry and took his hand, lifting him up. Perry, ever sweet, did not resist, and allowed Sebastian to lead him across the atrium toward the door.
“Where are you taking me?” he asked.
“The blue room,” Sebastian replied. It was Perry’s favorite parlor. “Come along, boys. Leave Pake be. It’s time for the surprise.”
Very little was able to pry the boys away from Pake when the tortoise was awake and active, but this did the trick. All eight of them scrambled to catch up, tripping over themselves in excitement. Even Cornelius, who was the most serious of the bunch.
“You’re being very mysterious, Seb darling,” Perry noted.
“For only a few minutes more, I assure you.” Their small parade came upon the door to the blue room. “I have been hard at work to grant your request, and have found a solution we all can live with.” He bent down and looked at the boys. “Would you like to go to the park?”
A deafening chorus of yeses followed. Maximus went so far as to punch the air. It was all too much. Sebastian held up his index finger in warning and the boys quieted at once.
“Now,” Sebastian said, “you must listen closely to me. There are rules. No wandering from the playground and going off on your own. Any whelp who tries will forfeit his dessert tonight, and I’ve heard rumors it’s chocolate cake.”
The boys let out an appreciative and slightly awed, “Oooh.”
“If you are told to do something, you do it. When it is time to go home, there will be no whining. Do I make myself clear?”
Eight small, dark heads nodded solemnly.
“Good. Now it’s time to reveal the surprise.”
Perry laughed. “I don’t see what more you could give me. You’ve already given me exactly what I wanted, dearest.”
