A Phoenix Rising - An Untamed Story (Book 1 In Series)

Chapter 34

Wei WuXian leaned back against a tree, bit down on a piece of hay, and watched his older children playing in the cooling sunshine. In the last few months, since the burning of Koi Tower, both Liu and XiaoShu had grown enough to need entirely new sets of clothing, and now it looked like their trouser hems would need to be let down. Again. They were growing like weeds like all children should. A'Yuan, Jin Ling, and a bunch of their friends had traveled to Sanctuary for the Autumn festival, and all of them were playing some sort of touch and run game that involved a lot of screaming and laughing.

He looked down at the infant lying in his arms and smiled, almost dizzy with love. The week before he had traveled to LanLing City to buy out the contract for Liu's mother only to find that the woman had died in childbirth leaving behind this infant, not so affectionately known to her brothel sisters and madam as 'that brat'. Instead of buying the woman, he bought Liu's brother and a nanny goat. Upon his return to Sanctuary, Lan Zhan had simply sighed and wondered aloud about whether or not they were ready to care for an infant. Wei WuXian, however, was entranced with this young one. From his strong grip, to his toes curling when pressure was applied to his soles, to his peeing as soon as his bottom was uncovered, to his gas burp smiles.... "You need a name, little one," he cooed. A particularly loud shriek made the brat shiver in his sleep and he smacked his lips a few times, releasing a large volume of drool. "Silly child." The father wiped the drool with a cloth he had learned the hard way to carry, and turned his attention back to the playing children.

Liu was now up on OuYang ZiZhen's shoulders while XiaoShu rode A'Yuan's. The two younger ones now had stick-swords and were slashing away at the 'enemy'. Jin Ling apparently thought it was unfair that his opponents had 'horses' and he didn't, so he hopped up onto Lan JingYi's back and pretended that he too had a horse.

"Ow! You little fiend!" Wei WuXian yelled out. "Stop biting!" The infant had started rooting for milk and somehow had managed to find his nipple through his robes and was biting it. A soft chuckle had him looking up to see his husband standing half in the sun, half in shade, one hand folded behind his back. "You won't find this funny tonight," Wei WuXian grumbled, rubbing at his abused chest. "This hurts! How do women stand it?"

Lan WangJi ignored the rhetorical question. "It won't stop me, either," the other promised, sending a wave of heat and lust through Wei WuXian's body. Lan WangJi reached down to take the child and gave him a finger to gnaw on. "Let's go get you some milk. Give your poor Baba a break." As he strolled towards their manor, Wei WuXian thought he heard, "Those nipples belong to me. I'm the only one allowed to bite them, do you understand?"

Wei WuXian scrambled up and after his husband. "Are the lanterns ready? Liu says she wants to make one all on her own for tonight...." Receiving an mm for a response, Wei WuXian grinned. "Hey Lan Zhan! Do you remember the lantern we made? Shall I make another one tonight with a rabbit on it?" Lan WangJi's response was only a slight pinking of the tips of his ears.

In the kitchen, Wei WuXian snagged an apple, took a large bite, and then took back the infant so Lan WangJi could heat up the milk. There was a Sanctuary-wide order that the Yiling Patriarch was not allowed to prepare any food. He wasn't even allowed to use a knife to chop vegetables, and the spice boxes were all locked with an anti-WuXian spell. It had been slightly humiliating having several thousand people laughing at his poor cooking skills at first.... The upside, though, was that he just had to casually mention that he might go make something to eat before someone offered him food. One of the first people they hired for the manor was a housekeeper/cook, and it turned out that she was extremely territorial about her kitchen. She reluctantly allowed Lan WangJi the use of a pot to heat milk for the infant only because the child ate every few hours and she enjoyed her sleep.