Everlasting

Chapter 8

Griffin

The kids were asleep and Margo was off sulking about her mate not being here. My parents and I sat a little distance off on logs we'd rolled to frame our campfire. It was a perfect night, the kind I really wished I could enjoy. It was hard to appreciate the beauty around me when so much of my energy was focused internally.

Dad and Pop were having a stilted conversation about Dad's work, so disjointed and with such long pauses between responses that I knew their real conversation was through the mind link they shared. If they were bothering to try and hide it from me, it must be about my situation. And I couldn't blame them; what else was there to talk about, really?

I was tired, but there was no point in going to bed yet. I'd only lay awake in the dark with no hope of distraction. And then, miracle of miracles, a distraction appeared.

Fen materialized in front of me with his foot almost in the fire. Dad shouted a wordless warning and Pop scrambled out of his seat to bodily shove Fen away from danger. Fen's eyes were wide and alarmed as he processed what had just happened, and then he actually laughed. It was just a shaky little thing, a little heh that was completely overshadowed by the way his eyes remained wide and fearful.

"Fen! Are you okay?" Dad asked in a whisper-shout.

"I'm okay," he said. His voice sounded uncertain. He brushed off his pants, or maybe wiped clammy palms, and nodded to himself. "Yeah, I'm okay."

"Why don't you sit down?" Dad asked, getting up and sitting in the space beside me. Did he do it so he could support me? Or so I could have a better view of Fen while he explained whatever the hell happened earlier when he brought my mate to me and took him away again? Probably both.

Fen sat next to Pop and looked between my fathers. It seemed like he was avoiding my gaze, especially when his eyes fell on me for just a second and he immediately looked down. His fingers twisted together in his lap and he seemed to fold in on himself, just a little.

"Sorry it took me so long to come," Fen said quietly. His voice was even softer than the popping and crackling noises coming from the fire, and I was thankful for my supernatural hearing. "I was busy all afternoon, and then I went home for a while to spend some time with Zale and Amara before she had to go to bed."

Amara being his daughter. Biologically, she was actually the daughter of his husband, Zale, and a princess from a bordering nation. Fen was her adoptive father. I always really, really wanted to ask him how he felt about the whole situation. It seemed to me it would be hard to raise your partner's child. I knew from experience – from the way my fathers loved me so fiercely – that it was possible to care for an adopted child like they were your own. But wasn't it hard to keep a balance? Were there ever times Zale had more say in Amara's life because she carried his blood? Did Fen ever resent that Amara wasn't genetically his, too? I wanted to know so badly, but had always known better to ask.

Maybe if I ever got him drunk, I'd get him to talk.

"How old is Amara now?" Dad asked with that soft little smile he got whenever he thought about kids. It was a wonder there were only four of us.

Fen's answering smile was the mirror to my fathers, and many of the questions I had for him died down. You can't be resentful of a situation that makes you smile like that. "Five, almost six. I can't believe it."

There was no doubting his devotion to his daughter, not when he looked that way just answering one simple little question. Dad looked my way with that wobbly smile he got whenever he was reminded we were growing up. "I know the feeling," he said, and hooked an arm around my shoulders. I leaned into the embrace, grateful beyond words to have him.