When those beautiful peepers managed to focus, Qhuinn brought his glossy hand to his mouth. One by one, he licked his fingers, drawing them in, savoring them, extending his tongue and running it up his palm.

Blay moaned and came hard, ejaculating all over his own abdominals.

Which gave a male something to clean up, didn’t it.

But that was going to have to wait while he—

“Oh, God,” Qhuinn grunted as he found another release of his own, his head falling back, his eyes squeezing shut, his body doing what it did best.

Which was showing his true love exactly what the male meant to him, and how beautiful Blay was.

Daddy?”

As Z opened the door to his bedroom suite, the little voice brought a smile to his face, even though the night had been full of things that were far from happy. Yes, Balz had survived. And yes, the house had been patched up. But for so many reasons, Z’s soul was tossed and turned, an ocean that was raging.

And yet that one word, spoken in that voice?

Zsadist lowered himself down to his knees, even though he wasn’t yet over the threshold of his family’s private space. Suddenly, though, he didn’t care who might see him in this moment when he was so vulnerable.

Besides, he knew nothing else but what was coming across the antique rug at him.

Darling Nalla, sweet, darling Nalla, who was toddling and babbling and living her very best life, was walking toward him, her arms outstretched, her legs chugging along, her healthy body tilting from side to side. The very best part? She was beaming at him.

As if they had been separated by a century, instead of a mere hour or two.

He still couldn’t believe it. He still couldn’t believe that he and his shellan had created this miracle together—and just as wondrous was the fact that in spite of every ugliness inside of him, in spite of the filth that lurked beneath his skin, even with the slave bands that were tattooed around his neck and on his wrists, and his hideous scar . . .

“Daddy! Love you, Daddy!”

With total abandonment, Nalla threw herself at him, knowing he would catch her, secure in the faith that he would always protect her, ever keep her safe. As his huge arms went around her small, warm body, he was gentle with the pressure.

“Daddy!” In response to his embrace, her arms wrapped around his neck and squeezed tight, her soft cheek against the side of his face. “You’re back!”

Every time she saw him, she spoke in exclamations, as if his return to their suite, her bedroom, the house, the dining room, the playroom, was the single most exciting thing that had ever happened in her entire life. He kept expecting her to get over this, bracing himself for the time she got used to him or maybe didn’t love him with such distraction . . . but it didn’t seem to be happening.

He wasn’t aware of having shut his eyes until his lids opened.

Across the room, Bella was leaning back against the bureau, her arms linked over her chest, her face cast in a dreamy way.

Like the sight of him with their daughter was her favorite thing in the world.

And instantly, his seas calmed, the churning waves easing.

Z stood up, transferring Nalla’s weight into the crook of his arm. Kicking the door shut, he went over to his shellan. As he approached, she lifted her lips, and as soon as he was in range, he dropped his mouth to hers.

With a shudder, he remembered Balthazar flipping off the side of the house and falling down to the ground. Then he saw the male’s extremities twitching, the gloves patting at the snow, the soft shoes that had found those crevices in between the stones kicking at the base of legs that otherwise did not move.

The final image was of the snowflakes, few and far between, that drifted down onto the open eyes that stared out of that frozen face.

“What time is it?” Z asked roughly. Not that he really cared.

“Last Meal is coming soon. It’s about five?”

“I’m hungry,” Nalla announced.

Z smiled at his daughter. “Well, then, let’s go down and get you fed.”

“Yay!”

More with the hugs, and as Z closed his eyes again, he found himself back outside in the cold, hearing what Balz had said as he’d come back from wherever he had been—

Right back open with those lids. Yup. He was not shutting the damn things for any longer than a blink right now. And maybe for the next five years.

“I’m ready to eat, too,” Bella said as they headed for the door.

Stepping out into the Hall of Statues, Z smelled the fresh plywood from down in the sitting room, but there were other scents on the air, too, aromas of well-cooked food reminding him they were all going to get through the storm. In fact, they had gotten through it. Things were raging outside, the wind ferocious and the snow no doubt falling by inches that would turn into feet. But they were safe and warm and dry—all who lived in the house, not just his own little family.

Downstairs in the dining room, people were gathering, and as they came up to their three seats, he passed Nalla off to Bella.

“Where going, Daddy?”

“I’ll be right back.” He touched his daughter’s cheek and then smiled at his mate. “Just going to check that no one needs any help.”

“That’s a good thing to do,” Nalla said gravely. “Then you come back.”

“Yes, I’ll come right back.”

As he walked off toward the pantry, the lie stung, but he told himself he wasn’t going to be gone long. This was just . . . a compulsion he hadn’t felt for a very long time.

One that he knew he better act on or there would be no rest for him.

The steel door into the basement had recently been upgraded, and it was painted to look like the old wooden ones that filled the jambs in the kitchen and the pantry: But for the pattern of bolts around the various panels, you might be fooled into thinking it was made of ash like all of the others throughout the house.

As he went to enter the code, he was glad that the doggen were all too busy getting Last Meal on the table to pay much attention to him—which meant he only fielded four inquiries about whether he needed anything, and one nervous drive-by from Fritz, who was apparently checking that the four no-thank-you’s Z had given were in fact what he’d meant. As always, it was like wading through a morass of hospitality, and in the past, this obsequious obstacle course had driven him insane. Now, he understood it was just the way of the doggen and he was used to it.

The steel portal was like a barricade, and he put his shoulder into the effort of opening the damn thing, the well-greased hinges offering no protest at being called into service. The descent down the steps was a familiar one, and when he got to the lower level, he knew his way through the rabbit warren of spaces. V’s forging room was down here. So were the massive furnaces. And the storage areas.

The latter was what he was looking for.

Each family had their own unit, the lineup of closed doors unlocked because even though everyone in the mansion knew everybody else’s business, privacy was respected.

His was the one on the far end, and there were motion-activated lights along the ceiling that woke up as he went along the concrete hallway. The smell was damp air and the minerals in the groundwater that was right under the poured floor. The second he took notice of the musty scent, he felt bad, as if he’d betrayed Fritz in some way.

If that doggen knew there was any humidity down here? He would hit this hall with a fleet of dehumidifiers and enough hot water and suds to scrub down a naval carrier.

When he got to the door to his and Bella’s unit, he took a deep breath and didn’t waste time opening it up. No amount of hanging around was going to change what was in it.

Another light came on inside as he crossed the threshold.

Not much to see. Seasonal clothes for Bella, packed in plastic containers that had been vacuum sealed. Seasonal clothes for Nalla that were likewise put away, but probably wouldn’t be worn again because she was growing so fast. No seasonal anything for Z. He wore the same muscle shirt, leathers, and leather jacket no matter the weather.

The only time he mixed shit up was with his socks. Sometimes they were black. Sometimes they were white.

Call him a party animal.

There were a couple of boxes of study books that were Bella’s. Quilts that had been brought over from her farmhouse. A sofa and chair from there that were draped with drop cloths.

He thought of that property that Bella still owned, the one that was next to what had been Mary’s condo. It was so strange. But for the random proximity of those two pieces of real estate, so much would never have happened: Mary had met John Matthew through her work at the local suicide prevention hotline. Bella had known what John was, even though Mary, as a human, had not. Then the three of them had been brought in to the training center, where Mary had met Rhage, and Z and Bella had met, and John Matthew, an orphan in the human world, had found a set of loving parents in Wellsie and Tohr.

Now, years later, John Matthew was a brother and had found a mate in Xhex. Rhage and Mary were mated and had adopted Bitty. And Z and Bella were parents. Wellsie was gone, though, and that was a loss that would never go away. But Tohr had another love in Autumn, although not as a replacement for his beautiful first shellan. There were others who had entered the Brotherhood’s world as well, like the Band of Bastards, and the Chosen.

The Scribe Virgin, gone.

The Lassiter era, commenced.

Yet for all the changes, the past was still in the shadows.

Z went to the back of the storage unit, to a Hammermill box that had previously held ten reams of printer/copier paper. The lid was not taped down, the corrugated cardboard forming a sturdy enough seal—and it wasn’t like anybody was liable to poke around with it.

Bella knew what was inside.

As Z knelt down to the hard floor, both of his knees cracked, and so did his spine. His fingers trembled ever so slightly as he reached forward. The resistance to opening the box was slight and overwhelming at the same time.

Putting the lid aside, he peered in, the light from the ceiling flowing over his head and shoulders and creating an outline of him in shadow on the wall.