Chapter 221

The Mer king came to see us off.

He appeared at the mouth of the cave at dawn, alone, no guards, no escort, his silver blue hair drifting in the slow current, his expression soft with something like regret. The light of the rising sun filtered down through the water above him, scattering in soft ribbons across his royal robes, and for a moment, he simply stood there, looking at us. At Caelion. At the girls.

And then his face crumpled, just a little.

"Please visit," he said, his voice rough. "Whenever you can. You are always welcome here. And do not take Miranda’s offense to heart. She is... she is trying. In her own way."

Caelion looked at him grimly, his jaw tight, his violet eyes flat. "Trying," he repeated.

"Yes."

"Then she should try harder."

The king sighed, but he did not argue. He had no argument to make. He simply reached out and clasped Caelion’s arm, his fingers gripping tight, and then, slowly, he knelt. He knelt in the sand of the seafloor before his son, and he pressed a kiss to each of the girls’ foreheads in turn, one by one, tender and careful. And then he rose and stepped back.

"Safe travels," he said. "My son. My granddaughters. Everyone."

And we left.

We swam toward the mainland, our enormous family trailing through the water like a school of the strangest fish in the world. The children were subdued at first, still tired from the journey, still heavy from the night. But the further we went, the lighter they became. The water grew shallower. The light grew brighter. And by the time we broke the surface, they were bursting with energy, gasping and laughing and shrieking with the sheer joy of being free.

The moment we emerged, they scattered.

They stretched and ran along the shore, their bare feet slapping the wet sand, their laughter echoing off the cliffs. They were happy to be on land again, happy to be in air, happy to be alive. The fathers watched them, laughing, calling out warnings, chasing after the little ones who wandered too far. It was chaos. It was wonderful.

And I held on to Caelion’s hand.

"It is okay," I said softly. "Do not worry. We are going home now. The hard part is over."

He squeezed my hand, hard. "Thank you."

And then, suddenly, the familiar happened.

A hawk swooped down from the sky.

My heart lurched, my body bracing for the familiar grip, the familiar lift, the familiar abduction. But this time, the hawk did not take me. This time, the hawk dove straight for my children, and before anyone could react, it had seized Chase by the shoulders and hauled him into the air.

Chase roared with indignation, his arms flailing, his legs kicking, his golden hair whipping in the wind.

"What is happening?" Leon shouted.

"Chase!" Atlas yelled.

And we all ran.

We ran after the hawk, following it through the trees, through the brush, crashing through the undergrowth until we burst into a clearing near a stream. A clearing I knew. A clearing I had not seen in a very long time.

And there they were.

Alara and Krane.

They were smiling when they saw us, standing in the middle of the clearing like they had planned this all along, arms crossed, eyes bright. And the hawk, the hawk that had stolen my son, came swooping down and dropped Chase onto the grass with an unceremonious thump.

Then she transformed.

A girl. Copper hair, golden eyes, a smirk on her face as she looked down at Chase sprawled in the dirt. She was pretty. Devastatingly pretty, in that sharp, bright, wild way of the hawk folk. And familiar.

Was this the little girl I had met before? Alara’s youngest daughter? The one who had once perched on my shoulder and tried to steal my hair?

Kestrel. Her name was Kestrel.

And then I noticed the others.

Alara’s sons, standing behind their mother, all of them tall and handsome, all of them roughly the age of my cheetah boys, perhaps a few weeks younger. Kristoff. Airent. Nerian. And Cassian. Four boys, all of them grinning, all of them watching the scene with obvious delight.

"You guys grew," Atlas said, smiling.

"Still mischievous too," Chase muttered, glaring at Kestrel as he scrambled to his feet and dusted off his clothes.

Kestrel’s smirk widened. "Oh, chin up, pretty boy. It was just a little flight."

"A little flight?"

"You survived."

"You dropped me."

"Gently."

"You dropped me."

And the adults caught up, and there was laughter and embraces and the noise of reunion. Alara was glowing, her belly round, her copper hair gleaming in the sun, and I noticed it immediately.

"You are pregnant," I said.

She beamed. "I am. Another little one. From Eris."

"Eris?"

"A beast man from the peacock tribe," Krane said, his arm slipping around her waist, his voice warm with pride. "Her second mate."

I blinked, absorbing that. Two mates now. Krane, her most beloved. And Eris, her second. She had found her happiness, Alara, after everything, after the pain and the mistakes and the loss. She had built a family of her own.

We ate together, there in the clearing, catching up on the years. The children played and squabbled and raced. The adults talked and laughed and remembered. And somewhere in the middle of it all, I noticed something.

Kestrel was glancing at Chase.

Again and again. Little looks, stolen when she thought no one was watching. And Chase, oblivious Chase, was glaring at her and muttering and pretending to be annoyed, with no idea at all that a pretty copper-haired girl was staring at him like he was the sun.

A knowing feeling settled in my chest.

Alara’s daughter had a crush on my son.

I sighed, long and deep. At least I still had some time before the smitten girls came of age. At least I had a few more years before the parade began.

A few more years.

---

We said our goodbyes, as we always did, with embraces and promises and tears. But this time, Alara had an idea.

"You are going north," she said, her sharp eyes bright. "To the lion tribe. It is a long journey, and you have so many little ones. Let us help you. Let us carry you."

"Carry us?" I asked.

She grinned, sharp and wild, and shifted.

Her hawk form was enormous, far larger than Kestrel’s, her feathers copper and gold, her wingspan wide enough to blot out the sun. And behind her, her sons shifted too, four great hawks, and Krane, and little Kestrel. A flock. A whole flock of hawks, ready to bear us.

The four boys descended on my four oldest sons, each of them lifting one with ease. Atlas yelped as he was snatched up, then laughed, then whooped with delight as he rose into the air. Chase, Ryder, and Jasper followed, each of them swept up by a hawk, each of them laughing and shouting as the ground fell away beneath them.

Kestrel took the girls. Levy rode on her back, her arms wrapped around the hawk’s neck, her black hair streaming behind her. And the serpent girls, clever girls, shifted into their serpent forms and clung to Kestrel’s legs, their bodies coiling around her ankles, their little heads peeking out. Kestrel did not seem to mind. If anything, she seemed proud of the burden.

Krane took two of my cheetah boys, one in each talon, their small bodies dangling and swinging. And Alara took the third, and me, holding me carefully in her claws while Tavren sat on her back.

My mates shifted too, into their beast forms. Leon and Ravin, the great lions, their golden manes blazing in the sun. Veylan and Eryx, the silver wolves, their coats gleaming. Aureon, the white tiger, his stripes bold and black. They ran along the ground beneath us, their powerful bodies eating up the miles. And Soryn, my serpent, carried Caelion and the three pearlings on his back, Caelion holding the girls tight, their azure hair whipping in the wind.

And we flew.

We flew north, over the cliffs, over the forests and the rivers and the endless plains. The wind rushed past, cold and clean, and the sky stretched wide and blue above us, enormous and beautiful and free. The children laughed and shouted, their voices carried away on the wind. The ground rolled beneath us, closer with every beat of the great wings, the world unfolding like a map beneath our feet.

Hours passed. The sun climbed and began to sink. And then, at last, we saw it.

The vast sky opened before us, and the mountains rose up like sleeping giants, and there, in the distance, spread across a broad green valley, was a village. Tents and longhouses. Fields and pens. Fires burning in the evening light. Smoke rising from chimneys. A pride. A people. A home.

The lion tribe.

We were home.