Chapter 225

It had finally happened.

My four oldest sons; Atlas, Ryder, Chase, and Jasper were turning three.

Eighteen in their human forms. Tall, broad, golden, fully grown. Men. Actual men, with sharp jaws and deep voices and hands that had known weapons and work and the weight of the world. They had the easy confidence of warriors who had proven themselves a hundred times over, who had hunted and fought and bled and come out the other side stronger. They had the pride of their fathers, the fire of their bloodlines, the weight of their futures resting on their shoulders. And yet, to me, they were still my babies. My first cubs. My Atlas, my Chase, my Ryder, my Jasper.

They were turning three, and they had asked for a small party.

Raon and Lisa were not having it.

"Small?" Lisa had cried, her hands flying to her hips, her grey hair flying. "Small? These are our first grandchildren! Before Lyle’s children, before anyone’s! We have waited for this day for years, since the moment they were born, and you want small?"

"It is just a birthday," Atlas had said weakly.

"It is not just a birthday. It is your coming of age. It is the day you become men. It is the day the whole pride has been waiting for." Lisa’s eyes blazed. "The whole pride will celebrate. The whole pride!"

The boys had exchanged glances, the kind of resigned look that said they knew they had already lost, that the battle was over before it had begun. And so the celebration was big. Enormous.

A feast, with whole roasted beasts turning on spits, with tables groaning under bread and fruit and honeyed nuts. Fires burning high against the night sky, casting long dancing shadows across the gathered crowd. And the coming of age ceremony, the rite that would mark the passage of the prince’s sons into manhood, watched by the whole village.

Everyone came. Everyone. The warriors and the elders, the mothers and the children, the hunters and the healers. They came from across the valley, from the far fields, from the neighboring camps, to witness the moment. And they brought gifts, and they brought blessings, and they brought the kind of pride that only a tribe could feel for its own.

The night was warm, the sky clear, the stars scattered across the dark like spilled grain. And my four sons stood at the center of it all, golden and beautiful and grown, and the whole pride roared for them.

The boys were awkward about it, shuffling and blushing as people cheered and clapped and toasted them. But they did their best to look appreciative, smiling and nodding and accepting the gifts and the well wishes. Atlas handled it best, calm and gracious. Chase looked like he wanted to sink into the earth. Ryder grinned and charmed everyone. And Jasper ate three plates of food and told everyone it was a good party, which was the highest praise Jasper could give.

I watched them, my four boys, my grown sons, and my heart ached.

They were old enough to have their own mates.

They were old enough to leave.

I looked around the gathering and saw the girls. So many of them, all of them pretty, all of them stealing glances, all of them hopeful. They looked at my sons like my sons were the sun and the moon and the stars all at once, and I felt the sudden, irrational urge to hide them away, to keep them small, to keep them mine.

Ravin stood beside me, watching all four of his sons with a look of pure, smug pride. "They are magnificent," he murmured. "Look at them. My sons."

"Our sons," I corrected.

"Ours," he agreed, but his chest was puffed out like a peacock.

All my mates watched the four oldest with the same proud, foolish expressions. Leon. Veylan. Soryn. Aureon. Eryx. Caelion. Every one of them, beaming like idiots.

And then the ceremony came.

Raon, the great warrior, the king of the pride, the grandfather, stood before all four of his grandsons. "You are men now," he said, his voice carrying across the firelit clearing. "You are of age. If you wish, I will set a mate selection for you. You can find your mates. You can bond."

Atlas did not hesitate. Not even for a breath.

"No, Grandfather," he said, quick and sure. "I want to be single for a while. I have not enjoyed adulthood yet. I am not ready to settle down."

A ripple went through the crowd. Some of the girls looked devastated. Heartbroken. One of them actually gasped.

Raon blinked, perplexed, then nodded slowly. "Alright. And you three?"

Ryder shrugged, easy and casual. "No, not yet. I want to enjoy adulthood first."

"Same here, Grandfather," Chase said.

And then Jasper looked at his grandfather as if the answer was so obvious that Raon should have known it already. "I do not want a mate yet. No thank you." He made a face. "I do not want to have a kid like Levy."

"Hey!" Levy shouted, offended.

"She is too pretty," Jasper continued, unbothered. "I do not want to lose my hair stressing over a daughter like her like Daddy Leon."

Leon turned to look at his son, speechless. "Hey."

Jasper just shrugged.

The clearing went quiet for a beat. And then Raon threw back his head and laughed, a great booming sound that filled the night. "Alright, alright, I get it!" he said, wiping his eyes. "You boys are your own men. You will take your time. Good. Good."

The crowd laughed with him, and the ceremony moved on, and my four sons stood there in the firelight, unbound, unfettered, free.

And I was grateful. So grateful.

Thank god.

They were not leaving yet. Not yet.

They were still mine, for a little while longer.

---

"How does it feel," Layla asked me, settling onto the bench beside me with a cup of wine, "to have full grown sons?"

I looked at her, at my old friend, and felt the weight of the question settle over me. Layla had cubs before I did. She had gone through the coming of age with her older children already, one by one, and she had survived it. Barely.

Her bear cubs, Karo and Kira, were grown now. Kira had her own handful of mates, a whole den of them, and Karo was mated to a female bear beast, steady and settled. Then there was Lydro, her son with her mate Lennox, mated to a lion female and living two valleys over. And Jax, her wolf son, had left with his father for the northern wolf clan, Veylan and Eryx’s clan, to find a mate. Layla was still awaiting the good news. And Roa, Rody, and Romy, her leopard cubs, the ones I had helped bring into the world, had all found their mates too.

It was just her youngest now. Lennon. The foal.

She had done it all. She had raised them, and released them, and watched them build lives of their own.

"Honestly?" I said. "I do not want my sons to find mates yet. I want them to be my babies forever."

Layla laughed, the sound warm and knowing. "That is not possible. And you should be happy. You created beautiful children. Strong, kind, good children, ready to go out and share themselves with the world. And the children they will make, Krys, the children from them? They will be incredible. You will be the grandmother of the cutest grandbabies this valley has ever seen."

I sighed, long and deep.

"No," I said. I do not want that yet. I am only twenty seven. In a couple of months I will be twenty eight. I thought to myself then said to Layla. "I’m still too young to be a grandmother."

Layla laughed harder.

"Young?" she laughed. "You have twenty five children and you think you are too young?"

"Twenty five children is not the same as grandchildren."

"It is exactly the same. Just one step further."

"It is not."

"It is."

"Layla."

"Krys."

We stared at each other, and then we both burst out laughing, the way we always did, the way friends did when they had known each other too long to pretend.

"Your sons will find mates," Layla said, gentler now. "And you will love them, the mates, because your sons will choose well. And you will love their children, because they will be yours. And you will be the best grandmother in the world, just as you are the best mother."

I looked at my sons across the clearing, laughing and shoving and glowing in the firelight. And my heart ached, and swelled, all at once. "Maybe," I said. "But not yet."

"Not yet," Layla agreed.

But it was not only my oldest that my eyes kept returning to.

Across the fire, my daughter Levy sat with her brothers, Sikai and Niku, the three of them a tight knot of black hair and bright eyes, laughing at something Jasper had said. They were nearly two years old now. Two months from being teenagers. Two months from their own birthdays.

And they looked it.

Levy was stunning. There was no other word for it. Her black hair fell in a thick, shining curtain down her back, her dark eyes were enormous and fierce, and her face had sharpened into something breathtaking; the kind of beauty that stopped conversations and made men forget their words. She had grown tall and lean, all long limbs and easy grace, and she moved through the world like she owned it, which she did, more or less.

And Sikai and Niku. They were handsome, both of them, dark and steady and tall, with their father’s face and their father’s stillness. They flanked their sister like guards, as they always had, watching the world with the same cool, assessing gaze.

In two months, they would be they be closer to adult hood.

In two months, they would be two years old.

And I was not ready. Not for the second litter either. Not for any of them.

I watched Levy laugh, watched her throw her head back, watched a group of boys across the clearing go entirely still at the sight. And I felt the familiar ache rise in my chest, the same ache I had felt for my sons, the same stubborn, unreasonable, hopeless longing.

They were growing up. All of them. And there was nothing I could do to stop it.