Page 27 of Eight Embers

I smile at him and pat him gently on the cheek. “Don’t know if it will stick, but…yes. Just in time for me to lose every single one of my mates except the three of you. That seems like reckless behavior.”

A knock on my door is immediately followed by it opening with a key, and in walks my brother, then my mother, then every single one of my fathers.

Wil immediately cowers behind me and legitimately whimpers, but he’s so freaking cute. I sway again, once more falling right into Saladriel’s arms, and luckily this time I retain all the bits of information in my head.

“Delaney! They said— woah, where is everyone?”

“She said they were raptured…” Rush explains, looking back and forth between all of my parents, his precious bowl of potatoes, and me. Then he stuffs the remaining couple handfuls into his mouth and turns around so he can finish consuming them without anyone seeing how gross he’s being, holding up a single finger over his shoulder to tell us he’ll just be a moment.

“Raptured? The goddess wouldn’t do that and leave you behind. Unless…” my mom trails off, contemplating something very hard. “No. I’m nearly 90% certain. You definitely would have been raptured, too. Come to think of it, I definitely wouldn’t be here. I’m a shoo-in to whatever afterlife the goddess has in store for us poor wayward souls.”

Rush chokes and then thumps himself on the chest to clear his throat before wiping off his face with his forearm. He also has the decency to brush his hands off on his pants when he finally relinquishes his precious bowl and then puts his hands on his hips while pasting a used car salesman grin on his face. “Hi.”

“Rush, Saladriel, Wil,” I say to my parents as I point to everyone. I go down the line of my fathers I really don’t expect them to remember the names of when I hear a whimper.

I crank my head behind me to the clingy Wil, and he’s got a face of absolute awe as he looks at my parents. I pull him in front of me and wrap my arms around his waist as I prop my chin on hisshoulder, kissing him on the neck where I can reach. “It’s okay, Wil. You can talk to them. I don’t think they’ll traumatize you or anything.”

He falls to his knees but trips, righting himself as he puts his forehead to the ground. I’m taken right back to that night on my balcony when he rushed into my dorm to find me out there in the rain, rendered speechless when Ash informed him who I really was. He’s so cute I could eat him.

“Your Majesty! And Royal Consorts of The Goddess’ Voice! Wilford Murdock, at your service.”

I think he’s actually going to faint.

I sit on the ground right next to him and then tilt him when he begins to tip over. He lands with his head on my lap, giving me an excellent opportunity to study his features and comb through his hair.

“Oh, he is adorable,” my mother exclaims.

“That he is. Anyway. My memories. They just kind of came back to me suddenly…”

No one is even looking at me.

They’re all looking over my shoulder at a very miniature and very adorable unicorn that’s shaking as he hides behind a coffee table leg.

“Did you know he could do that?” Rush asks, head tilted as he crawls towards the frightened palm-sized shifter.

“…No?”

Rush scoops mini shifted Saladriel up and carries him over to me, and he immediately burrows under my hair, peeking through the strands at my parents.

“Delaney…this is…so much more confusing than I thought it would be when we decided to come down here,” my father Foster says.

“Oh yes, it’s constant chaos around here,” Rush says happily, completely unphased by everything.

“Hmm.” My mother shifts her attention back to me, leaning into some of my fathers that crowd her and make her lean on them. They’re all so dependent and needy, it makes me sick.

Fine, you caught me. I kind of want that.

“So…yeah. I was basically mid-make out with Cory when this fuzzy little unicorn—human sized and shaped, that is— bumped into me and everything sort of went fuzzy. I don’t really remember what happened next, it’s like looking through a dream I already had. Something about the infirmary and playing a game and…I don’t know. Then there was this earthquake and everyone disappeared, and here we are.”

“Delaney!” My brother calls from the kitchen. “Why the fuck do you have so much potato shit in your kitchen? Scratch that. I just decided I definitely do not want to know.”

“Ask this one,” I yell back, pointing at Rush.

Rush is eyeing my brother nervously like he’s going to decimate his stockpile or something.

“Wait, they really were raptured?” My father Dax asks.

“They weresomethinged,” I mutter, trying to comfort a Wil that’s starting to breathe a bit more normal and flutter his eyes.

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