Page 162 of The Hunger
I grinned, gave him a push, and took off running.
Behind me, a howl rang through the spring air.
Seven years later…
* * *
“Mom, Dad’s making me wear this,” Tenna said with a pout.
I looked over at her, noting the pink dress she had on.
“It’s very pretty.”
“I don’t want to wear it. Grandma Nikky says that if we were meant to wear clothes, we would have been born with them like Leaf was born with fur.”
Her little brother, having heard his name, let out a high-pitched yowl, which set off a chain of howls inside our home.
“What did Grandpa Jason have to say about that?” I asked, used to the noise.
“He said that modesty is a virtue and that covering something precious makes it a gift. Do I have to be a gift?”
“Yes. Until you’re at least seventy-five,” Fenris yelled from the other room.
“Good,” she shouted back. “Grandpa Piepen said I’m already sixty-one.” My five-year-old daughter crossed her arms angrily.
Fenris poked his head around the corner and looked pointedly at my rounded belly.
“That one better be another boy.”
“The father chooses the gender,” Maddie said, setting her hands on her hips. “Grandma Nikky told me and Auntie Laura so.”
Born only a few months after my half-sister Laura, Maddie spent a lot of time with her closely aged aunt and my parents. Dad taught them basic primary school skills, such as reading and writing, while Mom worked at the club. He adored his time with both of them and tried to keep the succubus knowledge exchange to a minimum. But Maddie still learned plenty.
“I won’t survive,” Fenris deadpanned after a glance at his oldest daughter.
“What happened to the free-spirited man who said he’d be fine if I chose buffet-style eating for the rest of my life?”
He fully stepped into the doorway, his arms filled with the soon-to-be two-year-old twins while Leaf, our almost-four-year-old, clung to his leg.
“Woman, you get enough to eat. Look at all these kids.”
I grinned at him.
“You mean the ones who aren’t dressed for Grandpa Piepen’s party at Auntie Megan’s?” I asked.
Leaf yipped and hopped off Fenris’s leg.
“I’ll be right back.” He raced away with more grace than a human four-year-old would have managed.
The kids loved Megan and Oanen. Over Christmas, Fenris had teasingly said it was due to the closing age gap between Maddie and Megan. With each of my pregnancies, she’d grown more and more aware of how she was stuck at seventeen while Oanen and the rest of us continued to age.
When she’d said she was ready to move on to the next phase, I’d happily agreed to “endure” yet another pregnancy. As an only child himself, Fenris had willingly agreed six kids would be a perfect number. I wasn’t sure if I had his optimism that it would be another single pregnancy. I felt huge. Although, Megan was just as big now.
I took one of the twins and wrestled him into an outfit. Fenris finished first, shouting and high-fiving Forrest. I wrinkled my nose and licked Flint’s.
“It wasn’t a race,” I told him.
Ten minutes later, the seven of us were in the van and headed to the marshes. A swarm of brownies waited by the reeds as we parked. One familiar face flew slowly toward me. At one hundred and five brownie “years,” he was the longest-lived brownie in their recorded history. A history he had them start recording when he and Merri formed their brownie Council years ago.
