Page 67 of Loving Nightmares
I looked down at my five-year-old daughter, who was staring up at me with massive gray eyes that reminded me so much of my flower, and offered her a big smile, unable to hide the amusement in my voice.
“It’s my hobby,” I said, remembering how Arabella told me to explain it. “Your mom loves the gardens. In fact, she’s super happy whenever I make it even bigger.”
“Oh, okay.” She nodded as if that made perfect sense.
“Rose? Honey? Where did you go?” Arabella’s voice rang out from behind us, the early morning air filling with her sweet scent as I turned towards the french doors that led out of our house. It didn’t surprise me that she was up. It had surprised me that Rose was up, though, since usually she slept in late.
“I wanted to see Daddy,” she said happily. “Thank you for breakfast, Mommy.”
So sweet. I swear, I had no idea where she got it from…well, it was from Arabella, obviously, but still, you would think we’d have messed that up a bit by now.
“You’re very welcome. What are you doing out here?” Arabella offered me a small smile and went up on her toes, pressing a kiss to my lips. She looked a bit more tired than normal, but she was wrapped up in comfy clothes and holding a cup of coffee, so I didn’t feel as much of a need to carry her back up to bed to rest. Plus, I knew it was today’s events that were causing her to be tired, so once they were over it wouldn’t be nearly as much of an issue.
“Daddy was telling me how much you love the gardens,” Rose said, motioning to the flower bed that stretched from the back patio all the way down to the riverbank.
Arabella snuck me an amused look as I tried to look as innocent as possible. It wasn’t like there werethatmany bodies in this garden. I still used the other one behind the institute, mostly. Plus, she really did like these gardens, especially once I started growing black roses in them. They were usually in vases all around our house through the summer and early autumn.
Plus, I did agree that the kids needed to be shielded from that type of violence for, at least until they were a little older. I may have been Death, but it was refreshing being around younger souls who didn’t even recognize that as a concept yet.
“I do love them,” my flower admitted before turning to look at the house. “Oh, I hear Elce crying—”
“I’ve got her!” Rose, ever the little helper, ran inside to get her two-year-old sister.
Arabella’s ever-changing pregnancy experience meant that all of our children had very different spreads in age gaps, some much closer than others. With each of the six children we had in the past ten years, every single pregnancy had been different, from the symptoms she experienced to the literal amount of timeshe spent carrying. Like Rose, who’d been born after only five months, compared to Elce, who’d taken eight.
We had determined that it all boiled down to what type of nightmare she was pregnant with, which also always ended up being a surprise. What was never a surprise? The amount of panic all of us felt during her labor and delivery, despite Arabella claiming it was fairly easy. Then again, the woman didn’t feel fear, so…maybe she really didn’t panic.
Our first son, Bax, had been one of the longest pregnancies, coming in right around thirteen months, and when he was born it was immediately obvious that he was an apocalyptic terror. As in he’d literally shifted into a sparkly red cloud of energy and zoomed around the room about ten minutes after he’d been born. It had been both cool as fuck and a bit worrisome. Luckily, Zain had been able to help him shift back, and I knew that the similarity in their power both made him super happy and also concerned him.
Because Bax was really fucking powerful.
The twins, Zeena and Vikril, had been born after around ten months, and when they entered this world we were all slightly confused on what they were, neither immediately exhibiting any outward signs of their future power. That was until we went into their nursery and found a bunch of animal skeletons that they’d raised from the dead and called into their room to play. It was pretty awesome, if you asked me.
Except for the part where Amun claimed that it was because of his magic. Lying bastard. I refused to believe that, because neither our son or daughter turned into mummies, so in my mind they had gotten their magic directly from me.
Around a year or so after the twins, Arabella had found out she was pregnant with Rose, and within five months she had come into this world, making it very clear that she had gotten her powers from Blackwell. I mean, when the kid got mad—which was rare—she turned into a fiery inferno. That wasn’t a metaphor, either—her skin turned to rock, and flames covered her skin.
I think it had scared the hell out of some of them at first, which was reasonable since our daughter had literally been on fire.
Not nearly as terrifying as Elce, though. I would admit that her show of powers had even made me feel a bit of concern, but I could lay direct blame on Ashur for that. One of my favorite things to do.
Ashur had the ability to control elements of earth magic, and he could transform into any animal, so when Elce shifted rather violently into several different animals at once and made her way down the hallway towards in the form of a creature born from her nightmarish imagination, it had been authentically terrifying. Arabella, though, always so damn cool and collected, had simply held our six-month old in her arms and sang a lullaby until she was convinced to switch back. There hadn’t been a hair on her head harmed, but even I could admit it had looked painful.
“Saint.” Arabella’s sing-songy voice pulled me from my thoughts, and I looked down to find that she’d finished most of her coffee and looked far more awake.
“Yes, flower?”
“I’m a bit nervous about today,” she admitted.
“It’s going to go amazing,” I said softly. “You’ve spent two months planning it.” It was Liana’s first birthday, and as we had for all of our kids, we were throwing a huge party and inviting most of the institute, including some god terrors that had managed to worm their way into being considered family.
I actually didn’t mind seeing Eros and Drive—mostly. They still annoyed the shit out of me.
“I just hope it doesn’t rain,” she said, looking skyward. “I know my dad said he didn’t see anything on the radar, but—”
“I’ll kill the rain for you.” I kissed the top of her head as she rolled her eyes at my ridiculous—mind you, funny—statement. “Don’t overthink it.”
“Mom.” Bax’s voice was annoyed as he walked outside. “Elce and Rose woke up Liana. They were supposed to let her sleep.”
