Chapter 166

The leopard cubs were a force of nature unleashed.

Tavren, Kaizen, and Zarek had discovered their human forms with the reckless enthusiasm of children who had no idea their bodies were still new, still fragile, still learning how to work. At six months old, they were wobbly, their legs unsteady, their coordination laughable. But they were steady enough. Steady enough to run. Steady enough to jump. And worst of all, steady enough to wrestle.

But they were not alone.

Niku and Sikai had shifted too. Eight months old, their dark hair wild and their eyes bright with the kind of mischief that only my cubs could achieve. Being older, they had already mastered the basics of walking upright, their bodies sturdier and more confident than the younger cubs. They had been watching the leopard cubs with growing excitement, and now that the little ones had hands instead of claws, feet instead of paws, Niku and Sikai threw themselves into the chaos with the enthusiasm of seasoned veterans showing rookies how it was done.

"Die, villain!" Niku screamed, launching himself at Kaizen with absolutely no regard for gravity.

"I am the king of the mountain!" Sikai declared, standing on a cushion that immediately slid out from under him. He landed flat on his back, blinked, and laughed so hard he started hiccupping.

The seven of them attacked Atlas and Chase. Then when Ryder came along they attacked him as well with the tactical precision of a small, very confused army. The lion boys, delighted to have new playmates who could actually stand on two legs, met them with equal enthusiasm. Within minutes, the main room was a battlefield of tumbling children, shifting forms, and furniture that was definitely not going to survive the afternoon.

"Careful!" I shrieked, lunging to catch a vase as Zarek’s elbow sent it wobbling. "Watch the walls! Watch your heads! Oh gods, Tavren, don’t bite, use your words! Niku, get down from there! Sikai, that is NOT a weapon!"

"It’s a stick!" Sikai protested, waving a piece of kindling dangerously close to Kaizen’s face.

"Everything is a weapon to you!" I yelled back.

They were reckless. Absolutely reckless. The leopard cubs shifted back and forth with gleeful abandon, leopard to boy and back again, as if testing which form was better for causing maximum destruction. Being younger, they stumbled constantly, their human legs shorter and more awkward, their coordination barely existent. Tavren tried to run and fell flat on his face. Zarek attempted to jump and landed on his bottom. Kaizen spun in a circle trying to catch his own tail.

Niku and Sikai found this hilarious.

"Look at them wiggle!" Niku howled with laughter as Zarek tried to stand up and fell over again.

"They’re like drunk squirrels!" Sikai agreed, holding his sides.

But the leopard cubs made up for their clumsiness with sheer enthusiasm and a complete disregard for personal safety. They grabbed at the older cubs, pulling them into tumbles, laughing as they rolled across the floor in a tangle of limbs. At one point, Kaizen accidentally shifted mid-tackle and went from boy to leopard back to boy again in the span of three seconds, ending up dizzy and confused sitting on top of Niku.

"Why is the room spinning?" Kaizen asked, blinking.

"Because you’re bad at this," Niku laughed, pushing him off.

I watched with my heart in my throat as Kaizen tumbled head over heels, his neck bending at an angle that made my stomach drop. "Their bones," I gasped to Ravin, clutching his arm. "Their necks. They could break something. They could snap their necks, Ravin. They’re going to kill themselves."

"They’re children," he said, though his own eyes were tight with worry. "They’re built for this."

"They’re built for breaking my heart," I muttered, wincing as Tavren took a flying leap off the table and landed on Chase with a thud that shook the floor. The leopard cub immediately shifted to his four-legged form, shook himself, then shifted back to human looking proud of himself. "Did you see? I flew!"

"You fell," Chase corrected.

"I FLEW!" Tavren insisted.

Niku, not to be outdone, tried to copy the flying leap and actually managed it, crashing into a chair instead of his brother. He lay there for a moment, then looked up at me with a huge grin.

"Again!" he demanded.

"No!" I said. "Absolutely not!"

Sikai, meanwhile, had discovered that he could make fart noises with his armpit and was demonstrating this new skill with the pride of a concert pianist. The leopard cubs gathered around him, watching in awe as he performed his symphony of rude sounds.

"Teach me," Zarek whispered reverently.

"First lesson is free," Sikai said solemnly.

"I am a leopard!" Zarek declared. "I will be spotted and magnificent!"

"You’ll be spotted trying to make fart noises," Niku predicted.

"That is NOT appropriate dinner entertainment!" I yelled, though I was trying not to laugh.

Finally, when Zarek’s head missed the stone corner of the hearth by a hair’s breadth, Tavren tried to climb the curtains and brought them down on his own head, and Sikai’s armpit symphony reached a crescendo that made even Ravin wince, Ravin and Caelion stepped in. They waded into the chaos like fishermen into a storm, separating the cubs with gentle but firm hands, holding back the wriggling, protesting children.

"Enough," Caelion said, his voice carrying the authority of the sea. "Bath time. All of you. You’re covered in dust and sweat and whatever that is on Tavren’s face."

"It’s jam!" Tavren protested. "I licked it off a plate today," Tavren explained helpfully. "It was Daddy Aureon’s plate. For a snack."

"Why you bringing me into this?" Aureon rumbled from across the room, his hands full of wet cub. "I didn’t tell him to lick my plate."

"You didn’t tell him not to either," I said, turning to glare at him. "And maybe if you put your plate away instead of leaving it where tiny leopard boys can find it, we wouldn’t have jam faces."

"It was a good plate," Tavren said solemnly. "Had sauce. And meat bits. And hope."

"You ate hope?" Kaizen asked, eyes wide.

"Hope tastes like chicken," Tavren declared.

"Niku has it too," Sikai pointed out helpfully, pointing at his brother. "On his ear. And his elbow. And I think some in his hair?"

"I do not!" Niku protested, touching his ear. His fingers came away sticky. He stared at them. "That’s not jam. That’s... that’s..."

"It’s jam," Sikai said. "You slept on the floor earlier for a nap. Where Tavren was eating."

"I thought that was a pillow," Niku said, horrified.

"It was my leg," Zarek said. "I was the pillow."

"Why was Tavren eating jam on your leg?" Niku demanded.

"Because daddy Aureon put his plate there!" Tavren said, as if this explained everything.

"I did NOT!" Aureon yelled.

"Did too!" all three leopard cubs chorused.

"Children," Caelion said, his voice carrying that note of exhausted patience that meant he was counting to ten in his head. "Who wants bubbles in their bath?"

"Me!" all eight cubs shouted, immediately forgetting about the jam conspiracy.

"I want the boat!" Niku yelled.

"I want to be the boat!" Sikai countered.

"You can’t be the boat," Niku said. "You don’t float."

"Watch me," Sikai said, already trying to lie on his back in the water. He sank immediately and came up sputtering. "Okay. I want the bucket instead."

Aureon helped with the bathing, his big hands surprisingly gentle as he scrubbed the cubs clean, pouring water over their heads while they shrieked and splashed. Caelion worked beside him, and together they managed to get all three leopard boys, five lion boys, and the other children washed and dressed in clean clothes.

Niku and Sikai splashed the younger cubs mercilessly, their faces flushed with delight, their dark hair plastered to their heads. At one point, they started a game called "Who Can Hold Their Breath Longest" which ended with both of them coming up gasping and declaring it a tie, while the leopard cubs just stared at them in confusion because they had been trying to drink the bathwater.

"You’re both exaggerating," Aureon rumbled, scrubbing Niku’s back with a brush.

"What’s that?" Niku asked.

"I don’t know...maybe someone who’s cool like us," Sikai answered confidently.

"You guys are not cool, you guys are troublemakers," Aureon corrected. "Now hold still or you’ll have soap in your eyes."

Meanwhile, Soryn had taken the coilings outside, the seven serpents coiled around his arms and shoulders as he showed them the garden, pointing out insects and interesting rocks, his voice soft and patient as he named each thing they encountered.

And Leon... Leon was having a crisis.

Levy had decided, with the stubbornness only a eight month old could muster, that she wanted to sit with Theo at dinner. She had attached herself to his leg, her arms wrapped around his knee, her face set in lines of absolute determination.

"No," Leon said, his voice strained. "Absolutely not. You’re sitting with me."

"But I want Theo," Levy said, her chin lifting.

"He’s not even family," Leon protested.

"He is family mama says so! And he’s my friend," Levy declared. "And I love him. And he smells better than you."

"I smell FINE!" Leon gasped, wounded. "I smell like a lion! A majestic lion!"

"You smell like wet dog," Aureon confirmed from across the room. "Like a bear with a cold who rolled in old fish."

"Whose side are you on?" Leon demanded.

"The side of truth," Aureon said solemnly, then ruined it by sticking his tongue out.

"Krys," Leon begged, turning to me with desperate eyes. "Tell her. Tell her she has to sit with her father."

"Levy," I said, kneeling to her level. "Why don’t you let both Theo and Daddy play with you? Then you can have both."

She considered this, her head tilting, clutching the cloth doll I had sewn for her last week. Its yarn hair was already coming loose and one button eye hung slightly askew, but Levy loved it with the fierce devotion only an eight month old could manage. "Okay. But Theo gets to hold her first. Daddy plays too rough."

"I do NOT play rough!" Leon gasped, wounded. "I am gentle! I am delicate!"

"You pulled her arm last time," Aureon rumbled from across the room, not looking up from whittling a piece of wood. "And you tried to make her roar like a lion. She’s a doll, not a beast."

"Whose side are you on?" Leon demanded.

"The side of truth," Aureon said, blowing wood shavings off his knife. "And dolls with intact limbs."

"Stop helping," Leon hissed.

"You’re not helping yourself," Aureon replied, carving a tiny notch.

Levy nodded solemnly. "See? Rough. Theo is gentle."

The children were finally clean, dressed, and settled around the table as the sun began to set. Niku and Sikai sat together, their heads nearly touching as they whispered to each other, still marveling at their fingers. They kept wiggling them at each other and giggling.

"Look, I can do this," Niku said, making a shadow puppet that looked like a very confused bird.

"Mine’s better," Sikai countered, creating something that might have been a dog or possibly a potato with ears.

I brought out the dinner I had been working on all afternoon, the smell filling the house with savory warmth.

Homemade meat buns. The first I had ever made with crowhen meat, using flour I had ground myself from wheat I had grown in my garden, herbs I had dried, and a recipe I had invented through trial and error using the memories of my past life in my old world. They were golden on the outside, steaming and juicy on the inside, the meat spiced with pepper and garlic and something I had found in the market that tasted like joy.

I set the platter down, and the table went silent.

Then the chaos began.

The children attacked the buns with the ferocity of starving wolves, their hands reaching, their mouths full, their eyes rolling back in ecstasy. Even the snakes, fed separately on a mixture of raw meat and herbs that Soryn prepared, seemed to scent the air with interest.

"Slow down," I laughed, though I was delighted. "There are plenty. No one needs to lose a finger."

They couldn’t get enough. Atlas ate six. Chase managed five before declaring he would explode. Ryder and Jasper split a dozen between them. Niku and Sikai ate four each, their eyes wide with wonder at the taste, their hands fumbling with the buns as they tried to eat and talk at the same time.

The leopard cubs, still learning how human stomachs worked, stopped at three each, their small bellies round and tight.

"Can we have these for every meal?" Niku asked.

"No," I said.

"Breakfast?"

"No."

"Second breakfast?"

"That’s not a real meal."

"It could be," Sikai said hopefully.

But Eryx... Eryx was something else entirely.

He sat at the end of the table, quiet as always, his dark eyes watching the family with that hidden longing he thought no one could see. But his hands kept moving. One bun. Two. Three. By the time the platter was empty, he had consumed at least ten, his cheeks flushed, his eyes glazed with satisfaction.

"Fat dog," Leon muttered, not quite quietly enough. "You should find a mate to feed you, Eryx. Someone who can keep up with that appetite."

Eryx said nothing, his eyes dropping to his plate, his shoulders tensing.

"Eryx does more work around this house than you do," Veylan said, his voice sharp. "He earns his keep. He helps with the children, the repairs, the hunting. What do you do, Leon? Sleep and complain?"

"I protect my family!" Leon protested, his mane bristling.

"You protect your ego," Veylan shot back.

"At least I have an ego! You’re so busy worrying about your brother you forget you have a mate!"

"Stop," I said, my voice cutting through their argument like a blade. "Both of you. Now."

They fell silent, two lions staring at me with sheepish eyes.

"Eryx is family," I said, my voice firm. "He eats what he wants. He works as hard as anyone. Harder than some." I reached across the table and put my hand over Eryx’s, feeling him tense in surprise before relaxing almost imperceptibly. "We share. We don’t count. We don’t measure who deserves what. Family shares. That’s the end of it."

Leon opened his mouth to argue. I raised an eyebrow. He closed it.

Veylan started to speak. I turned my gaze on him. He subsided.

"Good," I said, sitting back down. "Pass the vegetables."

Ravin, across the table, sighed heavily, the sound of a man who had seen this argument a hundred times and would see it a hundred more. He caught my eye and smiled, sheepish and amused, shaking his head at his brother’s childishness.

I smiled back, reaching for another bun, feeling the warmth of my family around me, the chaos, the love, the imperfect perfection of it all.

Let them argue. Let them compete. Let them be ridiculous. We were family. And tomorrow, we would do it all again.