“KIMBER!!!” I hear a shout and I see a child-seized missile coming at me. If I was an ass, I’d dodge, but I reach out with my arms to lessen the impact.

  “Holy smokes, Phea, You’re huge!” I palm the side of her head to get a good look at her face while supporting her with my other arm.

  “I went through a meta-Morpheus!” I snort with how cute that mistake is and rustle her hair.

  “I can see that! Did you get anything cool from it?” It’s a process that Royal Pixies go through that sort of mimics butterfly stages of development as they grow into their power and Hereditary Knowledge trait.

  “I can phase sideways. Mom says it means I should be able to do void magic too.” She leans in close to my ear and says, “I can spy on people when I’m sideways. It’s super cool.”

  “You’ll have to show me later.” I whisper back.

  Zia walks over and kisses Alphea on the head. “Hey sister.”

  “Hi sister. Are you going to be around all week?” Alphea asks.

  “Yep.”

  “We can have so many picnics!” She yells and hugs me more tightly.

  Penny finishes talking to Jenna and Francesca and turns to wave us forward. Zia smiles at me and follows her mother. I try to set Alphea down and she protests.

  “Look, Phea. It’s shoulders or walking.”

  “Shoulders please.” She sets her feet down then raises her arms for uppies.

  I grab her sides and toss her in the air. She squeals, making me laugh, but I still catch her on my shoulders. I grab the tops of her thighs for stability and we head towards Guiseppe’s

  “You two are so cute together.” Her warm, loving smile makes my middles wiggle. There’s a world where Phea’s my kid and I think I’d be pretty happy about it.

  Lake Street is packed with people and about halfway down to Giuseppe’s Zia and Penny just decide to fly there and have me catch up. My backpack stays with me.

  “Are you and Sister going to get married?”

  “Yeah, bug, we’re pretty serious about each other. That’s okay with you, right?” I look up to see the little blue pixie smiling at me.

  “Of course! I just heard that Sis is moving to Earth and wondered if maybe you and Zia are married and on Earth, maybe I could move to Earth too.”

  Oh, wow. I love you too, kid, shit. So sweet my heart hurts, ffs. “I love you Phea and I would love to have you with us. This is something that your mom and your sister get a say in this too, okay?”

  “Ugh!” She sighs heavily and slumps over my head, arms hanging by my ears. “Adults have to ask for permission too?!”

  I can’t help but chuckle at the little drama-llama. “Have you thought about what you want to do once you reach tier 1?”

  “Mom says I should think about it, but I don’t know what there is to do. I like training with my aunties and magic looks really fun, but I don’t know, you know? I’d like to make some friends my age, but I change so fast.”

  “Believe it or not, I felt the same way a few years ago. I lost several people that were important to me, and though my mentor was there for me when she could be, I was feeling pretty alone. Then I met your mom and sister, and my life has felt so much fuller. Then I got the job I want and my businesses took off and though things are hectic, they feel great.”

  “Do you do fun things with Sis and your friends? I hear being an adult is awesome, but so far it sounds worse.”

  More chuckling from me. “Phea, you don’t have a lot of the restrictions of most kids, so the draw of adulthood is going to be lost on you. I stay pretty busy so I don’t think about fun so much, but I’m not sad or lonely much anymore either. Adults have to make time for fun, to plan it sometimes. Like me coming to Astoria. Takes a lot of effort to be able to take a week off, but it’s definitely been worth it so far.”

  Alphea thinks on it and puts on her serious face for the rest of our walk. When we get to Giuseppe’s I ask her to get down, and she slides down to my hip and locks her legs and arms there. I laugh again and hold her butt up as she continues to hang off me like a monkey. When I tell them I’m with Penny and Zia, a teen leads me upstairs where I see the Empress chatting with a half-bald, grayed man with a cloth apron and a sturdy fork in hand.

  My fiancée is chatting with a fit man in a similar apron and a much straighter posture that is manning a shallow basin full of sauces, brushes, and ladles. Guiseppe’s son, Carlo, has an easy smile and has been nothing but helpful every time we’ve come here.

  “Carlo! Who’s the boy that’s working the front?”

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “Kimber! Tina’s been asking about you.” He looks behind me, “Ben! Go get Tina!” he turns back to me, “good kid, a little lost in the noise though. Leah is sweet on him though. Begged me to give him a job.”

  “I thought only family work here?” I jab.

  “You!” Guiseppe turns around and points at me with his fork. “I’ll have none of that slander! My daughter Clara married that girl from the Tailor’s shop and had a few kids with the Empress’ fancy kid machine, he’s one of them. Still family.”

  “Damn, G, just poking fun. Not impugning your honor or nothin’.” Old man’s glare could curdle cream. Lol, fancy kid machine.

  “You can apologize by dragging the meat tray up here so I don’t lose a grandkid in the process.”

  “You got it, G.” After the first time I saw a pair of the kids struggling to get the tray upstairs, I found out he gives the duty out as a punishment. I’ve found a way to get punished to help them ever since.

  I tap Alphea on the forehead to let her know I’m serious about her getting down. She grumbles like normal so I tweak her nose and dash downstairs.

  I walk downstairs and grab one of the aprons hanging at the opening to the kitchen.

  “Hey Tina! I heard the punishment plate could use some extra muscle.”

  “Ain’t that the truth. C’mere you.” She waves me in and gives me a quick kiss and pats my face. “Good to see you looking healthy. You and Kimber having kids yet?”

  “We’re not even married yet!” I protest.

  “Didn’t stop me. I could tell Carlo liked me, and I liked him, but he was afraid of my Mom. So I got him drunk, he got me pregnant and we’ve been happy since.”

  “How’d your mom take it?”

  Tina laughs, “She’s still fuckin’ mad. Why do you think I work here now?”

  “I’m going to get you to tell me the rest of that story some time.”

  “You’ll need to ply me with booze to . . .” I pull out a bottle of Purple Drunk and hand it to her. “I am not some basic bitch Kimber, I have . . .” I pull out different bottle labeled Nova Chateau. “Shit. Fine. Invite us up to the Castle sometime, and Guiseppe won’t be able to refuse our time off.”

  I raise and eyebrow, look down to the bottles then back into her eyes. “What? I’m keeping these. Don’t you have a punishment to get to with all those muscles?”

  This fucking human. “Okay, Bettina. Try not to get pregnant when you drink those.” She throws a spoon at my head and I laugh it up.

  The punishment plate is piled high today, making me wonder who else is going to join us for dinner tonight. Sometimes Penny’s okay with letting people on the roof with us but at the lower, separate tables. Sometimes the Empress throws a party.

  There are a few more people upstairs when I arrive with this heavy fucking platter of meat, but I don’t recognize any of them. Then again, I haven’t met all that many people on Astoria, I just know some very important ones.

  “Sei Fuori! Kimber, you must be half ox! On the bricks on the bricks.” Giuseppe clears the area waving his fork while pointing to the area next to the wood storage bin. He pats me on the arm and gives it a little squeeze. “Perhaps the Empress brought her own to feed the ox ah? Or there will be none left for the party!”

  “Indeed I have Giuseppe.” Penny appears next to us and lays down a series of animal parts easily as large as the punishment platter “found this on Dash, one of our new Protectorates. The aether isn’t as high, but it will definitely give you a taste and texture challenge.”

  “Bellisimo! You always bring gifts for us, Majesty, and you always overpay.”

  “I’ll stop tipping when you stop calling me Empress or Majesty, or Highness.”

  He laughs a belly laugh. “There are crosses we all must bear. Now sit, talk, enjoy as the children bring up the antipasto.”

  As we walk toward the raised, twelve-person dining table, Penny speaks softly “It’s nice of you to help like that, knowing he won’t just ask.”

  I shrug, “I like this family. The parents with the tasking and holding the kids responsible, and the kids wanting to help each other out to make the machine work. I don’t honestly know what they’re working toward, but that part doesn’t matter. Makes me feel like the pain I went through to create a similar environment for my grubs at the orphanage was worth it.”

  “I often forget about the trials you went through before Warram. In fact, I don’t know if we’ve ever really talked about it.” Penny turns to me and touches her fingers to my arm.

  “Heh, I don’t like talking about it with people. I like you, and before I knew enough about you to figure out you wouldn’t judge me, it didn’t seem important. I eventually told Zia, but apparently she had already tied herself to me by that point, so I feel kind of guilty about it.” I confess.

  “Well, after knowing what I’ve done from an early age, Zia doesn’t scare easy.”

  “If it makes you feel any better, at family dinners, you’ll never be the only monster at the table.” I reach up to squeeze her arm and then head over to Zia, who is folding napkins with Alphea.

  “Hey Pinkie, whatcha doin’?” I reach down to and kiss her on the cheek before picking her up and putting her in my lap.

  “Distracting myself from watching you be helpful and muscly. Perhaps one day soon I will have some heavy things to lift after you work out.”

  My arms snake around my girl’s sides and pull her close while I lean close to her ear, “in this fantasy, how much clothing am I wearing,” I say with a dusky tone. I can feel her shudder in my arms.

  “Mate, you will not tease me so in public.”

  “Uh, oh. Engaged Zia’s dragon brain.” She growls a little at my teasing and then rolls her hips back into my stomach. Heat flares in that exact spot immediately, causing me to flop my head onto her shoulder and groan. “Yeah, we’ve been apart too long to tease like this in public.”

  “Not so funny now is it, little Nova?”

  I stand up and swing her into a princess carry. “I’ll survive princess, but I don’t think your panties will.” I finish up with a wink and set her on the edge of the table, noticing that her irises are flared and she’s breathing a little heavier. I don’t need my new eyesight to see the effect it has on her. I kiss her quickly just to get a whine out of her and grin as I go to find us some drinks.

  A napkin hits me in the back of the head as I’m looking for one of the servers. I smirk at both the idea that I frustrated Zia enough for her to throw things, but also in realization that Guiseppe set up a bar area for this and has a guy about as old as me serving people.

  Tonight isn’t a night for formal seating, so the lower level gets a table full of antipasto and meat, while the Empress’ table has its own fare for her and invited guests, but the whole night is mingle and graze with some dancing later in the night.

  When the dancing started, we offered to take Alphea home and Penny thanked us, even though she could likely see the naked lust that Zia and I were sharing with looks and lingering touches. If Alphea hadn’t been ready to pass out I think we would have died from arousal.

  After our first round of activities, my fiancé warns me that she’d likely be spending the rest of the week as a dragon. Since elves don’t need much sleep, we decided to make the most of the time in our own condo where there aren’t any noise restrictions.