We made it back home as the sun was setting, painting the village in strokes of gold and amber. I held my breath as we crested the final hill, fear clutching my heart with cold fingers, but then I saw it. The village was still intact. The walls stood strong, the smoke rose from the hearths, the sounds of life drifted up to greet us.
We were home.
Ravin and Leon’s parents were the first to reach us, their faces etched with worry that melted into relief as they saw us whole, alive, unbroken. Their mother pulled me into an embrace that smelled of herbs and home, and their father clasped his sons’ shoulders with hands that trembled slightly.
Then came the news that turned our homecoming into celebration.
Lyle stood at the edge of the gathering crowd, and I almost did not recognize him. The scrawny boy who had played with my cubs, who had chased them through the den with laughter ringing like bells, was gone. In his place stood a young man, tall and broad-shouldered, his silver and black fur darkened into that of adulthood, his eyes holding a confidence that had not been there before.
"He reached two in a half year in wolf form," Raon announced, his voice carrying across the clearing. "Lyle is now an adult in the eyes of our tribe."
I stared, my mouth opening and closing like a fish gasping for water. Ravin leaned close, his breath warm against my ear. "In human form, he is the same age as Aureon now. About eighteen years old."
Eighteen. He had gone from child to man. I looked at my own cubs, at Atlas and Jasper and Ryder and Chase, who were only one year old but already looked to be six or eight in their human forms. My stomach dropped with sudden, terrible understanding.
Does that mean in two years I’ll be a mother to adults? I thought. But I’m only twenty-four.
I looked at Lisa then. She stood near Raon, her face smooth and unlined, her eyes bright with youth. No wonder the woman looked so young. She could not possibly be in her thirties yet. I had never asked her age. But damn, I wanted to know now. How old was she when she became a mother? How old was she now? The math made my head spin.
"We are going to celebrate Lyle becoming an adult," Raon continued, his smile wide and genuine as he clasped Lyle’s back. The young man stood straighter, his chest puffing with pride. "And he can enter the mate selection and get bonded if he wants to."
I looked at Lyle, trying to reconcile this tall stranger with the boy I remembered. He had been so small, so eager, so full of questions and laughter. I had been so busy with the birth of the newborns, so consumed with watching over Levara and Niku and Sikai, so entangled in the web of Cyrus’s betrayal and Aureon’s courtship, that I had not noticed him growing up. I had not seen him change, day by day, until the change was complete and the boy was gone.
"Congratulations, little brother," Ravin said, his voice rough with emotion. He clasped Lyle’s back, his hand dwarfing his brother’s shoulder, his eyes shining with pride and something like sorrow, the knowledge that the child he had protected was now his equal.
Leon was less restrained. He grabbed his little brother and swung him around in his arms, lifting him clear off the ground, spinning him in a circle while Lyle yelped and laughed and protested.
"Look at you," Leon crowed, his face split with a grin that showed every tooth. "My little brother, all grown up and ready for his own mate."
"Come on, brother," Lyle groaned, his face red with embarrassment, his feet kicking at empty air. "You’re making me look like a baby, carrying me like this."
"You’ll always be my baby brother," Leon said, but he set him down, ruffling his hair with a rough affection that spoke of years of love.
It was heartwarming, this display of brotherhood, this uncomplicated love that needed no words. My heart felt so full watching them, seeing the bonds that held this family together, bonds that time and distance could not break.
Levy shifted in my arms, her small body squirming, her mouth opening in a demanding cry. I looked down at her, at my little diva, my princess, my miracle. She was hungry, as always, her appetite as regal as her temperament.
"Come on, my love," I murmured, settling her against my chest as we walked to our home. "Let’s feed you, and then we celebrate."
Home. We were home. And life, with all its chaos and joy and relentless change, would go on.
---
The celebration spread through the village like wildfire, consuming every corner of the Lion Tribe village with laughter and shouts and the rich scent of roasting meat. Bonfires blazed against the coming dusk, painting the sky in shades of amber and violet. Yet beneath the revelry, the tribe remained vigilant. The celebration was big, but the securities were high; we allowed everyone to enjoy the celebration, alternating through the guard so everyone could have some fun before having to guard the borders from outside enemies. I watched as groups of warriors rotated through their shifts, the relieved ones stumbling into the festivities with grateful exhaustion while their replacements melted into the shadows beyond the torchlight, eyes sharp for any threat that might dare approach during our moment of joy.
Every one of my mates enjoyed the celebration in their own way. Leon had been swept up in the boisterous reunion with his brothers, his laughter ringing out across the square as he and Ravin competed to see who could lift Lyle higher. Veylan stood near the elders’ tent, his silver hair catching the firelight as he discussed something serious with the tribal council, his bearing regal and composed even in leisure. My newest mate Aureon circulated through the crowd with the easy confidence of one who had finally found his place among us. And as for my Caelion, he was playing with the cubs and some of the other cubs in the village, his booming laugh rising above the chaos as he chased Atlas and caught him with exaggerated flourish.
But Soryn stayed by my side.
He was a shadow given form, a presence I felt more than saw at first, his movements so silent that I only noticed him when the firelight caught the peculiar sheen of his scales where they peeked above his collar. He’d draped himself in loose robes of deep emerald, as if trying to minimize the obviousness of what he was, but the sinuous way he held himself; the boneless grace of his posture, marked him as serpent even without the telltale eyes.
Those eyes found mine now, vertical pupils dilated wide in the dimming light, the amber irises reflecting the bonfires like molten gold.
"Will it be my turn now, Krys?" he asked, and the vulnerability in his voice was raw, stripped of all the careful neutrality he usually maintained. "To have you carry my clutch?"
The question hit me like a physical blow. Soryn was beautiful in the way that precious things often are; sharp-featured and elegant, with high cheekbones and a mouth that rarely smiled but when it did, transformed his whole face. His hair fell in green waves to his shoulders, the color of deep emeralds and forest canopies, and beneath the robes, I knew his skin bore the pattern of his other form, scales that would shimmer with verdant iridescence in moonlight.
He was an emerald snake, ancient and graceful, and I had once been afraid of him. When we first started, that old fear from my old life had clung to me; the learned caution about serpents that had calcified into prejudice long before I ever met him. But that was before I knew him. Before I saw the gentleness he hid behind careful neutrality, before I witnessed his patience with my children, before I felt the warmth of his devotion that burned hotter than any venom. Now I loved him, not despite what he was, but because of it. The fear had dissolved somewhere between his first hesitant touch and this moment, replaced by a tenderness that made my chest ache when I looked at him.
"I..." I started, then stopped, the words sticking in my throat.
Soryn’s expression shuttered, the vulnerability retreating behind a wall of careful blankness that I recognized too well. He thought I was rejecting him. Again.
"No," I said quickly, reaching out to touch his arm before he could withdraw completely. His skin was warmer than I expected, almost fever-hot, and I felt the subtle shift of muscle beneath my fingers that spoke of his other nature. "Soryn, I... I need to explain."
He remained still, watching me with that unblinking gaze that still sent a primal shiver down my spine despite everything.
After the six weeks were over, I had told Aureon we could complete our bonding and he had looked forward to it.
But Soryn...
I looked at him now, at the tension in his jaw, at the way his hands had curled into fists at his sides as if preparing for a blow and felt a surge of something that might have been shame. He had waited so patiently. Had never pressed, never demanded, had simply existed at the edges of my awareness like a ghost, present but never intrusive.
"Then I must let Aureon know I’m going to have you first," I said, the words coming out rushed, "like I did with Leon. To make sure the pregnancy window would be yours."
The blankness cracked, replaced by something so fragile it made my chest ache. Hope, I realized. He was afraid to hope.
"You’re not... you’re not averse to the idea?" he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.
I thought of my sons, of how quickly they were growing, of the terrible understanding that had settled into my bones watching Lyle celebrate his adulthood. I thought of the way Soryn looked at them when he thought no one was watching, with a longing so naked it hurt to witness. I thought of the ignorance that had kept me afraid, and the man standing before me who deserved better than my inherited prejudices.
"If you asked me before, when we were barely anything to each other, than yes. I was afraid," I admitted, because he deserved the truth. "but not anymore, I love you and everything about you. I could not be scared of any kid we have together."
He reached out, his fingers brushing my cheek with a gentleness that belied the danger I knew he could wield. "Thank you Krys. You don’t know how much it mean to me."
"I have waited since we became mates," Soryn said simply. "A few more weeks is nothing. The fact that you are willing to try, that you looked at me and saw something other than a monster to be feared..." He broke off, his throat working. "That is enough. That is more than I dared hope for."
I stepped closer, close enough to feel the heat radiating from his body, close enough to see the individual scales that patterned his skin like living jewelry. Close enough that my old fear should have been screaming at me to run.
But it wasn’t. Instead, I felt only love, pure love for my snake mate.
"Thank you," I said, and reached up to touch his face, my thumb tracing the sharp line of his cheekbone. "For being patient with me."
He leaned into my touch, his eyes closing, and for a moment he looked almost human in his vulnerability. "I would wait forever, Krys. But I am glad I do not have to."
"Come," Soryn said, offering me his arm with a formality that seemed almost playful after our serious conversation. "Let us rejoin the celebration. I believe our Jasper is attempting to commandeer the dessert table."
I laughed, the sound light and real, and took his arm.
Together, we walked back into the firelight, into the noise and joy and complicated beauty of our strange family.
The night deepened around us, the stars emerging one by one in the vast expanse above, indifferent to our small celebrations and smaller sorrows. Somewhere in the darkness beyond the village, the guards continued their vigil, and I found myself grateful for their sacrifice, for the safety they provided so that we could stand here, bathed in firelight, wrestling with the complexities of love and time and family.