Chapter 336 - 11 reasons why.
Sienna thought her return home would be met with some quiet, but she was wrong. The living room of her house was filled with children, shrieking with laughter as they played. It was her cubs, brother and the falcon cousins. The guards, ever dutiful, marched inside carrying the cages with the parrots.
A chorus of delighted squeals filled the air almost immediately. The way the children lunged, almost had the guards turning around to escape. Sienna forced them to stop and wait for the cages to be placed on the table.
As soon as this was done, the parrots revealed the fact that they were trained to speak.
"Grandpa Grace is wise! Grandpa Grace is strong!" the parrots crooned in unison, their voices oddly melodic.
The children paused, wide-eyed, before bursting into a storm of questions that the adults inside also had.
"Mama, who is grandpa Grace?" Eli asked.
Sienna’s lips curled into a wry smile. "An annoying sticky old man," she replied, her tone sharp enough to cut through the parrots’ praise.
Ali chuckled while the others laughed in a more normal way. The children rushed back to the cages, eager to hear what else the birds could say and what new words they could teach them. Soon, the room was filled with a cacophony of squawks, laughter and the occasional triumphant cheer when a parrot mimicked a phrase correctly.
"Don’t parrot beast men find this offensive?" Sienna asked grandpa Corven.
Her grandfather looked up from the evening news he was watching on television. "Parrots and parrot beast men are different, just as falcons and falcon beast men are different. We are descended from the beast gods, the wild birds and animals are not."
Sienna yawned slowly, nodding along to the information he shared. Suddenly, the fun took a sharp turn when the red parrot, perhaps recalling that it had spent time recently with a former pirate, dropped a curse word. The older children gasped, then erupted into scandalized laughter.
Ali, innocent yet impressionable, repeated the word with perfect clarity, applauding the bird.
The room split in reaction, some adults roared with laughter, clutching their sides, while others gasped in horror, scolding the bird and child alike. Sienna pinched the bridge of her nose, torn between amusement and exasperation.
"That’s enough," she declared, gesturing at the guards to remove the parrots. "Someone should get in touch with Grace Twindell and have him send us a list of the what words or sentences the birds can repeat." She turned to the children, "Anyone who has not bathed should do so now. We will be having dinner in an hour."
As she said, dinner was served an hour later and everyone smelled like soap.
The evening meal was a lively affair, filled with chatter about plans for the winter break holiday, the winter solstice festival, the winter games and temple fair. Plates clattered, voices overlapped, and Sienna found herself both exhausted and warmed by the chaos of family life. Grace’s reminder that Veythar protection did not necessarily extend to more than half of the people with her made her shudder. She couldn’t allow her maternal family drag the Veythar’s and Rocland’s down. Those maternal grandparents had to be found and dealt with quickly.
When at last the dishes were cleared and the children ticked in bed, Sienna put all thoughts away and retreated to her bedroom, longing for quiet and sleep.
But that was not what awaited her. Elias, lounged against the pillows with a predatory gleam in his eyes.
"If you touch me tonight, I will cut your hands off," Sienna threatened as she slipped into bed. "I mean it Elias. I have had a long day."
He turned to her, his voice low but insistent. "Then just answer one simple question. Who do you love the most in this family?"
Sienna sighed, already sensing her need for quiet waving a sad goodbye. "Must we do this again?"
"Yes," he replied firmly, his tone brooking no argument. "This is the most important question I have ever asked anyone in my life. I will give you every reason why I should be your number one."
He leaned closer, enumerating his case with the precision of a lawyer before a judge. "First, I am the one who protects you. When thieves come in the nights, it is my claws and tails defending you. When you are badmouthed on BeastNet, I use my secret account to scold those people for you. I am willing to jump in front of a bullet for you. Can Ali do those things?"
Sienna groaned.
"Second, I am the father of your children and future father of all your children. Their laughter, their futures, all of it flows from me." He continued. "Third, I am the lord of this household. Without me, there is no roof, no guards, no wealth to sustain everyone’s expensive tastes."
Sienna rolled her eyes, but he pressed on, relentless. "Fourth, I endure you temper and pan. Others would flee from your sharp tongue, but I remain faithfully. Fifth, I know your secrets--the soul swap secret, the rebel father, the criminal mother, the loneliness you try not to show when you think of the life you left behind sometimes. I see it.
Sixth, I am the one who helps you with your mental strength. You make me do silly things and your mental strength increases. Without me, you would be a normal human. Seventh, I am the one who challenges you. Without me, you would grow complacent. Eighth, I am the one who desires you, even when you are weary, even when you push me away. My devotion does not falter."
His voice grew softer, almost pleading. "Ninth, I am the one who sees you--not just the matriarch of the fox tribe, not just a mother, but the woman beneath it all. Tenth, I am the one who will never betray you. Others may falter, but I will not. And eleventh, I am the one who loves you most fiercely. More than the children, more than your cousins more than anyone else in this large family. My love is the fire that keeps this house alive."
Sienna lay still, listening to litany. His words were heavy, layered with pride, vulnerability and a desperate need for affirmation. She knew this was not merely a game of ranking affections--it was his way of staking claim, of demanding proof that he mattered most in her heart.