“Baby, you and Ethan stop fussing with that and come over here. Blayde and Konnor are perfectly capable of working a food processor, and if they’re not, they deserve to go hungry.”

Blayde stole the baby back and danced out of reach when Lucas made a grab for him. “I’m taking him out to the pool for a little swim with Ryan and me. C’mon Konnor, Ethan, let’s throw the baby in the pool and see if we can teach him how to do the Lycan backstroke,” he said, teasing Lucas.

“Yeah, yeah, very funny. Put his hat on when you get him outside—I don’t want him to get too much sun. Use the sunscreen.”

Blayde waved a dismissive hand at him and carried the baby out toward the pool, tossing him up in the air as he went. Ashton’s delighted laughter was the only thing that kept Lucas on the sofa.

Kai sank down beside him. “You know he only does that to irritate you,” he said, poking him in the side.

“Well, it worked.”

Kai settled himself against Lucas’s side. “Ashton’s already spoiled by you people. When you’re at work, he expects me to sit around and hold him all day like you do.”

Lucas pulled Kai over into his lap and smiled down at him while he blushed and tried to get away.

“Well, it wouldn’t hurt you to hold him a little. He misses his father.”

Kai pushed at his chest, laughing. “I’m too big to sit in your lap, Lucas.”

“Never,” he said and leaned him back in his arms to give him a proper kiss, his hands straying down beneath the waistband of Kai’s pants. “It’s probably a very good thing you didn’t turn out to be a female—I’d have kept you breeding all the time.”

Kai punched him in the chest and pushed again to get away, but Lucas held on tightly. Still laughing, Kai subsided in his arms. “Are you going to hold me all day too, like you do with Ashton?”

“If you’d let me, I would. I came too close to losing you, baby. I’ve been working hard to earn your forgiveness.”

Kai got very quiet, and played with the buttons on Lucas’s shirt. “I do forgive you, though for a long time…”

“I know,” Lucas said somberly. “I have to win your trust. I realize it’ll take a while.”

Kai shook his head. “It’s not that, so much, though I did think for a long time that you never loved me. I knew you liked the sex between us, but I didn’t think you loved me. Part of that was the way I was brought up—to think that who I was made me unlovable.”

“You’ve always been lovable. The fact that ignorant people made you feel you weren’t was always their problem, not yours. The Scythians let a narrow, cruel view of religion make half their people feel like defective throwaways. And the priestesses—the very ones who should have been teaching their people were the ones who were leading the charge. It still makes me sick to think of how many lives were destroyed because of them.”

Kai looked thoughtful, staring down at his hands on Lucas’s chest. “What about my sister? I haven’t even asked since we got home. It wasn’t that I didn’t care, but I couldn’t-couldn’t bear to think of her. And the priestesses? What will happen to them?”

“For now the temples have been closed and all the priestesses involved in the murders are in prison awaiting trial. Your sister is in prison too, honey, and I think they’ll all be found guilty and have to face the judgment of the Alliance Council. That will probably mean life imprisonment on one of the prison planets, at the very least.”

Kai nodded and sighed. “She was so angry, all her life. I don’t think she ever loved anyone.”

“None of this was ever your fault, Kai. I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to make you realize that and how wonderful you are. If I’d lost you…” His voice broke and he pressed his lips to Kai’s throat.

“You didn’t,” Kai said, pulling back to look into his eyes. “But I still think you need to make it up to me for a long, long time.”

“Then that’s just what I’ll do,” Lucas said. “Starting right now.”

*THE END*