“She sounds like a strong woman.” I wondered if Viktor had any living relatives besides his ogre family. I had heard him speak of his mother, but she was human. “Your mother…”
“Tatiana is still alive. She remarried when I was eighteen. I don’t often talk about it, because my stepfather died twenty years after they married and he’s long gone. He fell into a river and drowned before anyone could save him.”
“But she’s alive?”
“Yes, Pierre was one of the magic-born. On their wedding day, he offered her a potion that would extend her life by some three hundred years and she decided to accept it. He offered it to the rest of her family as well, but no one else wanted it. The only problem is, longevity potions and spells don’t guard against accidents and murder. So my mother lost him in 1817, and decided that she’d live out the rest of her life, but she wouldn’t seek to extend it further. She told me she’s seen and done more than most people ever get the chance to.” He suddenly blushed. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be so chatty today. I’m sure this is all very boring.”
“On the contrary. I’m fascinated.” I finished my meal and crossed to the counter, where I poured myself a cup of coffee. Viktor was usually reticent about his family, so him opening up made me feel like he trusted me a little more. “Coffee?”
“Thanks, with cream.”
I handed him the mug and set the dish of creamers in front of him. “What about your grandmother? You said you miss her?”
“Oh, I do. Grandmother Anna used to call me her ‘big boy’ and she’d hold me on her lap. By the time I was four, I was the size of a ten-year-old human, but she never said anything bad about my size. My grandmother’s hair smelled like apples and hay, and she always had a cookie in her pocket for me.”
“How old were you when your parents split?”
“I was…oh…ten? Eleven? Somewhere around there. As it became apparent I wasn’t going to reach the expected size of an ogre male, my father started acting out against my mother. He blamed her and wanted nothing to do with me. The leader of the ogres ordered him to either cast me out into the wilderness, or for her and me to leave. My father told my mother she had to choose.
“I overheard that fight. It isn’t a pleasant memory,” he said, closing his eyes. “In the end, Mother chose me. She told my father to go to hell. The next day, we gathered our things, and my father relented enough to give us the supplies to last through the summer while my grandpa and I built a little cabin. We left the mountain and moved down into the Puyallup valley. Grandpa died of a heart attack five years later, but my grandmother and my mother kept the homestead going. Pierre came along a year or so later and he did wonders adding on to it.”
I pressed my lips together, thinking that all of us at the Wild Hunt had been through one form of hell or another. Well, maybe not Herne, and probably not Kipa, but we had all faced our demons as we grew up.
“I’m sorry it was so hard. Your mother has always supported you, hasn’t she?”
He nodded, his voice softening. “She’s never stopped being my cheerleader. She loves Sheila, and while we’ll never have children of our own—Sheila really doesn’t want to go through pregnancy—we thought we’d adopt. My mother likes the idea. You’ll meet her at the wedding, which will be on Imbolc. Sheila honors the goddess Brighid, though she’s not a priestess. So we thought it would be nice to get married then.”
“I’ll be there with bells on, Viktor. Congratulations again.” I reached up on tiptoe and threw my arms around his neck, giving him a long hug. “You deserve happiness, and so does Sheila.”
At that moment, Herne entered the room. I spun around, poking Viktor on the arm as I did so. “Tell him before I do.”
Herne glanced from me to Viktor and a slow smile spread across his face. “You did it! You asked her?” He tossed his file folders on the table and hurried over to Viktor’s side, grabbing the half-ogre’s hand and shaking it as Viktor nodded, grinning.
“Yes, I did—we’re engaged! The wedding will be on Imbolc. We were wondering if