Stolen - Nhys Glover Page 0,98

same body. Danheez was in Meida’s arms and was already wriggling to be set down so she could play with Bronwyn’s new brood.

Bronwyn had fallen pregnant on the journey to find me, and now she had four fast-growing boys to replace the ones I’d claimed.

From the moment Danheez was born, those five-month-old—going on terrible-two—M&M boys had nagged their parents to let them spend time with her. It was the cutest thing ever, and they carried the minimum age for bonding to an all-time low.

Not that there would be any sexual bonding going on for many years to come. Therans matured slowly, and so did humans, so even though the Danan boys might be ready to claim their podmate when they were seven, they wouldn’t be getting anywhere near Danheez for that purpose until she was well into her twenties. Or into her thirties, if her fathers had any say in it.

I found it amusing that males, who considered it quite all right for them to become fathers as barely-there adults, should think their daughter should remain a virgin until she was old and grey. Of course, Danan pods didn’t normally have daughters, so it was all ‘virgin’ territory to them. Pun intended.

Bronwyn’s four boys surrounded Danheez as soon as she was put down, and the five of them toddled off to join the other children in the large play area set aside for them. Danheez had only just started to walk, and she had taken to it with confidence. Charsus could walk, but he tended to prefer a helping hand to get him anywhere. Boys were slower developmentally in the Theran species, as was the case with humans, it seemed. Or maybe it was just an example of the different personalities of the twins: one extroverted, the other introverted.

“Not going to join them?” I asked Charsus.

The boy shook his head and stuck his thumb into his mouth. The unfamiliar surroundings and the noise level were distressing the lad. It would probably take a while before he felt comfortable enough to join his peers.

Between one blink and the next, Charsus disappeared from Rian’s arms. Except for a startled huff, Rian didn’t bat an eyelid. The twins had been jumping from Third Density to Fourth from pretty much the moment they came into the world.

At first it had freaked me out, losing my babies to Fourth Density like that. But as they always returned unhurt after a few hours I’d finally gotten used to it. It helped that Raesus had made a point of tracking them down for me when they first started swapping densities. Where they hung out wasn’t his normal stomping grounds, but because he’d been developing his skills at an exponential rate in the last year or so, there weren’t many places he couldn’t go or things he couldn’t do. Including babysitting my challenging children in a world of their own creation.

Danheez wouldn’t be doing any disappearing while she was with her pod though, and Charsus would return when he felt safe enough to do so. I had to just go with it. Just as I’d have to go with a lot more in about three months time when I’d be adding three M&M babies to my brood. It wasn’t normal for podmates to fall pregnant so soon after giving birth, but as normal didn’t seem to know where I lived, it was just par for the course for us.

“Do you think he was this shy the last time he was a kid?” Rian asked, staring at his empty arms.

“Probably. Danheez was probably always the ring leader, even a thousand years ago,” Lain answered, watching as one of his brothers hefted the little girl, barely able to walk, onto his white back.

“It’s not incest is it?” Meida checked, following all our gazes. “I mean, she’s our daughter and they’re our brothers. That makes them her uncles, right?”

“No blood connection. Theran and human, no Danan at all,” I pointed out. “I think we can safely discount incest.”

Bronwyn, an arm around Rhain and Naicin, wandered over to greet us.

“You may as well let me adopt her now. She spends more time with her grandparents than she does with you guys.” Bronwyn grimaced and buried her face in Rhain’s shoulder. “I can’t get my head around being a grandmother. I’m barely into my thirties. It’s ridiculous.”

“You don’t look a day over twenty-five,” I assured her, with a teasing smile.

Rhain laughed and kissed Bronwyn’s dark curls. “I agree. You are literally a child