Dhampirs of Sgiach

46.Kieran

Two years later...

Kieran groaned as Maison’s cries over the baby monitor pulled him from a pleasant dream of endless hot wings. “I hear you, kid,” he mumbled as he rolled out of bed, exited his room, and crossed the hall to Maison’s.

Maison was standing in his crib, his face covered in snot and tears, and he reached out for Kieran when he saw him. “Daddy!” he wailed. A fire sparked to life between his outstretched hands, and Kieran smiled as he called his Shadow Spark to touch that flame. He ignored the wash of nausea as his magic mixed with his son’s, and he picked up the child. The nausea was becoming a constant companion when he did anything with his magic lately.

“Bad dream?” he asked as he rocked Maison and gently petted the boy’s soft hair, the same blood-dipped ebony color as his own. The boy nodded and babbled about someone chasing him in the darkness. Or Kieran thought that’s what he was talking about. It was challenging to understand the kid sometimes. Kieran pressed his forehead to Maison’s and looked into amber eyes that mirrored his own. “Daddy’s here. No one will hurt you.”

Maison looked at him and sniffled. “Paw-miss?”

Kieran nodded. “If they try, I’ll eat them,” he said and flashed his extending fangs in a feral grin that made the boy giggle. He looked at the window and sighed. Maison had woken him up at the ass crack of dawn. “Want some orange juice?”

“Yeah!” Maison cheered and pulled on the braid at Kieran’s right temple with its single gold ring.

Kieran grabbed Maison’s tiny hand. “No pulling hair,” he said dryly as he carried the boy to the kitchen.

Kieran and Altina had moved into the large house about a month before Maison had been born. Auron suggested they take the name Eahban instead of Ursine when they registered their marriage and species change. It wasn’t uncommon for dhampirs to take a new surname when they became shifters, but Kieran was sad to lose the name that tied him to his family.

A month later, Artem managed to talk Kieran into letting him marry Echo, and they lived next door on their own. She was pregnant now, and Maison was excited to meet Tiny E-ho, his words, in a few months. Hikaru and Mika had married as well but were waiting on kids.

The werecheetahs that had been part of what Altina called the Telum had all assimilated well enough into their new lives. Naming them had been challenging until Kieran went through a baby name book, picked a bunch at random, and put them all in a hat for the cheetahs to choose at random. He then made them all wear nametags until he was satisfied they wouldn’t use their serial numbers as names.

Kage still hadn’t contacted any of them, and the Doghouse had put in a new rule that no dhampirs or Furians were allowed. Kieran was fairly certain Cain Cerberus was intentionally keeping Kieran away from Kage. Kieran sighed as he looked at his phone while Maison ate his dry cereal and sipped his orange juice.

Still waiting for something from Kage.

“Oh! Mr. Eahban! Am I late?”

Kieran looked up at Mrs. Tilly. Altina had hired the older woman as a nanny/housekeeper when she realized Kieran couldn’t cook worth a damn. She made enough at the law firm that Kieran let her do as she wished with her own money. It helped that Mrs. Tilly got along great with Maison. Altina had also hired a maid for their house and convinced Kieran that he should use the tithe from the Cheetah Clan to hire groundskeepers for the housing community that they all lived in. Even with the dhampirs that had chosen to become werecheetahs and join the Clan, having the hired help took some of the worries off of Kieran’s mind.

“You’re not. Maison woke me up,” he said with a smile.

“Till!” Maison cheered and swung around his sippy cup excitedly.

“Silly boy! Don’t swing your cup like that,” Mrs. Tilly chided the boy and ruffled his hair. “You and Mrs. Eahban have a date night tonight, correct?”

Kieran nodded and sipped his coffee. “Yep.”

Once a month, Kieran and Altina had a date night. He took her somewhere nice, and they came home and had s*x. It was an agreement they had reached after the Mate Bond forced them to shift one night and f**k like animals. Destroying the living room in the process. Auron didn’t know what had happened when Kieran asked his father about it. There were no cases where mates avoided each other to the extent that Kieran and Altina avoided each other. They didn’t even share a bed except for their date nights, and they both shielded the Mate Bond. Kieran didn’t need a running commentary about how much of a monster he was.

When she forgets what I am, she’s not so bad, Kieran thought to himself.

“Where are you taking her?” Mrs. Tilly asked.

“I was thinking of Sanrina tonight.”

“Isn’t that in the Ebony Playground?” The human looked scandalized at the thought of a date in the Nephilim part of the city.

Kieran grinned. “Gluttony demons make for great chefs. Dad said Mom loved it when he took her.”

The older woman shook her head like shifters were all crazy as she moved through the kitchen to start breakfast. When Altina entered the kitchen, she was already dressed in a charcoal pencil skirt and baby blue silk blouse. Her makeup was immaculate, and her silvery-golden hair with its dark tips was in elegant curls.

As she poured herself a cup of coffee, Kieran let himself look her over. She only left her room once she was dressed and made up to perfection. Kieran was more comfortable in the house with just jeans or sweats on.

“Tina!” Maison cheered, and she smiled at him as she ruffled his hair and stole a bite of his cereal.

“Did you wake your daddy up?” Altina asked.

Maison nodded and babbled about his bad dream. Altina listened intently and gasped at all the right spots. As much as she disliked dhampirs, she hid it well from the boy and treated him well.

Kieran felt a pang in his chest as he watched the pair. The only thing that needed to be added to the picture was Kage.

The rest of the day was spent with Maison while Altina left to do minor work at her office. Kieran made a blanket fort for the boy, played with toys, and read him storybooks. They only took breaks to eat and one nap in the afternoon. Kieran ignored the nausea as he shifted to his full cheetah form and curled around Maison for their nap in the blanket fort. With only Mrs. Tilly in the house with them, no one was there to scold Kieran for using his magic.

By the time Altina returned home, and Kieran was in his room getting ready for their date, the coughing fits that always accompanied heavy use of his magic had already passed. It always killed the mood when she lectured him about shifting when the moons weren’t full or using too much of his shadow magic. Even his Furian ability to find things had started to go haywire. Last week, he lost his phone, and it took the entire day for him to go over and ask Artem to help him find it. Maison had been no help, thinking his daddy was playing a game with him.

When Kieran came downstairs, Mrs. Tilly was helping Maison put his toys away into the small toy chest in the living room. When he saw Kieran, he grabbed Mrs. Squawkle and ran to him. Kieran lifted him and smiled. “Ready to go to Aunt Echo’s?”

Maison nodded tiredly with a big yawn before he rested his head on Kieran’s shoulder.

“Remember, don’t light anything on fire. It’s rude, and she won’t give you cookies if you burn her towels again,” Kieran told the sleepy boy.

“I don’t mind staying overnight to babysit the young man. He’s such a sweetheart,” Mrs. Tilly said as she patted Maison’s head.

“He is a sweetheart,” Kieran preened and kissed Maison on the side of his head. “But I’d rather him out of the house for later tonight.” He smiled and waited for the lightbulb to click on for Mrs. Tilly.

“Oh my,” she said with a blush and a giggle. “Say no more, Mr. Eahban.”

Altina was still getting ready when Kieran saw Mrs. Tilly off and walked the short distance to Artem and Echo’s house. Echo practically danced as she answered the door and held her arms out for Maison. “Gimme!”

Kieran chuckled and handed the sleepy boy over. Maison babbled about kitty cats and blanket forts as she took him inside. Artem smiled after them as he took Maison’s overnight bag from Kieran.

“You know you shouldn’t shift often,” Artem pointed out.

“He could have been talking about you,” Kieran countered.

“But he wasn’t.”

Kieran shrugged. “He likes when I nap with him in my cheetah form.”

“He’d like it more if you tried to prolong your time with him when you can,” Artem said. “Please try to keep it to a minimum. Echo worries about you. After you lost your phone last week, she had nightmares for three nights straight.”

“If Maison had just gone and found it like I asked, I wouldn’t have come over.”

“He’s two.”

“Can still find things.”

Artem rolled his eyes. “Go get your d**k wet.”

“I doubt Ezekiel ever let you speak to him that way.”

“He didn’t. But I also wasn’t married to his little sister. I figure if I have the threat of painful death hanging over my head, I get to speak to you how I want,” Artem said cheerily.

Kieran chuckled. “I guess that’s true. Did you guys get those fire extinguishers I suggested?”

“The ones that release an edible foam that’s also good for the skin?”

Kieran nodded.

“Yes. In strawberry flavor,” Artem said before he nudged Kieran towards the steps off the porch. “Now go. Your mate is waiting by your truck.”

“Call me if anything happens,” Kieran said just as Artem shut the door in his face. He grumbled as he turned around to head to his truck.

He paused when he saw Altina. She wore a backless, spaghetti strap royal blue dress with a dark fur-lined coat for the chill late autumn night that showed off her curves and sparkled in the porchlight. It also brought out the blue of her lapis lazuli eyes. Lip gloss and light makeup finished her look, with her long hair loose around her shoulders in silky waves.

She was beautiful, and the dress was one of the ones she had explicitly told him he could rip. Kieran shivered lightly at the possibilities. Apparently, he had been a very good boy last month. He opened the passenger side door for her and breathed deeply of her funnel cake scent as she climbed into the truck.

Kieran didn’t mind the silence on the drive to the restaurant or as they sat at the table. The food at Sanrina was worth the hype and the price. When he ordered steak and firecracker shrimp, the shrimp was spicy with flavor and not the bland heat other restaurants would do in an attempt to please Furian's love of spice. The wine was good, too, chosen by the waiter after Kieran and Altina ordered their entrees.

The chocolate mousse cake with raspberries was so artistically decorated that Kieran was slightly intimidated to cut into it. One bite in, and Kieran decided it was a damn shame the chef made it pretty.

“I’ll never understand why good food needs to look pretty,” Kieran mused.

“You’re first bite is with your eyes,” Altina said.

“Never understood that either. I smell food before I see it.”

Altina was silent for a moment as she thought of that. “I guess you’ve always had a good sense of smell.”

“Mom, Rand, and Echo all make food as excellent as this, and it never needs to be pretty to get me drooling. I smell it before I even get to the room,” Kieran said idly as he leaned his cheek on his fist.

“It was an adjustment,” Altina said softly. “Is Maison’s sense of smell this good?”

“Not this good. But better than a human’s.”

“But his fangs haven’t come in.”

Kieran glanced at her from his dessert plate. “Dhampirs have heightened senses from birth. Our increased strength and healing comes with our fangs.”

“You’re not a dhampir anymore,” Altina said, meeting his eyes.

“I’m more hybrid than werecheetah. Maison will be the same when I scratch him. Same as the other dhampirs I scratched,” Kieran explained before he looked down at his plate and took a bite of cake.

“Will Echo’s baby be more hybrid than werecheetah?”

Kieran frowned at the odd question. “No. The children won't be hybrids if my Clan mates with other cheetahs or humans.”

Altina was silent for a time before she finally spoke. “I want a baby.”

Kieran stilled at the sudden words from her. She wants a baby? Is that why she wore that dress and minimal makeup? Asked those questions? He met her eyes and saw a determined set to them. Anger blossomed in his chest. When they started this damn arrangement, she had been clear that she didn’t want him to get her pregnant. She had been so certain that she had even purchased an infertility spell for herself and made him use condoms.

“No,” Kieran said as he set his fork down and motioned to the waiter for the check. It didn’t taste as good as it had a moment before.