Fang sighed. “We will. Give Channon my best.”
Sebastian inclined his head to them before he vanished.
“Channon?” Seraphina asked.
“His mate.” Fang gestured toward the blood on Max’s body. “You guys need me to get Carson?”
Max shook his head. “I just need to rest. I’ll be fine.” He glanced to Hadyn. “What about you, kid?”
Hadyn glanced to his mother and bit his lip. “Are you good, Matera?”
“How do you mean?”
“About our father?”
She scowled, still not sure what he was talking about.
Edena stepped forward to place a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Tell her, Hadyn. It’s time.”
Nodding, he bent forward onto all fours as Edena stepped back to give him plenty of room. A second later, Hadyn sprang into a dragon form that was almost indistinguishable from Maxis’s.
With a deep, relieved moan, he rolled over onto his back and let his tongue hang out of his mouth. “Thank the gods. I needed this.” He panted and groaned his misery. “Ah, gah, it was so hard to stay human!” His tail swished like a happy puppy’s.
Seraphina wasn’t sure what to make of him or his comments. “Hadyn?”
Laughing at his anguish, Edena moved to rub his belly. “He’ll be fine, Mom. He’s just a big baby.”
“Baby, my ass. That shit hurt!”
“Hadyn!”
“Sorry, Matera. It was brutal!” He draped one claw over his snout.
Stunned, Seraphina tried to make sense of this. “Are you telling me that you’re Katagaria?”
Everything went still in the room. As if every one of them waited with bated breath for his response and her reaction.
“Yes,” he squeaked.
Seraphina winced at the underlying hesitation in her son’s voice. “Oh, Hadyn.” Choking on tears, she went to him and nuzzled his snout like she’d done Maxis’s earlier. “Precious! How could you think for one moment that I wouldn’t love you for this?”
“Oh, I don’t know. The fact that you’re a dragonslayer who wears boots made from the hides of dragons you’ve slain?”
“Like father, like son.” She held her hand out toward Maxis while she stroked her son’s scaly cheek. “I don’t care what form you take, boy. You are still the baby I carried inside me. The angel I nursed and protected. How could you think for one second that I could ever hate you for something you can’t help?”
Edena slapped his stomach. “Told you.”
Hadyn popped her with his tail.
“Mom!”
“Hadyn, stop hitting your sister with your tail.”
“She started it.”
Seraphina turned to Maxis. “Would you do something?”
“Like what?”
“Talk to them? What did you do when your brothers fought?”
He shrugged. “Let them. They usually stopped once the bleeding got bad.”
Hadyn laughed. Edena looked horrified.
Laughing, Max brushed past Sera so that he could finally get a look at his children. It was such a strange feeling to be with strangers that were his. Yet a part of him knew it. Could sense it.
“May I hug you?” he asked Edena.
Tears glistened in her eyes before she threw herself against him. Hadyn returned to being human so that he could launch himself against Max’s back and wedge him between them.
Seraphina couldn’t breathe as she watched them. In that moment, she truly hated herself for what she’d done. Tears blurred her vision as she watched her children with the father who should never have been a stranger to them.
As if sensing her sadness, Maxis reached his hand out to her and pulled her into their embrace. She took his hand and allowed them to swallow her with their cocoon.
Until Hadyn protested that his ribs hurt. Stepping back, he returned to being a dragon.
Maxis smiled at Edena, then Hadyn, before he turned to Blaise. “Can I ask a favor?”
“Of course.”
“The gallu aren’t going to stop and neither will the two packs coming for me. This is a blood feud that is centuries old. I need my children where they can’t reach them.”
“You want me to take them to Avalon?”
“Please. It’s the one place I know is beyond their reach.”
Hadyn and Edena immediately protested.
Seraphina wanted to argue, too, but she knew Maxis was right. This was the only way to keep them safe. They’d already been punished by the gods for her actions. She didn’t want them in the line of fire again. “He’s right. It’s just for a few days. I promise. Go with your uncle and we’ll get you soon.”
As Blaise started to leave, Max stopped him. “Tell Merlin not to worry. I have not forgotten my oath or my duties. Should I fall, guardianship will go to Falcyn and then to you.”
He arched a brow. “Not to Hadyn?”
Max shook his head. “I would never do that to him. The curse of it’s too strong.”
“So you give it to us. Thanks, brother.”
Max laughed. “Getting you both back for all the years of hell you’ve given me.”
Blaise sobered. “I’ll tell her. You be careful.”