On a Clear Winter Night: An Irin Chronicles Short Story by Elizabeth Hunter Read Free Book Online Page A

innocence.
    “She’s just so cute,” Max said. “Rhys and I were pulling Christmas crackers. Every time one exploded, she got the funniest look on her face.”
    Ah, his brothers. Teaching his tiny daughter the wonder of explosive devices when she was a week old.
    “I am going to show her the Christmas tree,” Malachi said. “Hopefully nothing will explode.”
    “And Rhys was going to read her a poem. There was something about the fat man and a bowl of jelly. I don’t understand how anyone that fat could fit down a chimney.”
    “It’s a myth, Max.”
    “But all myths have roots in reality,” he argued. “So for the Santa Claus myth to develop as it has—”  
    Max shut up when the door to the library cracked open.
    Ava asked, “Are you two fighting over the baby again?”
    “No,” Max said. “I was trying to understand why the Santa myth requires a very fat man as the central figure.”
    She frowned.  
    “And maybe fighting over the baby a little.”
    Malachi ignored his brother and walked over to his mate, who looked vastly more refreshed than she had when she’d lain down with their boy. “Hello, canım. Did you and Geron have a nice nap?”
    She held out their son. “I did. I’ll trade you. I just fed him. You change him and I’ll feed Matti.”
    “It’s a plan.” He kissed the top of her head and took Geron and his full diaper before he handed off Matti. “Be good for Mama.”
    Ava took Matti back into their bedroom, and Malachi turned to Max.
    “Here.” He held Geron out. “Want this one?”
    Max scowled and walked back to the kitchen as Malachi laughed and rocked Geron. “They always disappear when the diaper needs changing, my son.”
    Geron smiled, contented and milk-drunk, his little belly swollen. Astrid said the smiles were only gas, but Malachi wondered…
    “Never mind,” he said, pulling his face back from the tiny child. “That one was definitely gas. Let’s get a clean diaper for you.”
    As they walked down the hallway, Geron stared wide-eyed at the walls. Malachi turned and noticed the ancient spells protecting the house rise to his view beneath the many layers of paint.
    “Do you see that already, little scribe?” he whispered. “Someday, you will understand what that means. I will teach you.”
    As Malachi walked toward the laundry room where Ava had set up a changing table, he sang a silly melody he remembered his grandmother singing to him when he had been very small. Geron cooed with him, his voice surprisingly strong for a child only a week old. His eyes already saw everything.
    Malachi wondered for the thousandth time what it all would mean. His son didn’t only contain the blood of the Forgiven. In his children was mingled the blood of the Fallen and the Forgiven. Archangels and enemies. Powers he could barely grasp.
    And yet…
    Looking into calm grey eyes the exact color of his own, Malachi’s mind and soul were at peace. Who could predict the will of the Creator or the machinations of the heavenly realm? He only knew that these children, these precious treasures, had been given to him and his mate to love and protect. And so he would.
    With a clean diaper on his son’s little bum, Malachi laid Geron under the Christmas tree on a soft blanket and stretched out next to him as his baby boy looked up in wonder at the sparkling lights that danced in the dim light and reflected from the brightly painted globes Ava had chosen. Quiet music played from the kitchen as Karen and Bruno prepared dinner for Astrid, Candace, Brooke, and all their guests. It was a crowded house, but a happy one. The first week of his children’s lives had been filled with love and laughter and joy.
    He heard the door to the bedroom open and Ava came into the room with Matti in her arms.
    She laid their daughter next to her brother and cuddled into Malachi’s other side. He put his arm around his mate, amazed by the fullness of his life. His reshon on one side and his children cuddling