Page 200 of A Fate of Blood and Magic
I was only able to shout a quick greeting as Elias pulled me away from them. While the girls had wanted to come on our small camping trip, Elias and I had decided they should stay with Donnie or Ryenne so that Javier could see them.
For weeks, Alastor, the shifter mages, and I had worked at healing and restoring Respandora. The forest was now full of Sali oaks and other trees that stretched far and high. There were several bushes with flowers no one could name, but the fragrance they carried was so alluring we’d had several visits from fae whose homes bordered our land.
Despite their greatest efforts, neither Alastor nor any of the shifter mages were able to help the land covered in that grayish soot. They tried, even having several healers send their healing magic through the snow to the ground.
The angry magic that lived on that particular piece of land erupted with rageful waves of magic that lashed out at any fae close enough for it to reach them. Alastor couldn’t find a solution for the sick land in the living book, so reluctantly, we all agreed to box it in with both an invisible shield and one made of iron.
It pained me to enclose it, and I hoped that as Alastor continued studying the book, an answer would reveal itself. But just as he couldn’t find a way to help thatpiece of land, the living book hadn’t revealed a way to mend Elias’s blood that lived within our babies so that the land recognized the boys as one of their own. Nor had it told him how to find the orb that was still missing or what was causing the fae’s magic to falter.
Alastor didn’t give up, though, and I knew he wouldn’t.
In spite of the setbacks, Respandora wasn’t just flourishing but growing.
I waved at the shifter mage who’d moved her family into a tent beside the vegetable garden they grew. Esmerelda’s children tended to the already growing garden while her husband took his goats from one paddock to the other. Elias and Brenton joined him, talking about the other livestock he intended to bring back from the human realm to Respandora.
“You’ll never guess what Randall brought back from the human realm,” she said, wiping her dirt-covered hands on her jeans.
“Can’t we keep at least one?” one of the older girls asked, her eyes filling with tears.
Curious, I arched my brows up.
“We’re living in a tent,” Esmerelda said, her tone lifted in exasperation. “A tent’s no place for puppies.”
“Puppies?” My heart did a strange dance.
I hadn’t seen dogs, let alone puppies, in almost a year. I figured none of them had survived the winter that came for us.
“Randall found puppies?” I asked.
“He found a mama dog,” Esmerelda said, her eyes alight with something I couldn’t pinpoint. “Soft heart that he is, he brought her back. Not even an hour after she got here, she birthed six pups. Two didn’t make it, but the rest are doing well.”
“Can I see them?” I couldn’t help the delight that built. But puppies. Sweet, adorable little puppies.
She pressed her lips together, ushering me into her barn. “I was hoping I could convince you to keep them all. I know it’s a lot to?—”
“Yes.” I shouted for Elias. “We’re getting puppies.”
Randall laughed, slapping Elias on the shoulder good-naturedly.
“What does that mean?” Elias asked. He closed the paddock door behind him and Brenton before they followed us into the barn.“We’re getting puppies.”
I followed the small sounds of puppies whining and grunting, then I stepped over the baby gates they’d used to set up the puppies’ pen and knelt beside a sleeping puppy that was various colors of black and brown. Mama eyed me from the corner, but when she didn’t seem to mind my presence, I lifted the tiny puppy to my face.
“It means Hee-haw’s getting siblings,” I told Elias.
Brenton took a spot next to the mama, who rested her large brown head on his lap with a deep sigh. When he petted her long snout, she closed her eyes. Reluctantly, Elias stepped into the pen with me. When I handed him the puppy, he cupped the small thing in his hand and nuzzled his nose against the puppy’s nose. I picked up another puppy, this one all white with a black spot over his left eye, and let its small body rest on my stomach.
“Do you want to keep all of them?” Elias asked.
“I want the mama dog,” Brenton said. “When her babes don’t need her anymore.”
“She’s all yours, but you better come up with a good name for her. I think she’s the last surviving dog in all the human realm.”
“That can’t be,” Elias said. “How could she have become pregnant if she’s the last surviving dog?”
Shrugging, I brought my attention back to the puppy I held. “I think it’d be nice to have a puppy or two. I had some stray cats as pets but never dogs. And look at these puppies, Elias. The girls will be over the moon for them.”
“We can keep two. For the girls, of course.” He kissed the puppy’s little head.
