Chapter 179

POV Sarah

Zane had told Grace and Chloe that after the recital we would go to dinner wherever they liked, confident that, considering the occasion, Chloe would defer to Grace. In any event, after sweeping her up into huge hugs and telling her how incredible she had been, we hustled into the car and ended up in the private dining room of a sushi place I knew Grace loved.

We were seated with me on the left, Zane on the right, and the girls in the middle, at the small sushi bar on high barstools that had the girls swinging their legs the second they could. As we waited for our chef, Zane ordered iced sake for us and Shirley Temples with extra cherries for the girls.

I hadn’t tried sake before and peered at the label, but I couldn’t read it as it was in Japanese. “I thought this was served hot.”

“The cheaper stuff is,” Zane said. “The better grace of product is served cold.”

“It’s a rice wine, right?”

He shrugged. “A little closer to rice beer, but you’ve got the idea. Try it.”

I brought it to my nose and breathed in pear and baked rice. I took a sip and let that pear taste fill my mouth. It was so crisp and fresh. I met Zane’s eyes and nodded enthusiastically. He smiled.

“I went a little flat on ‘oh, pray make no mistake,’” Grace confessed.

“You threw in a little blue note,” Zane said, which made sense to him and Grace, who giggled. Chloe and I looked at each other, and I made a note to look it up later.

“You were magnificent,” I told Grace. I kissed Chloe’s head. “Now, pass that to your sister.”

Chloe laughed and leaned over to kiss Grace on the cheek. “You were magnificent,” she repeated.

“In three weeks we’ll get to see your carving,” Grace said.

Chloe nodded. “Yeah, but tonight you’re the star. Don’t worry, when it’s my turn you’ll have to talk about me all day.”

“Is that right?” Grace asked in the sassiest voice I had ever heard her use.

“Yes. It’s the law.”

Grace looked up at her father. “Did you make that law?”

“Some laws even predate me,” Zane told her seriously.

She sighed. “Well, all right then.”

I couldn’t keep from laughing.

Our chef entered then, and we exchanged bows. He looked over his equipment, especially his knives, and then asked if we had any allergies. He knew the answer already, of course, but it was part of the ritual.

Soon, we were feasting on nigiri, sashimi, and maki adorned with caviar, black truffle, and matsutake mushrooms. There was no gold leaf for decorations. Zane had told me before he considered gold leaf on food “tacky,” and the chef had obviously gotten the memo.

About thirty minutes in, Chloe and Grace wanted to use the ladies, but when I offered to take them, they said they wanted to go on their own. As this actually meant with one of the bodyguards, we allowed it.

As the chef started in on crafting some salmon roses, Zane poured us another round of sake and then grew still. I looked at him with my brows raised.

“I worry the world will take my children from me,” he said with that self-aware bluntness I so prized in him. “I even feel selfish for wanting to protect them.”

“I know they’re alphas, Zane, but they’re still so young.” I put my hand on the arm he was resting on the bar. “They need your protection now, and yes, eventually, you will have to let them meet the world, but not now, not today.”

“So I’m borrowing trouble?” he asked with a rueful half-smile.

“Just worrying before you have to.” I squeezed him just slightly. “I feel the same, for what it’s worth, and when the time comes, we’ll have each other to stay strong with.”

He met my eyes. “So, you’ll be staying that long?”

“I’m in this for keeps, Zane, whatever happens.”

He covered my hand with his own, and for a long, sweet moment we just sat there and let the world keep its own counsel for a bit.

Then the girls returned and made awed noises at the salmon roses.

After all that, it was hardly a surprise the girls fell asleep in the car, but when Zane and I went to put them in their pajamas and tuck them into bed, they roused enough to demand I read to them.

“She grew more and more to like human beings and wished more and more to be able to wander about with those whose world seemed to be so much larger than her own. They could fly over the sea in ships and mount the high hills which were far above the clouds; and the lands they possessed, their woods and their fields, stretched far away beyond the reach of her sight.

“There was so much that she wished to know! but her sisters were unable to answer all her questions. She then went to her old grandmother, who knew all about the upper world, which she rightly called ‘the lands above the sea.’

“‘If human beings are not drowned,’ asked the little mermaid, ‘can they live forever? Do they never die, as we do here in the sea?’

“‘Yes,’ replied the old lady, ‘they must also die, and their term of life is even shorter than ours. We sometimes live for three hundred years, but when we cease to exist here, we become only foam on the surface of the water and have not even a grave among those we love.

“‘We have not immortal souls, we shall never live again; like the green seaweed when once it has been cut off, we can never flourish more. Human beings, on the contrary, have souls which live forever, even after the body has been turned to dust.

“‘They rise up through the clear, pure air, beyond the glittering stars. As we rise out of the water and behold all the land of the earth, so do they rise to unknown and glorious regions which we shall never see.’”

After Zane and I crept out, we did not part or go to his room, but went into the kitchen, where he poured us a little wine. We drank for a while in silence, both thinking solemn thoughts. I wondered what it would be like to be a wolf then and to be able to tell him we could have more children together.

Would it seem like I was offering to replace Grace and Chloe? I would never want such a thing. What I wanted was to offer more children to love.

For the first time, I had a reason to be glad if he and Melissa mated. I would be able to help raise more of Zane’s children, and whether they were as exceptional as Chloe and Grace or not, even if they were gammas or omegas, I would be glad to love them.

Omegas, I thought, looking at Zane. But no, this wasn’t the time for that particular discussion.

“They’ll be more than able to deal with it, when the time comes,” I said instead. Zane frowned at me slightly. “The world. In fact, in a contest, I’d put my money on them, not the world.”

He sighed. “If she wants it, I will let her attend training at the academy,” he said.

“Of course you will, and you will know when she’s old enough as well,” I told him with absolute confidence. “For one thing, Chloe will tell you.”

He glared at me, then laughed. “She will.” Then he frowned again.

“The whole thing is academic right now anyway,” he said. “Absolutely no changes will be made to their lives until I’m completely certain they’re safe. That is what matters now. That is all that matters.”

“Safe and loved,” I said.

He nodded with a smile. “Yes, safe and loved.”