In record time, my people had turned the otherwise boring plain into a small picnic spot. Of course, we could not grow plants in a matter of minutes, but there was a nice lake, with a small island in the middle with a single tree on it. It was a gnarled weeping willow that had stood there before, but Siphanien would spend a lot of time and mana on it, which should make it healthier.

The lake was not very deep, at its deepest, it was only one metre deep. However, it was something we could do within fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes I spend giving the wives and kids kisses and hugs. I had decided I did not care if I did not project the badass warlord attitude. My family is too important.

I conjured some benches and picnic tables out of stone for my family to sit at. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Chione discussing something heatedly with Nishka. Probably was less than happy about being told to wait.

Before I devoted the rest of my attention to the family, I beckoned Ethan over. “When we send that wench home, I need you to scrub the coordinates out of the gates she used, I want clean coordinates. Just channel some mana into this while thinking about the new coordinates.”

“Yes, Milord,” he said and took the proffered spell crystal.

“Good, could you do me a favour and erect a privacy screen for me and my family?”

“Of course, Milord, thank you once more for arranging for me to get access to the different races’ magic,” he said before conjuring a one-way illusion that displayed an empty lake, as well as a sound barrier.

“Thanks, Ethan,” I said and stepped through the illusion. As soon as I got to the other side, my mouth spread in a big smile. I changed into a panther for a second letting out a roar, and ripping my clothes to pieces, before changing into my house cat form.

The kids and Emma all looked at me for a second, before they all changed into their own cat form and started running away. I raced after them, choosing to chase Maeve first, knowing she would love it.

True to form, not wanting part of the game, Balder high tailed it out of there, and climbed up on the table next to where Zac was lying. Zac gurgled happily when Balder licked his nose. Mina gathered Balder protectively in her arms. “Don’t worry, sweety, I’ll protect you here.”

Him being out of the game, I ignored him for now. Talen followed Quill, running to my left. Garion, Artemis, and Emma ran to my right, while Maeve chose to run straight ahead, with me hot on her tail.

I meowed triumphantly as I was just right behind her. She looked back and I swore she had a mischievous look on her face. Just as I reached out to tag her, she vanished. Shocked, I skidded to a stop, looking around not seeing any sign of my daughter.

A peel of laughter from the table had me looking back at Lily, Mina, Nathalie, and Nina. Maeve was sitting there looking inordinately pleased with herself.

Relief and pride flooded my system, but so did irritation. I would need to have a very serious word with whomever of my three teleporting mages had allowed my daughter to form a connection with them.

When I changed back into human form, Maeve got a guilty look on her face. I teleported next to her. I saw that she was about to attempt again, but I clamped down, preventing her from teleporting. She started meowing pitifully when I gathered her into my arms. The wives looked like they were about to protest, but dropped their protest when I gave them a glare.

“Maeve, honey,” I said gently. “Please change to your human form.”

She did as I told her. She looked at me with her beautiful, but tearful, eyes. I gave her a gentle smile. “Honey, I’m very proud of you. That you could teleport was great, but what you did is very dangerous. So you’re not going to do that again unless you’re together with me. Understood?”

“Yes, Dada,” she said. It was the first time I had heard her say anything in her human form. My heart swelled.

“Good girl, you make me so proud,” I said and looked towards the other kids and Emma. Emma was the only one that had stopped to look at us. The other kids were halfway around the lakes. I gave Maeve another smile. “Let’s go catch, Mommy.”

I put her down as soon as she had changed, and she raced off after her mother. I changed as well and followed after her. I made sure to keep an eye on all the kids, with the mana sight. None of the others had traces of any other magic than their shapeshifting. Satisfied I focused on the task at hand, herding Emma into Maeve’s path so Maeve could catch her mother.

It took a couple of minutes to catch Emma, and then we corralled the rest of them in, catching them. Ten minutes after me scolding Maeve, we had caught everyone and were back at the tables. Emma, the kids, and I were butt-naked. Well, not Zac, he was in his diaper. Not that it mattered. The whole area was plenty of hot, because of my fire magic.

“So, what do I owe the pleasure?” I asked the wives. The kittens and Garion were napping next to Zac in their cat form, who was gurgling happily as Nina played peekaboo with him.

“It’s Garion’s third birthday,” Lily gently reminded me.

“Shit,” I mumbled, earning five angry stares from the wives for cursing in front of the children. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to forget.”

“We know that it’s easy to forget what day it is when you’re in the field,” Lily said with a small smile.

“You also don’t have that, uhm, what did you call it? Fune? To keep track of what day it is,” Emma added with a purr, rubbing her cheeks against me. She was making sure I had her scent all over me.

“Phone, but it’s no excuse,” I said with a frown. “It’s a shitty dad who forgets his own child’s birthday.”

“You know we don’t place importance on the day you’re born. Everyone celebrates when the new cycle begins,” Lily pointed out.

“Even the elves,” Shenerah added.

“And the beastkin,” Emma supplied.

“I know, but it’s something that I never really got when I was a kid, and I was jealous of the normal kids that got to have one. I want my kids to have one, and I want to be there for every one of them,” I said forlornly. “Nothing is more important to me than all of you.”

“What about Chione?” Emma asked with a pout.

“Or that damn tusk-mouth?” Shenerah added heatedly.

“They only matter in the context of keeping you safe. They matter for nothing else,” I said resolutely and honestly.

“Well, if it’s important for you, then let’s see if we can make a birthday for him to remember,” Lily said.

“Yeah, let’s go home for a few days while they handle everything here,” I suggested.

Lily lit up in a smile. “It’ll be good to have you home for a couple of days.”

Ten minutes later I had arranged with Caspar and Ethan to be in charge and left. Stranding Chione at the fort because as soon as I stepped through I wiped the old location codes and changed them. She would have to teleport somewhere else if she wanted to leave before I got back.

Garion’s birthday was held without a hitch. I had the kitchen make a big cake with whipped cream. The kids loved it, their mother’s not so much. Especially Emma was less than enthused about the whipped cream in the kids’ fur, complaining several times about how hard it was to get out of their fur.

While I had forgotten what date it was, I had arranged for his present before I left: A foal had been born slightly before I left, and it was that young stallion I gave to him. The kids flocked around the young horse who loved the attention, and the slices of apples they were feeding him. My Master of the Horse was supervising them together with Nina, while I was observing with the wives.

“He’s too young,” Lily objected with a continuous nervous tapping of her foot.

“Nonsense, Beastmaster Redmane assures me that three is the perfect age to start bonding with the horse, let them grow up together, get used to each other. He’s making sure that there’s one for each of their third birthday,” I said.

“I’m not sure that’s—” Emma started to object when Artemis came running over.

“Momma!” She pointed repeatedly at the horse saying, “Want!”

Emma tried to kill me with her stare. I just shrugged. Finally, Emma relented, scooping up Artemis and said, “Not yet, soon.”

Artemis looked at her seriously. “Soon.”

I could not help but smile. Being together with my family for a few days was pure joy. However, the reality of rulership soon asserted itself, and I had to leave.

As soon as I stepped through the gate I was “attacked” by a very irritated Chione. “What the fuck is the meaning, Karth? You can’t just leave me here waiting for days.”

“Complaining about a few days seems lame compared to the cycles you’re making me wait. Now, what the fuck do you want?” I replied tiredly, though I had a pretty good idea.

“Your little spies should have told you that the negotiations are going badly. I need the names of those dwarves you’re dealing with. Some internal pressure on the leadership of the dwarves will help a lot,” she demanded haughtily.

“Are we going to go through this again?”

“I’m not going to kill Anders, I still have a need for him,” she stated resolutely.

“Fine, the conversation is over,” I said and turned around to walk away.

“Wait, I can give you money.”

“Already got more than I need,” I waved her offer away.

“More land.”

“You have already given me carte blanche on the northern plains and I’ve just settled more of it. Thanks to your lie of omission I’ve got another few cycles of expansion.” I kept walking.

“Women to serve you every need,” she shouted after me.

“Already got that and then some.”

“Stop or I’ll turn the other races against you!” She was getting desperate if her tone was anything to go by. She was running to catch up with me.

“Good luck with that. Just ask the soldiers at the Bastion what happened to the last guys that betrayed me. Oh, wait. They’re dead,” I responded to her threat with a yawn. I stopped since she was going to keep following me no matter what I did.

“Not all of them,” she said viciously.

“In time they’ll get there. If not for the fucking little trip into the hinterlands you sent me on, we would get them there quicker.”

“What the fuck do you want then?”

“Anders dead. He betrayed me.”

“No, anything but that,” she said shaking her head.

“You in a collar, not just any collar. My collar.”

“You’ll already get that.”

“Yeah, just not as soon as I fucking thought. You played me, I should kill you for that.”

She stepped back a few steps. “If you do that, the rest of the races will turn against you.”

“If they’re on Anders’ side, they already are,” I said with narrowed eyes.

“You got a very limited view of the world.”

“And you got a problem since you keep coming around begging for help. You’re not offering me anything I’d like.”

“How about I wear your collar?”

“We already made a deal for that,” I snorted.

“I mean right now, this second. You’ll slap a collar on me, code it to your blood, command me not to use magic against you or yours without permission. You hand me the bindstone, you’ll get it when you complete the deal we made in the first place,” she offered.

“I can wait, it’s not really gaining ownership of you.”

“You’ll remove me as a potential adversary.”

“True, but it’s not enough.”

She looked frustrated. “Then tell me what you want.”

“Since you won’t let me kill Anders, then let me cut a piece of him.”

“You're a sadistic bastard, I’ll just heal him afterwards,” she said with a shake of her head.

I drew one of the Heretic Blades I had equipped myself with before I met with her. “Not if I use this to make him prettier.”

“No! I won’t let you.”

“Fine, no deal then,” I said and waved for Ethan and the guards who were standing nearby. “Send Chione on her way. Scrub the portal’s coordinates afterwards. We don’t want any unwelcome guests. Again.”

“Come on, stop being such an uncooperative prick!” she screamed at me, as Ethan started preparing mana crystals for opening the portal.

“I’ve told you what I want,” I repeated myself for the umpteenth time.

“Milord, do you want me to open the portal?” Ethan asked.

I looked at Chione. “Going once, going twice, and—”

“Fine! Just not in the face, behind it, or anything vital! And he has to be able to survive and walk!” she shouted.

“Deal, let’s go deal with it at once,” I said and gave the sign for Ethan to open the portal. The moment before I walked through the portal, I told him, “Wipe it. I’ll have Emma contact you for the new coordinates.

We went back to my Hold and took the train to the small trading post I had next to the dwarven outpost, where Anders and Chione had been staying for the past many months, negotiating with the dwarves.

“Karth, what the fuck are you doing here?” Anders sneered at me.

“This is my land, I can be where the ever the fuck I want,” I sneered right back at him, fingering the Heretic Blade.

“Oh, stop with your petty subtle threats, we both know you’re too much of a wimp to do anything because of Chione,” he scoffed.

I slapped him hard.

He stared at me for a moment. “You’re dead! Chione, kill him.”

I smiled, then slapped him again. “She can’t.”

He looked at Chione, confused. I ordered her, “Pet, show him your new accessory.”

“What’s going on?” he asked, suddenly afraid.

“It’s time to pay the piper,” I smiled my most sadistic grin and drew the Heretic Blade. “You won’t heal from this.”

“Remember, he has to survive, be able to walk, talk and perform his duties,” Chione said without emotion. “I’m sorry, Anders. He holds the key to victory, you were not willing to do what was necessary. You’ll keep your life.”

“He’ll be able to do everything, except siring a kid,” I promised.

“Wh—” he started, but was interrupted by a pillar of rock knocking him off balance. He tried to throw an earth spike, or something similar in my direction, but I clamped down hard on his magic, turning off the well before it could provide enough mana to the spell. A blast of wind knocked him all the way to the ground, where stone sprang up and encased his hands and feet.

“Trust me, this will hurt,” I whispered in his ear as I knelt down next to him. “And I’m going to enjoy every second of it. You—not so much.”

His screams echoed into the night, alerting the guards, who left when they found out what happened. He was bleeding profusely when I was done with my deed. It felt good finally hurting the bastard for good.

“You promised he would not bleed out,” Chione said angrily.

“You forgot something,” I pointed out.

“Master,” she said through clenched teeth.

I nodded. “We’ve to work on that. But yes, I promised, didn’t I? Better wake him up so he can enjoy a bit more pain.”

With healing magic I woke Anders up, screaming of pain still. The screams rose when I cauterized the wound.

“There, promise kept. Want a souvenir?” I asked and threw Anders’ dick to her. “Remember our deal. This crystal contains all the names and deals I’ve made with the dwarves.”

She grabbed the spell crystal. I wondered if she would catch on to the extra little gift I had placed inside. Probably not until after her first nightmare. She looked from Anders to me. “You’re a lunatic.”

I just shrugged and left. It felt good to have finally hurt the bastard permanently.