He beat me to my chair and untucked it.

Fang stopped rocking on his own to watch us with mirth dancing in his eyes. “Never thought I’d see it.”

Scythe’s chair groaned when he seated himself next to me. “Shut your mouth.”

Fang was not deterred in the slightest. “This male,” he said, making sure he had my full attention before continuing, “he’s never so much as purchased a beverage for a female before taking her home to bed.”

My stomach squirmed. I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from showing how I felt about being made to think of this mate of mine with another.

“Last warning,” Scythe growled and tossed an apple I barely saw him snatch from the fruit bowl at the table’s center.

Fang caught it right before his long nose, then bit into the fruit with a grin that warned of more torment to come.

“I’m just stating a truth, though,” Fang said, chewing the apple as Mariana entered the room to place steaming dishes upon the table. “And I’ve some more where that came from.”

“Do not tease him,” Mariana warned.

A repetitive clopping sounded over the floor outside of the room.

“You’ve never once told him to stop teasing me,” Fang protested, mouth agape.

“Because you usually deserve it,” said a male from the doorway. He lowered his head to kiss Mariana’s cheek before she flitted back down the hall toward the kitchen.

Then the new male with shaggy mud-colored hair and a limp to his step entered the dining room with a walking cane. “Who have we here?” He gave a derisive snort. “Another one of Fanerin’s attempts to…” He stopped, nostrils twitching, and looked from me to Scythe with wide brown eyes. “Yours?”

Scythe, rubbing at his chin, failed to hide his smile. “This is Aster.”

I smiled once more and fought the urge to rise to my feet to greet him properly.

The male blinked down at me from across the table. He frowned as he searched my face and my form, perhaps even my posture, far too thoroughly for my liking.

“This is Berk,” Scythe said, pointedly enough that Berk tore his studious gaze from me and continued to his seat at the head of the table.

Fang’s brows wiggled at us as his father settled into his chair. “He’s one of the most surliest creatures you’ll ever meet, but you’ll soon get used to it.” Helping himself to the chicken upon the table, he tore off a leg and said with far too much pleasure, “You know, being that you’re mates and all.”

Berk grumbled something that sounded like, “I’ll give you surly, you ungrateful shit.”

“Manners,” Mariana hissed and set the last dish on the table before taking her seat at the opposite end. “We have a guest.”