Exhaling a breath that puffed out of my mouth in a cloud of steam, I started walking up the drive. Before ringing the doorbell, I glanced back to make sure Greid wasn’t far behind. He was juggling the gift bags and Jake’s leash, but he was on his way.
About ten seconds after ringing the bell, the door swung open to reveal Una in a green apron with a Santa hat on her head. The demiurgus version of a Santa hat—forest green with a big red plastic jewel on the end.
“Beryl, darling! Merry Christmas!” She grabbed my shoulders and kissed both cheeks, then went still. “Did you bring him? Where’s my baby?”
“I’m right here.” Greid appeared behind me, weighed down by all the bags hanging from his arms.
“Not you, kushka.” She peered around him and gasped. “There he is! Oh, my precious angel.”
“What the fuck,” Greid grumbled as his mom dropped to her knees to wrap her arms around our Borzoi’s neck.
We’d adopted him from the pound at the beginning of December. He was a couple of years old, so already enormous—long and lanky just like Greid, with white-and-tan fur. He was also just as gentle as Greid, and almost as lazy. Some days it felt like I was fighting a losing battle trying to get him and Greid to go for a walk.
“I already have a plate of meat fixed up for you,” she told Jake in a cooing voice as he excitedly licked her face. “Can he have gravy?”
“Probably not.” Greid shifted the bags. “Too salty.”
“My gravy is not ‘too salty’, Greid.” Una stood up and ushered Jake into the house. He trotted inside after I unclipped his leash, tail wagging as he immediately started sniffing everything. “Ooh, is that a cake?”
“Oh. Yeah.” I held it out to her. “It’s, um… Greid said your favourite is chocolate beetroot, so…”
“Oh, Beryl, you are such a sweetheart. Isn’t she such a sweetheart, Greid?”
“She’s alright.” He grinned at me behind his mother’s back as she turned to call out.
“Nuni! Come and help your brother with the gift bags.”
“Oh shit, Grode’s here?” I heard from somewhere deeper in the house.
Grode?
A few seconds later, a tall demiurgus sauntered into the hallway with a big shit-eating grin already on his face. He had long, artfully windswept hair tinted with blue, and was wearing an expensive-looking cashmere sweater with tailored slacks. A chunky diamond gleamed in his earlobe, and there was an equally thick signet ring on his little finger.
Yep, this was Nuni.
“Grode, bro, what the fuck are you wearing?” He snickered as he approached, yellow eyes alighting on me and gleaming with interest.
Greid huffed. “It’s the Christmas sweater Aunt Indi made me last year. Why aren’t you wearing yours?”
Nuni came to a stop in front of us and shrugged. “I look better in this.”
Una tutted, making her way toward the door he’d just appeared from. “You really should be wearing yours, Nuni. All the others are. She spent a long time making them for you all.”
“Sorry, Ma,” he said absently, grinning again and back to staring at me. “So this is Beryl. Nice to finally meet you.”
I fixed a polite smile on my face and shook his huge hand when he held it out. “Nice to meet you too.”
“You’ve been together a while now, huh?” He looked between Greid and me. “How’d you even meet? It’s not like Grode ever leaves his house.”
“Why are you calling him Grode?” I asked, maybe a little too defensively seeing as we’d just met, but I’d heard all about Nuni.
He was apparently oblivious to the hard edge in my voice, because he grinned.
“Oh, just a nickname I came up with when we were kids. Mix of Greid, grody and chode. I’m just”—he shoved his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels with a faux-humble shrug, his grin turning sheepish—“a creative guy like that, I guess.”
I gave him my best unimpressed look. “Real creative. But hey, maybe I can come up with a nickname for you.”
That wiped the grin off his face, gaze turning wary as he eyed me. “Like what?”
“I’ll think of something.” I gave him a sweet smile. “Your mom told you to help Greid with the bags.”
His ears fluttered, and after a few seconds he slipped his hands out of his pockets to take three of the bags from Greid, who was watching our exchange in silence.
After Nuni had slunk off without another word, Greid leaned down and whispered, “That was hot.”
Chuckling, I took one of the bags from him now that my hands were free. “Now I have to come up with a stupid nickname for him. One that he’ll hate.”
“Pooni.”
I burst out laughing as we shrugged off our coats and hung them with all the others. “Fittingly juvenile. I like it.”
“Whose dog is this?” a voice called, before a demiurgus lady in a fluffy red sweater appeared in the hallway. She looked almost identical to Una, so I was guessing this was Greid’s Aunt Indi. “Oh, Greid, my angel! You’re here! Why are you just standing in the hall?”
She rushed forward and grabbed Greid’s face, pressing a big kiss to his cheek, then turned to do the same to me. “You must be Beryl. Merry Christmas! Aren’t you precious? So tiny. Look at that hair. You’re beautiful. Come on, come in. Do you want a drink? Greid, what does Beryl drink?”
I glanced back at Greid with wide eyes as Indi swept me along, out of the hallway and into a living room. There was a big Christmas tree in the corner decorated with green and gold and red, and—I tried to quickly count—more than a dozen stockings crammed together on the fireplace mantle.
“Everyone, Beryl and Greid are here!” Indi announced. “Bax, get Beryl a drink. Nuni, help your brother with the bags.”
“I already helped him with the fucking bags,” Nuni grumbled. “He can carry two bags, Auntie.”
“Help your brother with the bags.” She tapped him on the back of the head as she passed him, which made him frantically reach up to check his hair. “Now, who haven’t you met yet, Beryl? Daga and Tuvin are helping their mother in the kitchen, and I think Laki and Suni are on the back porch smoking…”
“They are?” Greid asked eagerly, but took my hand with a sheepish expression when I shot him a warning look. He could not just slink off to get high with his siblings while I endured this.
“Honey, maybe Beryl doesn’t want to be paraded around.” A bald demiurgus with a cheerful smile appeared, handing me a flute of champagne. “I’m Bax, Indi’s lifemate and this lot’s uncle. Lovely to meet you.”
“And you.” I took a sip of champagne to calm my nerves and smiled in relief when I saw Kiti ambling over with a grin. “Hi, Kiti.”
“Hi, babe.” She kissed my cheek. “Just let Aunt Indi do her thing then come sit with me and Sorin. Hi, dork.”
“Hi, buttface.” Greid gave her shoulder a weak shove as I peered behind her to wave at Sorin, who was sitting on the couch with a baby in his arms. He wiggled his fingers back, his thumb being held in a death grip.
“That’s one of Daga and Elern’s rugrats.” Kiti leaned in closer and muttered, “They’re too young for me to tell them apart.”
“Oh, don’t be ridiculous, Kiti,” Indi scolded. “There were eight of you and we could tell you apart from the moment you were born. Especially our little kushka.”
She pinched Greid’s cheek, making him squirm and mumble, “C’mon, Auntie.”