Chapter 2

I knew that he was going to have some serious pain after that smack to a broken jaw and nose. Not to mention even worse ego break. He was groaning and I thought it was pathetic. If you pop out four kids and one set, Nik and Anya - especially Nik- , is bigger than normal for twins and you go through it twice both times back to back, a broken nose ain't nothing. I've never had my jaw broken, but I hope it hurt as much as he made it look like.

"You lied?" Tasha whimpered. He groaned again and I had the urge to kick him, but teaching my kids that would be bad. Don't kick a men when he's down no matter how much you want to. I could see myself right now.

"If he's like your father go ahead and beat him until he begs for death," I would want to say, but I would keep it in. Hopefully.

"Dimitri, don't lie," Lissa said in a voice that made me wonder if she had been taking classes to be a thearapist. I guess it came with the whole being Queen thing. She certainly didn't learn it from Tiatanna who would come right out and call you an idot for absolutely no reason other than you bothered her.

"Dhampirs can't do that," he mumbled.

"She's shadow-kissed. If she can come back from the dead I'm sure she can have your kids."

"I don't regret them, but I regret you," I said under my breath. Lissa told me to be quiet through the bond. Tasha lookeda at Dimitri one more time.

"I want a family with you," she said. "But I can't have a family with a man who won't accept the kids he already has." She backed away from him and I saw the tears streaming down her face. Apparently Adrian had went to Christian's and filled him in because he walked out as soon as Tasha's body started shaking with the sobs and held her close to him. Dimitri stumbled to his feet and wobbled off. He wobbled worse than I did when i was pregnant with twins and my stomach weighed what felt like fifty pounds and threatened to make me flip over at any sudden movement. I was glad I wasn't prego anymore.

"Tasha, hopefully one day we can work this out. I don't want theses bastard children to be rumored as mine when they aren't. A relationship cannot work without trust." He said this in a dramatic way, leaning on the wall and turning his head only. Then he walked away. It hurt me that he ahdn't said anything but "I'm not your father" to the kids. No kiss my ass or nothing to Nik.

"It'll be okay," I whispered to Anya and Nik. Anya had stopped crying and was wiping her face to clean off the makeup. I held Nik under one of my arms and Anya under the other. I used a hand to help wipe off all her makeup. She smiled sadly and held me close. I looked at my oldest children. Technically Nik was abou three minutes older and he alwasy teased her about it saying he ws the oldest. Right now they both looked like my young and innocent babies I gave birth to 13 years ago.

"Mama, will he ever want to be our Dad?" Anya asked.

"I don't know, sweetie." I ran a hand through her silky hair. "If he does or doesn't, know you still have people who love you. Aunt Lissa, Uncle Christian, me, Adrian, Aunt Mia, Auncle Eddie and all your friends."

"I just want a Dad. Dad is great and I love him like a real Dad. He's all I'll ever need, I just want my blood father to want me. I don't want him to think I'm a mistake." A few more tears came down.

"You aren't a mistake. Maybe one day you'll have two Dads, but for now you have to make due with Adrian. By the way, you might want to go see him. I still have to go to work, but I'll be home soon."

"Mama, be carelful," Nik said. I heard him sniffle.

"I'm just going with Lissa to a meeting. It's actually about you in a way."

"What?" They asked.

"Yeah. You and your sisters. They don't want to allow you sisters to have a royal name bcause they're dhampirs. They say you can't have a royal name because your father isn't Adrian. They might make you go by Hathaway, but we're fighting for you."

"Thanks, Mom," Nik said. "I want Dad's name."

"Me too."

"They also say that if you have a royal name you can't be guardians. Royal name or guardian?"

"Do we have to be a guardian?" Anya asked. I hesitated. I had been raised to say yes, but did she? It was her life, for God's sake!

"No. You can be whatever you want, but you should train to be one so you know how to protect yourself if you have to. If you want you can be a model. No one's got your future planned for you. You either, Nik." Turns out I was wrong.

At the meeting that's all people did. Some people thought that they should be whatever they want with whatever name they wanted. The only people who thought that were the Ivashkovs, Lissa, and the guardians. Tiatanna was now the leader of the Ivashkovs along with Tyler. Tyler was in line to be King, but they allowed Tiatanna to have a say in what went on.

Other people thought they should be banned. Others thought they should be given a choice, the name or a guardian? Then Mama Bear made me speak up.

"You can't plan my kid's lives for them!" I yelled, reaching my boiling point. "They can be an Ivashkov if they want! It isn't your name to pass on so you can shut up about that! If you don't want them to be a guardian then no guardians will be here since it is the royals who are the fathers and mothers of half the dhampirs in the world. Then who will protect you?" Silence.

"That is what I've been trying to get them to understand this whole time, but they wouldn't shut up and listen," Lissa said. A few people glared. "I can have you all arrested for treason if you keep looking at me like that and not letting me talk. I have the final choice so there is no eral reason for this meeting."

"You are being predjudice(Is that how you spell it?) because they are your best friend's children!" One graying man yelled.

"I said the same thing I'm saying now about a similair case last month. If ou didn't want me to be Queen you shouldn't have voted because everyone in here voted yes for me." That made them shut up.

After the meeting I went home and saw that Adrian had gotten Anya to calm down.

"She fell asleep crying," he said. "I carried her to bed. Nik went a few hours later. Arianna and Kendra refuse to sleep until they see you." He smiled and then I was attacked by a kid on each leg. Kendra was in her nightgown with a monkey on it and Arianna's had a sunflower on it. They were both long and sometimes they would spin around to make it billow out around them.

"Hey! I missed you!" I got on my knees and hugged them tight.

"Mommy, Anya was crying," Kendra said. The serious look on her face was priceless.

"Yeah. She went to bed early," Arianna agreed. There emerald eyes had no laughter in them. Arianna's hair bounced when she shook her head and then she laughed as some of it got stuck in her mouth.

"Yuck!" She said after she had got it out.

"You ate your hair!" Kendra yelled.

"Shh!" Arianna shushed her. "Anya might wake up. It's bedtime. Right Mommy?"

"Yeah it's bedtime for both of you." I scooped them up and carried them to their room. They would share a room until they were five. That's when Adrian would have to kiss his "art room" goodbye. I told him to just set it up somewhere else, but he refused. Hard head.

"Shh," the twins said as we went down the hall where all the bedrooms were. We came to their first. There was two room on each side so it ended up four. Then if you went all the way down the hallway and took a left there was our room. It was positioned so when in the kitchen or living room you couldn't look striahgt down the hall and see through our door. We were considering moving to a bigger house because Adrian wanted more kids even though I though four was enough. I think he wanted a boy that was his own. He claimed Nik and loved him, but he wanted his own blood and flesh son.

"We fixed the beds," Arianna said. They had flipped back the covers so all I ahd to do was sit them in their own separate beds. They were across from each other with a bed stand between them.

"Good night and sleep tight," I said, kissing their fireheads and leaving, cutting off the lights.

"Don't let the bed bugs bite," they chorused.