"But all families don't." Morgana lifted her head, her eyes dry now and intense. "Do they?"

"The loss is theirs. What's hurting you, Morgana?"

She gripped her mother's hands again. "I've thought about how it must feel not to be wanted or loved. To be taught from childhood that you were a mistake, a burden, something only to be tolerated through duty. Can anything be colder than that?"

"No. Nothing's colder than living without love." Her tone gentled. "Are you in love?"

She didn't have to answer. "He's been hurt so, you see. He never had what you, what all of you, gave me, what I took for granted. And, despite it all, he's made himself into a wonderful man. Oh, you'd like him." She rested her cheek on her mother's palm. "He's funny and sweet. His mind is so, well, fluid. So ready to test new ideas. But there's a part of him that's closed off. He didn't do it, it was done to him. And, no matter what my powers, I can't break that lock." She sat back on her heels. "He doesn't want to love me, and I can't—won't—take what he doesn't want to give."

"No." Bryna's heart broke a little as she looked at her daughter. "You're too strong, too proud, and too wise for that. But people change, Morgana. In time…"

"There isn't time. I'll have his child by Christmas."

All the soothing words Bryna had prepared slipped away down her throat. All she could think was that her baby was carrying a baby. "Are you well?" she managed.

Morgana smiled, pleased that this should be the first question. "Yes."

"And certain?"

"Very certain."

"Oh, love." Bryna rose to her feet to rock Morgana against her. "My little girl."

"I won't be little much longer."

They laughed together as they broke apart. "I'm happy for you. And sad."

"I know. I want the child. Believe me, no child has ever been wanted so much. Not only because it's all I might ever have of the father, but for itself."

"And you feel?"

"Odd," Morgana said. "Strong one moment, terrifyingly fragile the next. Not ill, but sometimes light-headed."

Understanding, Bryna nodded. "And you say the father is a good man."

"Yes, he's a good man."

"Then, when you told him, he was just surprised, unprepared…" She noted the way Morgana glanced away. "Morgana, even when you were a child you would stare past my shoulder when you were preparing to evade."

Wincing at the tone, Morgana met her mother's eyes again. "I didn't tell him. Don't," she pleaded before Bryna could launch into a lecture. "I had intended to, but it all fell apart. I know it was wrong not to tell him, but it was just as wrong to hold him to me by the telling. I made a choice."

"The wrong choice."

Morgana's chin angled as her mother's had. "My choice, right or wrong. I won't ask you to approve, but I will ask you to respect. And I'll also ask you not to tell anyone else just yet. Including Father."

"Including Father what?" Matthew demanded as he strode into the room, the wolf that was Pan's sire close at his heels.

"Girl talk," Morgana said smoothly and moved over to kiss his cheeks. "Hello, handsome."

He tweaked her nose. "I know when my women are keeping secrets."

"No peeking," Morgana said, knowing Matthew was nearly as skilled at reading thoughts as Sebastian. "Now, where's everyone else?"

He wasn't satisfied, but he was patient. If she didn't tell him soon, he would look for himself. He was, after all, her father.

"Douglas and Maureen are in the kitchen, arguing over who's fixing what for lunch. Camilla's rousting Padrick at gin." Matthew grinned, wickedly. "And he's not taking it well. Accused her of charming the cards."

Bryna managed a smile of her own. "And did she?"

"Of course." Matthew stroked the wolfs silver fur. "Your sister's a born cheat."

Bryna sent him a mild look. "Your brother's a poor loser."

Morgana laughed and linked arms with them both. "And how the six of you managed to live in this place together and not be struck by lightning is a mystery to me. Let's go down and make some more trouble."

There was nothing like a group meal with the Donovans to lift her mood. And a mood lift was precisely what Morgana needed. Watching with affection the squabbling, the interplay between siblings and spouses, was better than front-row seats at a three-ring circus.

She was well aware that they didn't always get along. Just as she was aware that, whatever the friction, they would merge together like sun and light in the face of a family crisis.

She didn't intend to be a crisis. She only wanted to spend some time being with them.

They might have been two sets of triplets, but there was little physical resemblance between the siblings. Her father was tall and lean, with a shock of steel-gray hair and a dignified bearing. Padrick, Anastasia's father, stood no higher than Morgana, with the husky build of a boxer and the heart of a prankster. Douglas was nearly six-four, with a receding hairline that swept back dramatically into a widow's peak. Eccentricity was his hobby. At the moment, he was sporting a magnifying glass around his neck that he peered through when the whim took him.

He'd only removed his deerstalker hat and cape because his wife, Camilla, had refused to eat with him otherwise.

Camilla, often thought of as the baby of the brood, was pretty and plump as a pigeon, and she had a will of iron. She matched her husband's eccentricities with her own. This morning, she was trying out a new hairstyle of blazing orange curls that corkscrewed around her head. A long eagle feather dangled from one ear.

Maureen, as skilled a medium as Morgana had ever known, was tall and stately and had an infectious, bawdy laugh that could rattle the rafters.

Together with Morgana's serene mother and dignified father, they made a motley crew. Witches all. As she listened to them bicker around her, Morgana was nearly swamped with love.

"Your cat's been climbing the curtains in my room again," Camilla told Maureen with a wave of her fork.

"Pooh." Maureen shrugged her sturdy shoulders. "Just hunting mice, that's all."