Lucius POV:
I never thought I would find my mate. Truly. After my second century passed without even the faintest hint of her existence, I accepted—quite gracefully, I might add—a long, dignified life of solitude. By then I had already resigned myself to a life of loneliness—well, not loneliness, because one cannot be lonely when one despises most creatures—but a life of… uninterrupted solitude. I had ripped fantasies of a fated mate from my mind and tossed them into the emotional garbage pile centuries ago. I had resigned myself to peace. Silence. No emotional entanglements. No chaos.
And now look at me.
Pushing a wheelbarrow.
A wheelbarrow carrying my mate and her three oversized, fire‑fire–sneezing beasts she insists are "babies."—down a mountain like some glorified mule.
Yes. This is exactly the life I pictured for myself.
