Any hope of a regular birthday for me was gone now. The house was empty when Adam and I returned. There was still cake, but the thought of eating any of it turned my stomach.

The two of us were hesitant but glued together.

I could tell that Adam, like me, was nervous about when I might slip away into another timeline. Once again, we created an unspoken accord and spoke of lighthearted topics. Adam took me to the roof with his power, and we watched the stars like so many other times.

The last invisible wall was seemingly gone between us, and we spent this time whispering secrets to each other that we hadn't told anyone.

"Wendy!" Lucia's shout woke me up, and I realized with a jolt that we had fallen asleep on the roof. I went to peer over the edge but was stopped by Adam's warm hands. He had wrapped the blanket around the two of us, but I stole it at some point during the night.

"Give me a few, Lucia; we're on the roof!" I shouted back before turning to inspect Adam. "Did you sleep?" I moved his hair out of his face to look him over. He had light circles under his eyes, and his eyeballs were red.

"No," Adam admitted, and I sighed at his admission.

"Are you okay?" I said this as I looked him over.

"With you, always," Adam said, and I felt my heart melt when the sweet words came out of his mouth. However, they didn't match his expression, so I muted my joy. He looked stressed out and exhausted.

"You have to sleep tonight even if you have to take something for it," I said, messing with his hair. His luscious locks were silky on my fingers, and I couldn't stop delving into them.

"I will." He said. I was stopped from asking more by Lucia yelling for us yet again.

"Lucia wouldn't come here like this if it wasn't important. Let's see what's going on." I said, and we scooted off the roof to find out. She met us in the attic, making me glad Adam didn't teleport us. She looked fearful and like she'd been crying.

"Lucia, what's wrong?" I grabbed her hands as she caught her breath.

"The world is ending!" She screamed, "They said there's a meteor on its way to Earth."

Shitballs, it's early! I didn't see any sign of it last night.

"It won't come for a couple of weeks." Adam's soothing voice interrupted our meltdowns, and I turned to meet his eyes and reached for him. He took my hand and held it tight, "They can let us know in advance, but just enough for us to prepare."

"Seems…" I stopped myself from saying what I shouldn't know. It still seemed too early to happen. The debris struck at the start of summer when the heat started rising. Why was it early?

"Where's Wyatt?" Adam asked Lucia, and she told him he was downstairs.

"I'm going to talk to him about the plan," Adam said to me, and I felt a bubble of warmth in my chest. It felt good that he told me where he was going and that I could depend on him. I was ready but, at the same time, unprepared for the end of this world. Adam kissed me gently on the mouth before letting go of my hand to go downstairs.

"Wendy, I'm scared." Lucia's voice was trembling, and I pulled her in for a hug.

"Same," I whispered into her shoulder.

Adam and Wyatt disappeared yet again. At least this time, I got an explanation that Adam was making sure to have everything ready for the end times.

Lucia stayed with me, and soon, Lucas came over with Nips and the puppies. It was natural for everyone to reconvene at my home. We had the space, the food, and the prepared stock for the end times.

Lucas left with Lucia to pick up the rest of their things, and I stared at our home. It was strange how far I'd come.

What once started as a way to thumb my nose at my brother became a life I cherish.

The only thing strangely missing was Mordecai. I couldn't hear him noisily eating anything in my head, and he hadn't said anything in days.

Then, I realized I was still wearing the dress from the night before. It was my special birthday dress, but it was wrinkled and had drool from the night before. Before I could go to my room to change, Nips' barking drew me outside. He wasn't one to bark like that, and it reminded me of that night all those years ago when Gavin first visited. I could feel my heart pound in my chest as I heard Molly and the puppies join him in barking.

The goats, chickens, and ducks started making a ton of noise, and I furrowed my brow as I looked up at the sky. If animals can sense natural disasters, maybe the meteor would strike even sooner.

I climbed up the treehouse, noting that Nips was standing beneath it and looking up as he barked. He knew the cats, so it couldn't be them bothering him.

Before I could catch my breath, I was face to face with a stranger. This must be the intruder who had slipped in almost undetected.

He was a strange man with auburn skin that crackled and moved as if it was barely holding itself together. Ruby sparkled and shone in those cracks of flesh. His eyes were pitch black with red woven throughout the iris, and they shone with warmth towards the cat he cradled gently in his hand. His long blonde hair hung loose around his shoulders and down his back. The size of his muscles was almost as startling as the rest of him. He was huge, the equivalent of a human tank, and he took up so much space in what I used to perceive as a spacious treehouse.

Instead of being upset or put off by the man, the cats gravitated towards him, purring with content. I could see why as the initial shock faded. This man radiated heat; the shiny crimson that peaked under his skin looked like a fire. The flesh around the flaming bits had all the shades of the rainbow. It was fascinating, like several gemstones...was he made of gems?

I was a few feet away, but I could feel warmth, and without desiring to, I relaxed. He put out the perfect amount of lazy heat. It felt like the warmth that shone through a window that made you sleepy.

I slowly tried to back away before he noticed me. Fear quickly replaced wonder. Although I couldn't name what he was, I knew he wasn't human. I've had enough surprises and other supernaturals to last at least this lifetime.

"Gwendolyn, why leave?" He spoke, and I shivered anxiously. He hadn't even looked up but knew I was here staring at him.

Also, shit, another being that knew my real name.

The man looked up, and I saw his face entirely. He wasn't classically beautiful, but he was ferally handsome. His nose had been broken several times, and it was as crooked as his twisted lips. His cheeks were sharpened knives, and his teeth were pointy like blades.

"I finally get to meet you after all this time." He spoke again, and his voice sounded like crackling gravel.

I wet my lips as I tried to find my voice. My mouth was dry. I don't think I could talk my way out of this one. I've been lucky so far; I could continue to be blessed. "May I ask who you are?" I managed to say.

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Instead of amusement, annoyance, or any other emotion that might be evoked, I saw pain and sadness flash on his face. "You don't know who I am?" He said, setting down the cat he was holding to inspect me.

I mutely shook my head and watched as he dramatically reacted to this. He wasn't someone else I met in the second timeline, right? Becoming braver, I said, "Have we met in another world?"

"No." He said, "Only in my dreams. She said you were like a younger version of her, and she was right. I had to see for myself." He stepped forward, and I wanted to step back, but my feet were stuck on the floor.

"Who said this?" I asked him, growing worried about this man's mental state.

"My sister, of course." The man said. His face shifted into different expressions as if he was wondering what to say or do until finally, he settled on determined. "I'm your uncle."

"My what?" I couldn't help but raise my voice at this revelation. There was no way he was my uncle.

"Well, several generations removed. I'm Acuzio, Aphra's brother." Acuzio said, patting his chest, proud at the connection.

If he was Aphra, aka Mordecai's sibling, he was my ancestral uncle. I only had one ancestral uncle. I was dazed as I studied him. "You're the first dragon." The one that started the species in all the realms and worlds. Holy shit. This made him the brother of the tale. He was also the one that…

"We finally got to meet. I haven't been able to meet any of Aphra's descendants or even her children before." His voice was regretful, wrapped up with unabashed joy.

"There's a God here named Acuzio," I said, curious about how Aphra, aka Mordecai, had this world with a place in the pantheon, and their siblings did as well.

"Yeah, my sister created this world," Acuzio said as carelessly and as casually as one might describe pottery.

"But neither of you goes by your real name here," I said, curious but unwilling to ask flat-out.

"Our mother made it so," Acuzio said, and I hiccuped as the heat thickened like fog in the room. The sky seemed to dark with displeasure. The cats yowled and escaped the treehouse, and I watched them envious of their ability to leave the scene.

So Mordecai, aka Aphra, wasn't the only sibling cursed out of their birth name. I knew all three had been condemned by pissing off their mother later in the tale, but to lose your birth name on top of that was overkill.

Acuzio was growing darker, and I blinked at how the sunny man was now a rupturing volcano. The heat that grew thick was now leaving the room as he seemed to be taking it in...What happens when a world already on the brink of destruction adds a pissed-off Dragon God to the mix?

'Offer him a hug. He's a huge sap.' Mordecai's voice came in the nick of time, and I almost cried tears of gratitude.

"Can I have a hug from my uncle?" My voice was broken and barely decipherable, but it actually worked. I watched, mesmerized, as the heat he was sucking into himself to erupt ceased. His gloomy face broke into a sunny smile, and before I could change my mind, his big, beefy arms grabbed me tight.

My feet were lifted off the ground as I hung limp like a ragdoll in his arms as he squeezed and dangled me.

Mordecai began laughing hysterically at some unknown joke as I realized that Acuzio was holding me gently like a doll despite his strength. Oh, there was pressure, but not enough to break my body. With a build like this and the amount of power he had, there was no way he couldn't break me with just a touch of pressure.

Acuzio was mumbling things in a language I couldn't recognize, and something he said seemed to piss off Mordecai because the former stopped mid-chuckle and started swearing in several different languages. I only know this because I could recognize some of the words.

I don't think Acuzio could hear Mordecai because when he finally set me down on the ground, he looked peacefully, unaware of the rage his younger sibling was experiencing. I, on the other hand, was developing a bit of a headache from the venom.

"Wendy!" Adam was calling for me, and I smiled at the sound of his voice. I moved to leave the treehouse, and Acuzio didn't stop me. Maybe he was going to leave after seeing me?

That dream was dashed once I made it down and saw that somehow Acuzio had beaten my timing out of the treehouse. He was standing, eyeballing Adam, and I sighed as I scurried over to intervene.

"This is your boyfriend?" Acuzio said, displeased with Adam.

"Her fiance," Adam said with a cold expression. With the two squared off against each other, who would win was evident. Adam was a squishy mortal.

"Uncle, stop!" I shouted as I ran to stand beside Adam. I called out to him like this without thinking, but it seemed to do the trick because the rage Acuzio was building up popped like an old balloon.

"Your uncle?" Adam said.

"My ancestral one," I muttered.

"How many of your relatives are going to stop by?" Adam whispered to me. He had a point. It seemed like another popped up like a weed every other year.

"There shouldn't be any others." Acuzio said, demonstrating that he could hear us, "Unless you count your cousins from me. You only have one cousin left from your aunt. I haven't met her, and I'm unaware of her powers, just her existence. Almost none of my descendants have the power to travel worlds or dimensions, so there shouldn't be anyone else."

I thought briefly of all the dragons I had heard of…all of them were my cousins? They wouldn't know that, would they?

"Well, blood recognizes blood. They might not recognize you in this form, but those with heightened spiritual powers could recognize your soul connection to them." Acuzio said nonchalantly.

Shoot, I must have said some of that out loud.

The one cousin from my aunt seemed interesting. She would be alone like me as the only girl in her line.

'Don't bother desiring to meet Merindah.' Mordecai's crisp voice cut through my thoughts. 'She's out of reach of everyone. I sent her away to a world of my own making. You'll never meet her. It's more likely for you to meet one of your dragon cousins than Merry.'

So, her nickname was Merry. It's a cute name. I thought, undeterred by Mordecai's words.

I looked at Acuzio, who had somehow coaxed one of the cats into letting him carry it. He looked calm and wholly out of place in this world. You could tell he wasn't human by looking at him. Why did he come here? He couldn't have come to see me, right? That was too preposterous.

'That's my brother.' Mordecai said dully. 'He's a useful fool of a tool.'

It must be nice to have a brother you can count on.

'You're purposely misunderstanding my words. I don't have patience for this.' Mordecai said.

He sounded annoyed and, as I hoped, would distance himself from my thoughts as I found a way to get specific answers from my uncle.

"Wendy?" Adam said as he grabbed my hand. I squeezed it back to reassure him.

"It's going to be fine." In a much louder voice, I said to Acuzio, "I would love to see you again some other time, but right now, we have to prepare for the end of the world."

Acuzio looked up at this, and his expression was blank. "This world is ending? Should I stop that?"

"It's a meteor," Adam said before I could. "It's going to hit the earth and change everything.

"What would be the consequences of changing the future?" I said, thinking out loud. What would happen if things were pushed further off the predetermined path? Sure, lives would be saved, but what about everything else?

"From what you've told me, everything is already off trajectory, so let's stop the end from happening and live well in this world," Adam said. His warm hand and firm words put my mind at ease, and I smiled big at him. He really is the hero of this world. Even if no one knows what he's done to save or would have done it.

"So am I doing this or what?" Acuzio said as he casually dangled a feather above a cat for fun.

"Doing it," I said much more firmly than expected.

Nothing happened directly after that, and I blinked, unsure what stopping the meteor would look like for a god. He was a dragon, so would he fly and bat it away with his tail? Would he eat it? How would a Dragon God get rid of a world-ending meteor?

Acuzio stood teasing a cat, and I watched him. "Uncle, are you going to do it?" Or had he managed to while I stood here panicking?

"I'll get to it, but first, you must beat me in a game." He set the cat down, and I watched the feather float to the ground.

"A game?" Adam said at the same time as I did. Only my voice cracked horribly, and his was as firm as before.

"Nothing is free," Acuzio said with a shrug.

"What is it with Gods and games?" I muttered with fury.

"You've met another God?" Acuzio said, confused, "And you lived unscathed to tell the tale? Any God worth their salt would recognize whose line you belong to and try to curse you."

See Mordecai, it is your fault your descendants have hidden from the world. All those damn enemies you created left and right. I thought bitterly, but out loud, I simply said, "I saw Aphra. She was here to…" Only I barely got out the name Aphra before Acuzio exploded into flames.

Adam shoved me behind his back as red furious flames grew from the cracks of Acuzio's skin. His dark flesh lit up in prims of color as the erupting heat reached a boiling point. That wasn't flesh I'd been seeing before! All that stuff must have been his scales!

"Where is my sister? I haven't been able to see her since I took this form. Where did she go?" Acuzio's usually deep, gravelly voice became deeper and beastal. He stepped forward, and the ground beneath him crisped into black footprints. My beautiful grass! I thought as I looked back up to see Acuzio's eyes glowing hot red.

I shouldn't tell him his sister was living in my head rent-free and troubling me. Would he try to take it apart to pull out Aphra?

'He very well might.' Mordecai's voice had turned into the more feminine Aphra, and I made a face at the antics of my ancestor.

"You need to just pick a form," I said aloud. "It's getting confusing trying to keep you straight."

"What did you say?" Acuzio said, and I flinched. He clearly mistook my words as meant for him.

However, I was in too deep and stubbornly jutted my chin out at him. "You need to pick a mood and a course of action. Are you going to play a game with me or not? The stakes can be quite simple. Aphra's whereabouts for you saving this world from the meteor."

Adam's tense shoulders were still trying to protect me, and I whispered an apology to him. Sparking the fury of a Dragon God wouldn't end well for us.

Acuzio's fire flickered but didn't go out. They stopped growing, and I watched, peeking behind Adam, as they flickered timely with his shaking shoulders. A roar of laughter spilled from the flaming man, and I watched, fascinated and worried for his mental state. None of the gods I had met so far were sane.

'Define sane?' Aphra said tartly.

The standard of average humans must have to be out and about in society, I shot back mentally at her.

"I understand now why she's been watching over you. It's more than just a resemblance." Acuzio said, and finally, his fire went out.

Adam and I relaxed.

"Niece, you've given me hope," Acuzio said. "I think you'll be the one who can undo it."

Undo it? Do what? I tried to get Aphra to answer, but the bloody phoenix was quiet for once.

"The next time we meet, no matter the timing of that world, I'll have a gift for you." As he spoke, Acuzio wasn't looking at either of us but off into the distance.

I attempted to see what he had seen, but all I saw were the cats sunbathing from a safe distance away.

"You can take some of the cats or the kittens?" I said, as I was unsure where to go from here.

"I shouldn't; I haven't been able to keep anything alive in years. I'm lucky my children and descendants are superiorly durable. Now for the trial. I'll take young Adam as my challenger. This isn't fit for a girl to do."

I made a face at him, but before I could retort, Acuzio had teleported away with Adam. The warmth I'd grown accustomed to was stripped from the air, and all I could feel was cold and alone.