The bed was vastly more expensive than the one I had at the Academy. Yet somehow, this didn’t feel like home. Thirty minutes or so passed before I heard footsteps coming up the staircase. The doorknob turned. Sophie’s dark curls preceded her.
I sighed and tried to push myself up to sitting. We smiled at each other as she walked fully into the room, followed by Diana and Astrid. You would never be able to tell she had been set upon by ghouls.
“How?” I asked. The bed compressed as Sophie sprang on to it.
Diana segued the conversation. “I know the answer, but I suppose I better ask if you’re hungry,” she said. My nod was emphatic. She disappeared out the door.
Sophie lay down beside me over the covers. She patted my arm as though making sure I was really there.
“What?” I had regressed into monosyllabic speech. My eyes roamed over Astrid. She sat down on the armchair facing the bed. Her posture was ramrod straight.
“How are you feeling?” Sophie asked.
I rubbed my temple. “Okay, I guess.” My eyes flicked to Astrid again. “I’m not entirely sure what happened.”
“You wouldn’t believe us if we told you,” Sophie muttered.
“Well, you better start talking because the way you two keep sneaking looks at each other is freaking me out.”
Diana cleared her throat as she came back into the room. Nanna was with her. The door slammed shut for a second before it opened again. A butt-naked six-year-old came running in. He was covered in splotches of paint.
“Goodness me,” Nanna said. She tried to take a swipe at Edward, but he dodged and came straight at me. As leopard cub, his reflexes were phenomenal. He managed to evade both Nanna and Diana before hopping onto the bed and dropping onto my lap.
“Less,” he grinned. That’s how he said my name. His tongue stuck out between two non-existent front teeth. “Save me!” He pronounced save as “thave.”
I needed someone to save me. He’d struck me in the chest with his big, round head when he’d torpedoed into me. I was having a hard time breathing again. He did his level best to squirm under the covers. They became tangled around us.
“This is not how I imagined being in bed with a naked shifter,” I gritted out. Diana burst out laughing. She set the tray of food onto my desk just as a royally annoyed nine-year-old lynx shifter stomped into the room.
“Where is he?” Kate snarled. I wrapped my arms around Edward instinctively. He was giggling. Kate spotted him.
“You little ruffian!” she screamed. Nanna had to catch her before she came charging at us with her fists raised. Edward had the decency to duck his head.
“Katelyn!” Nanna said. “Inside voice, please.”
“You’re not allowed to make noise,” Edward piped up. “Less is sick.” He patted my cheek and made such a forlorn face that Sophie couldn’t stifle her own giggle.
“As if you know what being sick is like!” Kate shot back. But she quieted her tone. She grimaced when she glanced at me. “Sorry, Lex. You!” She pointed at Edward. “If I so much as sniff you near my art supplies again, I’m going to make sure you never reach puberty.”
With that inappropriate threat, she stomped out.
“What’s a puberty?” Edward asked. Sophie coughed.
Nanna grabbed Edward. “Sorry, love,” she said. “They’ve been a bit chaotic this morning. I’ll take him out and come back.”
“Bye, Less,” Edward waved at me. I waved back, a smile pulling at my lips as I heard Nanna asking him where his clothes had gone. The cubs were like that. I’d overheard Shayla telling Sophie once that she gave up putting clothes on Max at all between the ages of five and nine. I’d never seen Sophie go so red before.
“What gives?” I said. Diana handed over the tray of food. My insides turned to jelly at the scrumptious scent of roasted chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans, and gravy.
“Nanna has a new job,” Sophie informed me.
“A new job?” Their perplexed expressions confused me for a moment until I realised I’d spoken with my mouth full of food. I chewed as quickly as I could, swallowed, and repeated the question. “How did she manage to get a job so quickly?”
There were those glances again. “Somebody make with an explanation,” I warned.
Astrid shook her head. Diana glanced up at the ceiling as though there was something extremely interesting about it. When Sophie took my hand, I prepared myself for the worst.
Sophie’s big, brown eyes were soft. “It’s been almost three weeks since you were teleported away. School starts in a few days.”
The fork clattered onto the tray. I looked from one of them to the other. The truth of it was right there in Astrid’s unblemished skin. I covered my face with my hands and groaned.
4
I let fly with the worst curses I’d learned from the Zambian wolves. Nanna came running into the room again, followed by Basil. “What in the world?” she barked. “I could hear you all the way outside. There are children present with very sensitive, shifter hearing.”
“How am I the one in trouble?” I yelled back. “I didn’t ask you to get a job looking after every bloody cub on the Reserve.”
She pulled herself up to her full height. Not that impressive a feat considering she was five foot seven at most. “It’s not all of the Reserve,” she said. “Just the ones in this sector.”
I was being a smart ass. But my jaw dropped. “Why are you looking after kids? Are you even qualified to do that?”
She stuck her nose in the air. “I raised you, didn’t I?”
Oh the snappy comeback was there. I wasn’t fast enough. “I don’t know if that’s a ringing endorsement,” Diana slid in. “Most of the supernatural community is convinced you raised demon-spawn.”
Nanna waved away her comment. “She’s got all of her limbs still attached. That’s success.”
“That’s probably good
