Charmed Wolf by Aimee Easterling (best ereader for pdf TXT) 📕

Hold the baby whose wailing now resembled nothing so much as a shrieking teakettle. I expected Kale’s face to crumble at my rejection, but instead he offered advice. “Try jiggling her. No, not like that.”

“How then?” I started dancing in an awkward circle. Surely this was how Natalie had acted the last time she’d soothed the baby?

“Yeah, you definitely need some kind of parenting school,” Kale muttered. Then he started to sing.

His treble voice stilled the air...and the baby. It also helped me with my efforts to attract Erskine. Because Kale’s resilience did what all of my blinking hadn’t managed—it brought honest tears to my ears.

Kale noticed. “What are you doing?”

I stayed leaned over for one more moment, making sure my tears fell onto moss rather than resting uselessly on my cheeks. Then I answered: “I’m calling the unicorn.”

The unicorn who’d chosen earth over Faery. Who, I now suspected, was no longer able to cross over and collect us from this space Between.

Time for a subject change. “Are you hungry?”

Kale shook his head. “A little tired, maybe.”

“Then rest,” I suggested. Suiting actions to words, I settled down into the moss, leaning against one of the towering stone pillars. Kale, though, continued prowling above me, hands clenched into fists.

Now it was my turn to ask, “What are you doing?”

“I have to protect you. I’m a man.”

I sighed. Veronica had done a number on him.

So even though I wasn’t used to this touchy-feely stuff, I dug deep and came up with an answer. “You’re already a man, Kale. The grace and strength with which you’ve transitioned. The way you take care of your little sister. The way you protect me from her vomit.”

His mouth quirked up a little at the last bit. “You noticed that, huh?”

“How could I not notice? You’ve saved me more times than I can put a number on.” I patted the moss beside me. “How about you let me return the favor by taking first shift?”

Kale considered my suggestion for one eye blink. Another.

Then he settled down beside me. “Okay. Wake me up when it’s my turn.”

KALE WAS ASLEEP BY the time he hit the moss. This in-between place might not allow human bodies to feel hunger or exhaustion, but the kid was emotionally wrung out by what had happened. His brain needed a break.

So I hugged him against one side of me and cuddled the baby against the other, hoping against hope that being Between also meant Hazel wouldn’t feel the urge to exude liquids from any orifice. Then I watched the sky and pondered how to get home.

The sun wasn’t moving, I realized, after what felt like an eternity but was likely an hour. Or maybe zero seconds. After all, as Erskine had told me, time flowed strangely in Faery.

Using that logic, if we were Between and the sky was in Faery...the earth must lead home. The question became, how to get there?

The stone circle—as best I could tell without turning far enough to wake the baby—contained no loose rocks. We could use my daggers to dig with, but I doubted their blades would last long when turned to excavation. Perhaps....

When the ground slumped ten feet away from me, at first I thought I was imagining things. Maybe that one area had always been six inches lower? Maybe my eyes needed a nap?

The second time the ring of earth indented—two feet lower this time—I shook Kale awake. “Grab a dagger.”

Not that two daggers would do much against something that could move such a tremendous volume of earth. I’d seen Rune’s battle against the Guardian’s forest and it hadn’t been pretty. No wonder Kale’s voice was tremulous when he asked, “Is fighting huge monsters you can’t see part of being a man?”

“It’s part of being a family,” I told him. Then, after a moment of consideration: “I’ve changed my mind. You hold Hazel.”

We transferred the baby gingerly, knives in our spare hands. Gently, slowly, didn’t want to wake her....

“Aaaaaa!” Hazel shrieked as the earth exploded upwards five feet away.

I spun, pulling the children into my arms just like I had when we fell out of Faery. Stones rattled against stones around us. Soon, I’d need to swivel back around to face the danger, but I didn’t dare release Kale and the baby just yet....

Then I smelled something I thought I’d never smell again. The man who shouldn’t have risked his skin by coming so close to Faery. “I think we should get out of here,” Rune rumbled behind my back.

My mouth was dry as I released the children and turned to face him. Rune’s presence meant rescue but his shoulders were a little too straight, his mouth a little too firm. An invisible wall seemed to have built itself between us.

So I merely stated the obvious. “You came.”

“Of course I came. It was my duty.”

Duty? I winced even as Natalie clambered up out of the gaping hole in the earth. The hardhat strapped to her head was crooked and she appeared to be holding a stick of dynamite in her dominant hand.

“Mom!” Kale cried, sprinting forward. “I’m so sorry I took Hazel into Faery. I’m grounding myself for a year. I’m....”

“You’re safe,” Natalie murmured into her son’s forehead. “That’s all that matters.”

As she spoke, she drew the boy in closer than I’d been able to. So that’s what a maternal hug looked like. With her other arm, she gathered Hazel up against her breast.

Something pinged in my gut at the sight. The first inkling that I, myself rather than duty, might crave a family. Not a baby exactly. But I wanted more than to be an Alpha, always above and apart.

Shaking away the yearning, I focused on the moment. “I take it,” I said, not expecting to be heard over the joy thrumming between Natalie, Kale, and Hazel, “that this is my second strike and I’m losing my place on your babysitting roster.”

“Not true,” Natalie answered, raising her fierce gaze to