Turning me loose, she squeezed between us to hug Linus. “Hi, Uncle Linus.”
“Why aren’t you in class?” The chastisement fell short of its mark when he couldn’t resist returning her infectious smile. “You should be well into your English lesson.”
“I’m not skipping,” she blurted. “Promise.”
Eva idolized Linus, and she would die if he ever thought she had done a bad thing. Just curl up and wither on the spot.
“Spill it, kid.” Her mom tossed her a strip of bacon that she caught with ease. “What’s up?”
“I heard something hit the window in the classroom. I worried it might be another bird, like that robin last week, and asked permission to go check.”
The kids had study hall first thing in the morning to give Hood a chance to eat and the kids an opportunity to make up tests or complete homework. Eva, a straight-A student, acted as class monitor.
“I found this.” She opened her hand. “It was in the grass.”
On her palm sat a gold band studded with diamonds. I didn’t have to try it on to know it would fit me.
“Ariana, she’s the upstairs maid, confided that last week, when she tidied Mr. Volkov’s bedroom, she spotted a black velvet box on his nightstand.”
Lena, my childhood nurse, the one who helped Volkov cage me at his estate, the one where my father and mother had lived, however briefly, told me that.
I never saw the ring, I never wanted to see the ring, and I didn’t want to be looking at it now.
The fact it might have been dusted with bronze powder too? That Eva had unknowingly picked it up? Dried the spit out of my mouth.
“Can I have a look?” Linus removed a handkerchief from his pocket and gingerly took the ring, though any fingerprints found on it now would belong to Eva. “I need to run some tests, but you can have it back after.”
“Finders keepers?” Her eyes brightened. “No one was there. Promise. I looked.”
“Finders keepers.” He tapped the end of her nose. “As long as your mom agrees.”
Eyes bright and shining, Eva clasped her hands in front of her chest. “Mommy?”
No one missed the upgrade from mom to mommy, but no one mentioned it either. For one thing, it was too much fun watching Lethe squirm. For another, I didn’t want to say or do anything she could throw back in my face if Linus and I ever got around to giving Woolly and his mother the fifty-billion grandkids they each expected.
“You can keep it, but you have to leave it in your room. You can’t wear it out of the house, or you might lose it.”
“Okay.” Eva trotted over to her mother and hugged her. “Thank you.”
“What about me?” Hood pounded his fist on the table. “Don’t I get a hug?”
“Of course you do, Daddy.” She skipped to him and flung her arms around his neck. “Love you.”
“Love you too, baby.” He handed her a piece of bacon. “Now go on back to class. I’ll be there shortly.”
Once she disappeared, Lethe pegged her mate with a look. “I didn’t get an I love you.”
“I’m always Daddy,” he said smugly. “You’re only Mommy when she wants something.”
“Maybe I should step down as alpha and do the stay-at-home-mom thing.”
“Hell no.” Hood clutched his chest. “I’m beta, and I’m not willing to give up my stay-at-home-dad gig to rip a bunch of dumbasses a new one every time they step out of line. I leave that up to my wife.”
“I do enjoy the ripping of new ones,” she allowed. “There’s something cathartic about it. All the screaming, crying, begging.”
“You’re sexy when you’re vicious.” He fed her the last piece of bacon off his plate. “I love it.”
“Aww.” She crunched away. “You really know how to make a girl feel special.”
Feed me bacon and tell me I’m vicious.
I could probably get that printed on a shirt in time for Christmas.
Linus and I ate while Hood and Lethe made loud kissy noises. It was enough to make me wish the waffles hadn’t been so tasty. I almost regretted eating four. Good thing I drowned those worries in syrup.
Despite our portion sizes, I still beat Linus to cleaning my plate and had to cheer him across the finish line.
“We’ll be on our way.” I stood, ready to carry my plate into the kitchen, and he did too. “Thanks for the room and for breakfast.”
“No problem.” Lethe rubbed her nose against Hood’s. “See you later.”
“You don’t want to know what Linus found out? About you? Getting poisoned?”
“You heard the woman.” Hood shooed us. “We’ll catch up later.”
Linus and I hit the kitchen, fed the dishwasher, then exited the house.
We caught one of her favorite lieutenants and asked him to sniff the ring, which amused him to no end, and to search the area where Eva found it. He came up empty on both counts. No scents present that didn’t belong there.
Whoever chucked it at the window had been careful not to leave hints for sensitive gwyllgi noses. Had I not spent the night at their den, the ring would have been waiting on my lawn to find. Probably with my bare foot. As much as the idea made my skin crawl, I preferred that violation to them involving Eva. But I hadn’t been home, and my absence would have been obvious since I left Woolly crawling with cleaners.
“That was extreme,” I said once we were alone. “Even for them.”
“She’s trying to conceive.”
“What?” I must have misheard him. “Now?”
“I overheard the pack talking when I sneaked back in this evening. There’s apparently concern about the life expectancy of her firstborn. They would feel more settled if she gave birth to a spare under more natural circumstances.”
“Lethe fell for that?” As my brain gained traction, I answered my own question. “She’s always wanted more kids.” Hearing her pack might pressure her into reproduction had thrown me, but she wouldn’t do it for them. She would do it for herself and her family or not at all. “She and her brother are tight, and she wants that for Eva.”
“I preferred being an only child,” Linus confessed. “It meant I didn’t have to be sociable.”
Though he would never admit it, perhaps not even to himself, he had been lonely. I was an only child for my parents, and for Maud, and I never missed having a sibling. I had friends, a chosen family, to keep me from being alone except when I wanted to be. Linus…hadn’t had that. Accepting a friendship as genuine was still hard for him, but he was getting better.
“Two years was the gap Lethe was aiming for, but she kept putting it off to focus on Eva’s development and on establishing the pack.” It was easier discussing her than our childhoods. “Now Eva is older and healthier, and so is the pack.” We started down the hill to Woolworth House. “It makes sense.”
“But she didn’t tell you, and that bothers you.”
“No, she didn’t, and yeah, it does a little.” Maybe more than a little. I was shaken she had made such a huge decision without first consulting me. It was stupid to let my feelings get hurt over a private decision between her and her mate, but I had gotten used to us being a thruple when it came to making decisions based on my necessary involvement with Eva’s healthcare. “Usually we tell each other everything. In gruesome detail.”
“Maybe she wanted to wait until after the wedding?”
“I could see that.” The knot tightening in my chest loosened. “She wouldn’t want to steal my thunder.”
“It has taken us a while to get here.”
“Nah.” I laughed softly and leaned into him. “Only most of our lives.”
Woolly sensed our approach, and light swept throughout the rooms, spilling onto the porch to welcome us home.
Taking the front steps at a jog, I hugged the nearest column. “Did you miss us?”
Woolly beamed me an image of children of all ages racing through her halls.
“Yes.” I chose to misinterpret her not-so-subtle prodding. “We did see Eva. She’s growing up so fast.”
The front door opened on a sigh, and I patted the frame on my way past.
Behind me, Linus chuckled, and I didn’t have to guess what she was showing him. “How many?”
“I counted five, but there was at least one baby crying in another room after a sibling stole her toy.”
“I would like to enjoy being married before I do the mom thing. Kids are nice, but they’re also forever. I don’t think it’s asking too much to at least get through the honeymoon without your mother shipping me ovulation kits and mine bombarding me at all hours of the day and night in the hopes of brainwashing me into catching baby fever.”
The vent nearest me blasted warm air up my leg, and Woolly’s presence wrapped around me in apology.
“I’m not saying I won’t break ground on the baby factory you and the Grande Dame have your hearts set on, but I would like to enjoy being an obligation-free adult before I have to worry about changing diapers.”
An obligation-free adult in charge of the welfare of an entire city, who was also the custodian of a sentient house, and the adoptive mother of a ghost boy, and the godmother of a gwyllgi child warped by my magic.
Yeah.
Obligation free.
Woohoo.
“You are the only person who gets to decide if and when you get pregnant. It’s your body, not theirs. Or mine.”
“I knew I liked you for a reason.” I did a quick examination of the house, but everything appeared to be in order. Thankfully, Woolly wasn’t too traumatized by the whole ordeal. “Are you sending the ring to your team in Atlanta?”
“I have a local contact who can inspect the piece before we turn it over to the cleaners.”
“You’re not worried about smudging prints?”