Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 103548 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 518(@200wpm)___ 414(@250wpm)___ 345(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103548 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 518(@200wpm)___ 414(@250wpm)___ 345(@300wpm)
I groaned, stomach churning.
We were living in the safest possible home. Because we were living in the academy.
Technically, I was still the headmistress until Ash took over officially. With all the students gone, and the gates keyed into me and my mates, and only us, there was nowhere else on earth I would’ve taken Hope.
It also worked out because it was a great place to hold meetings with the epsilons, and make plans for the future home of the eighth clan of Wolf Nation. Nia and her brothers, who didn’t have another home to go to, were already taking up residence in the academy—the unofficial home of our clan. Her, Idalia, Paxton’s moms, and a bunch of epsilons that vacated their temples, and had nowhere to live.
Corvin Academy had become the sanctuary it was built to be, but the situation couldn’t last forever. This place would be a school again, and a busy school with people I didn’t know traipsing all around, wasn’t the best place to raise my daughter.
I told Nyx as much. “We all wanted this—Hope home. But this can’t be our home forever. Ugh,” I cried. “Is this how parents feel all the time? Constantly worried and stressed and like they never know the right decision?”
“They do when there’s a war on the horizon.” Nyx gently rubbed my knuckles. “Daze, of course you’re scared and worried, but for what it’s worth, I really do believe she’s safest with us,” he said. “Nothing and no one can get past those gates without our permission. Not even demigods.”
I held tight to his hand, needing his reassurance more than I ever did.
“We’re doing all we can, Daze. We’ve sent the sketch of the shadow to every clan in Wolf Nation, and even Wolf Republic. His face is all over Loop Garou and papered through the streets. He can’t hide now. Any day now, someone will report in that they spotted him. When they do, we’ll go down there and rip his head off ourselves.”
“I’ll do the ripping,” I growled. “I’m very much looking forward to turning his neck into a blood fountain.”
“There’s my sexy, ruthless mate.” Nyx kissed me. “And now that Hope has five devoted manservants,” Nyx said, clapping as Edric, Paxton, Orion, and Badr came into the room. “She’ll be guarded and served by one or all of us at all times until you make him your blood fountain.”
I cracked the barest smile. “Why is manservants such the perfect word for it? Hope probably does see us all as the beings who exist to serve her every need, and nothing more.”
“She’s certainly not calling us Mama or Dadas yes.” Paxton scooped her up, smooching her cheek. “Are you, baby girl? Can you say Dada? Dada?”
Hope giggled. Flailing her little baby arms, she grabbed his nose and held on. Thankfully her transmutation powers didn’t work on living beings, or I had a feeling she’d be cooing at a giant golden statue of my boyfriend.
“Hey, why would you be Dada?” Edric demanded. “I’m Dada. She can call you Pops.”
“Screw that. I’m Dad. You’re Eddy. He’s Grumps,” Paxton said, pointing to Badr. “Orion is Pops. And Nyx is Goku.”
“Fuck you,” Nyx said, and thus set off their now daily argument about what Hope would call them.
Hope grabbed a fistful of Nyx’s hair and munched on it while she watched the chaos.
Badr broke from the pack, falling in next to me.
I was still sleeping in the headmistress’s chambers with Edric in the bed next to me, and Hope in her crib on the other side. That left Nyx and Paxton to drag in beds from the other rooms, plopped them next to ours, and announce they were moving in too.
The room was so big, it more than fit us all, but left the big massive gap of the beds that weren’t there hanging over our heads. Orion and Badr didn’t move in with me, because we had yet to complete our bonds.
It wasn’t because I held a grudge about them turning the school against me and destroying the cord killer. It was for the reason I gave them the day after they killed the alpha council.
A sweet, wonderful, brave man named Castor taught me what true love is, and I didn’t give a shit how badly my wolf wanted them, I wasn’t letting another man into my heart or my bed until I knew that’s what we had.
They said they understood, and ever since then, we’d been dating. Taking the pressure off and just getting to know each other again. I wanted to say it was going well, but... it wasn’t.
For me and Orion, even though he was polite and charming when he took me out, the air was always heavy between us. It was filled with all the things he wanted to ask me about his mother and father, and what I knew about her disappearance. And even though I wanted to tell him, I had to be very, very careful not to break Luame’s rules and get myself reduced to a pile of ashes.