The toddlers were talking merrily, as if they hadn’t just suffered a terror-induced meltdown. They were exchanging mostly coherent words and unintelligible coyote yips until the adults stepped into their line of sight.
Instantly, both children froze. Fiona stared up at Camille with wide eyes, one bruised apple slice in each fist, and Thomas halted his attempts to leap onto the kitchen table. His ears flattened and his tail lowered as he glanced between his alpha and the elvish interloper.
Was there anything more awful than children being afraid of you? She had never frightened an elvish child in her life. They understood instinctively that she would never harm them. It made her feel sick to her stomach to see the uncertainty in their eyes, the way Fiona’s lower lip began to wobble at just the sight of her.
Camille wilted and tried to shrink backward.
“No, no.” Viktor stopped her with a firm hand on the back of her neck. “I know you know how to win cubs over, Cam. Don’t be a chicken.”
“I am not a chicken,” she tartly denied.
Fiona squeezed one of her apple slices and, in a thoughtful voice, informed her alpha, “Chickens not purple.”
“You’re right, Fi, only pretty elves are purple.” Viktor gave Camille a gentle shove toward the table. “Are you okay with Cam helping us make breakfast?”
Fiona and Thomas shared a wide-eyed look. “No growling?”
Camille hovered by the table, afraid to come closer. “No growling,” she promised, hands open. “I’m sorry I growled earlier. I didn’t know it was you, or I wouldn’t have. You just… scared me.”
Fiona took a thoughtful bite of her crushed apple slice, while Thomas slunk under the chair he had attempted to climb. He peered out from under the seat and let out a low, inquisitive whine.
“S’okay,” Fiona finally replied. “Everybody growls somedays.”
Viktor beamed. “That’s right. Even I growl sometimes, don’t I?”
Both children gave their alpha identical looks of baffled amusement before Fiona argued, “Nuh. Alpha doesn’t ever.”
Bending down, Viktor scooped up Fiona and held her up to his face. Growling playfully, he pretended to nip at her snubbed nose several times until she burst into a fit of giggles and dropped her mauled apple slices onto the floor.
The tight ball of anxiety unwound in Camille’s chest. Everything was fine. The children were fine. It was all fine.
Feeling almost too relieved to stand, she sank into the nearest chair — which happened to be the one Thomas hid under.
Soft fur brushed her bare foot. Camille jumped.
Bending at the waist, she peered under her seat to find Thomas crouched, his backside in the air and his tail wagging. Smiling tentatively, she asked, “Little one, what are you—”
The attack came with sharp baby teeth, a sloppy tongue, and dull claws. Camille yelped, more surprised than anything, as Thomas wrestled with her bare foot. His tail thumped wildly when she attempted to lift it away, only for him to go after the ankle of her pants with a wild, playful growl.
“Seems real worried you’re gonna eat him, doesn’t he?” Viktor teased.
Camille glanced up to find him by the cabinets, Fiona on his hip and a purple mixing bowl in one hand. She flushed dark purple. “Shush!”
Leveling a stern look at the cub currently attempting to maul her toes, he said, “Don’t you go hurting my mate, Thomas. She might just climb out a window and never come back.”
Outraged, Camille stooped down, swiped an apple slice from one of the bowls on the floor, and sent it sailing across the kitchen to smack him in the head. Fiona squealed with laughter, while Thomas released her foot long enough to dance in a circle, yipping like it was the best thing he’d ever seen.
“Hey! No throwing food! That’s a bad example for the cu—” She got him again, this time on his nose. He went momentarily cross-eyed. “Guh! Stop that!”
The cubs dissolved into hysterics as Viktor sputtered with mock offense, and Camille felt fear loosen its grip on her heart just a little.
Everything is okay. For now.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Camille got six days with the pack before the fragile peace was shattered.
She knew it was coming. Sickly fear had churned in her gut all morning — her unnaturally keen intuition warning her that their time was up.
She was on her phone with her brother when the message came through. Cameron was desperate to hear the whole, sordid story and rightfully horrified when she got to the part about the shooter, but as soon as Viktor looked up from his phone with that hard expression, she knew it was time.
“I’m sorry, I have to go.” Her brother protested, but she didn’t hear him. Camille hit the end call button and lowered her phone to stare at her consort.
He stood in the doorway of their bedroom, his brows drawn down over his cornflower blue eyes and his shoulders stiff.
Her throat was dry when she croaked, “When?”
“Tomorrow.”
Camille closed her eyes and forced herself to breathe, to remember that her consort was strong, in his prime, and had too much to live for to die under the claws of Ruben Andreas.
But didn’t her father have all those things, too? Having everything to live for, being strong and determined to fight for what was right, didn’t save him.
Warm hands cupped her face. Her lashes fluttered against her cheeks as she fought the sudden, terrible urge to cry. “It’s going to be okay, Cam,” he promised for the hundredth time.
She sniffed hard. “I know, but I can still worry, can’t I?” The words came out tart, though she wasn’t truly upset with him. How could she be, when he might leave her so soon?
“Yeah, you can.” Viktor sat down next to her on the bed and drew her into his lap. His heartbeat was a steady rhythm against her side. Holding her tightly, he said, “When this is all over and we’re settled in the new territory, what’s the first thing you want to do?”
When this is all over… He said it so casually, as if it was a given that things would work out. She knew better than anybody that nothing was a given, nothing was ever truly promised. Her parents should have had forever. A love match, two consorts who were utterly devoted to one another, and they’d only gotten a measly thirty years together before they were torn apart.
Would she be even less lucky? Would she only get a few golden days with her consort and her new pack before the gods yanked him out of her life once more?
Camille dug her blunted claws into his shoulders and clung as tightly as she was able. “I don’t know. I can’t picture a time after— after everything right now.”
Viktor skimmed his lips over her forehead. “I can. I can see us in our den, in our new territory. I can see us with the pack, having picnics and playing with the cubs in the lake. I can see us arguing about the best place to put the sofa and trying to hide what we got each other for our birthdays. And I can see us going camping, too. Just the two of us, when we need an escape from the pack for a little while.”
She let out an incredulous laugh. “Camping? Elves don’t go camping.”
“My elf can,” he playfully asserted. “I want to take you deep into the woods and have my wicked way with you.”