Page 13 of Primal Mirror

All glowing brown skin and the yellow-gold eyes of her leopard, her face bearing clawlike markings on the right-hand side of her face, she wasn’t wearing her favorite purple corduroy overalls today.

She asked her doting aunt to make a bigger version of her most treasured item of clothing each time she outgrew a pair. He had the feeling he’d one day be seeing an adult Jojo in the same overalls.

The idea made him grin.

Today, however, she’d chosen a sparkly black jumpsuit with golden paw prints all over it. He knew she’d chosen it because Jojo had been opinionated about her fashion choices since the day she could make those wishes known. Her sneakers were a matching gold, her curly black hair pulled into lots of tiny knots all over her head, each knot anchored with a golden hair tie.

“Miss Jojo.” Grabbing her racing body before she could run headlong into his legs, he threw her up into the air.

The cub shrieked with laughter before settling into his arms, her legs at his hip, one arm around his back and the other lifting up in a questioning motion. “What’s up?”

Man and leopard both grinned. “I should be asking you that. It’s dawn o’clock. Why are you awake and playing?” The play area was otherwise deserted of children, though three adults and one juvenile were making use of the climbing frames—and had no doubt kept an eye on Jojo.

“JD’s babysitting me,” she said with a huge smile. “No rules for Jojo!”

Remi glanced over to where Jayden a.k.a. JD—age sixteen—was making his way up the climbing frame. “I guess that’s the prerogative of a big brother. He do your hair?”

“Yup.” She tilted her head this way and that to display the tiny knots. “I love JD.” The words were innocent in their sincerity.

“He’s a good brother.” And a young male Remi knew would be a future core member of the pack. “Want to do the rounds with me?”

An enthusiastic nod from the little girl in his arms.

After alerting Jayden that he was taking Jojo with him, Remi put her on the ground. Where she stalked next to him, her tiny hands in the pockets of her jumpsuit. Unlike most young cubs, Jojo never forgot to take off her good clothes before shifting. He’d seen her literally growling at her more impatient friends who were yelling at her to just shift.

When they stopped by the kitchen aerie—connected to the dining aerie by a covered walkway—his tiny shadow stood there with a serious listening expression on her face through his entire discussion with Fabien’s team.

The trained French chef was one of the founding members of RainFire. Remi had run into the other man—ten years older than him—during his years on the racetrack; he’d soon discovered that Fabien never stayed put in one place long. The same restlessness that drove most loners had led the chef to do stints in five-star restaurants around the world.

When Remi had asked Fabien to help him kick off his new pack for the princely sum of no actual salary but all the hard work he could stand, the tall and rangy “silver fox” of a chef—per Lark—had said he could give him six months.

Turned out grim and temperamental Fabien liked the challenge of setting up a new pack—and he had a soft spot for all the “ferals” Remi had collected into RainFire. Today, he threw Jojo a wink while he stood with his arms folded against the side of a counter. Many an adult woman would’ve died for that wink, Remi thought in amusement.

Afterward, once they were on the ground again, on their way to the infirmary, his little assistant gave him a proud look. “I was good for a whole hour!”

Remi’s leopard huffed inside him at that highly inaccurate gauge of the time involved. “Yes, you did a great job.” He tugged at one of her knots, careful not to dislodge it.

“Can I have a cookie now?” A plaintive look. “Fabin always gives me cookies.”

The cubs alone could get away with butchering Fabien’s name, of which he was very proud, passed down as it had been from his grand-père.

“Strong dominants have a good breakfast,” he reminded her. “Cookies are for an afternoon snack.”

She sighed. “Maaaaan.”

He had to squeeze his eyes shut not to burst out laughing at that mournful exclamation. He had no idea who she’d picked that up from, but it sounded just like an adult except in a pip-squeak voice.

Talking of pip-squeaks, he said, “How’s your friend Pip?” The little Arrow boy and Jojo were as thick as thieves, with Pip now having enough control over his psychic abilities that he’d been permitted to overnight with RainFire a couple of times.

Never alone, of course. Kid was too strong. But his Arrow babysitters made it seem as if they were also having a sleepover with a friend—while keeping Pip within their psychic shields. The last babysitter had been an Arrow with gray in his hair who was so obviously out of his element that it would’ve been funny if it wasn’t so touching.

The Arrows, raised without love, without tenderness, without play, were trying so fucking hard for their children.

RainFire would always be there for them. Even if it meant handling older Arrows who sat around stiff as mannequins and awkward as all fuck. Last time around, Finn was the one who’d made a breakthrough, talking the gray-haired Arrow into a card game after stating it was about strategy.

Then there was twenty-three-year-old Zinnia. Remi was pretty sure the bubbly and confident maternal—a brunette with all the curves—had initiated more than one Arrow into skin privileges. Since Aden hadn’t come to Remi with complaints about shell-shocked no-longer-virgin Arrows, he’d left her to it.

A virgin could do a lot worse than an affectionate maternal who liked taking care of people and knew how to be gentle.

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