Page 69 of Shifter Marked and Claimed

I did the only thing a loving sister could do.

“Don’t touch that thing. I’m going to call Adira.”

I hurried to the living room and grabbed my phone to call our Council contact, the very person who pulled us from the sewer weeks ago. She picked up on the first ring, and I hurried back down the hall.

“Is there a problem, Kelsey?” she asked without a hello.

“I don’t know. My sister saw the neighbor kicking a puppy outside, and now the puppy is in our house. We didn’t let it in.” Even as I said it, I thought of how I’d left our front door open when I’d gone after Zoe. “Are there wild puppies in this place?”

“Unlikely. Either it’s a puppy brought in from the outside world or it’s a babezling.”

“What’s a babezling, and how can we tell if it is one?” I asked, already moving down the hall.

“Shut it in a room by itself, and it will return to its dormant form.”

As soon as she said it, I knew.

“Like a rock?”

“Yes.”

“Are they dangerous?”

With an anxious expression, Zoe watched me as the puppy whined and behaved impossibly cute.

“Never,” Adira said. “They’re caretakers and caregivers. Extremely rare.”

“So if we have one, Zoe could touch it without dying some horrible death or something?”

Zoe’s expression turned hopeful.

“Yes. You will be perfectly safe.”

The impatience in Adira’s tone rubbed me wrong.

“How did it get in if the house is warded? Wouldn’t me have to invite it in for it to get inside?”

“If it’s inside, it was invited in.”

I gave Zoe a dirty look and thanked Adira before hanging up.

“The only way that thing got in is if we invited it in. Explain.”

She looked from me to the puppy.

“Is it dangerous?”

“No.”

“Can I pet it?”

“Adira said we’d be perfectly safe around it, so I guess so.”

She squealed and dove for the puppy. It was up in her arms and wiggling to lick her face as she hugged it to her chest.

“I ran outside when I saw our hottie neighbor kicking it and told him to stop. I said that I’d take the puppy if he didn’t want it. But when I looked up at him, I kind of…”

“Forgot everything?”

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