Page 1 of How to Hide Your Angel Kid

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THE ROCK-HARD STRANGER

Zarrie sneezed,tiny white feathers exploding in a cloud around her.

Pinks groaned. “Zee, why do you keep losing feathers?”

Not that the ten-month-old baby cared. She giggled and showed off her pincer grip by picking up one of her feathers, promptly shoving it into Pinks’ nostril.

“Argh!” He jerked back and shook his head, sneezing violently.

Zarrie burst into infectious laughter. Pinks couldn’t help smiling, even as she shoved a second feather into his newly-empty nose.

“Baby,” Pinks grumbled, right before his nose tickled and he sneezed again.

Zarrie laughed so hard, she farted.

Pinks pretended to growl as he pounced on her, blowing a raspberry against her belly.

Maybe it was obvious to everyone: Zarrie was amazing. She was Pinks’ most important person, and Pinks hadn’t even known how much he’d needed her until she’d entered his life. Zarrie’s other dad had come and gone in a flurry of feathers, never even stopping to explain that sex with him might end up with Pinks getting pregnant. With a species Pinks didn’t know how to care for. And couldn’t afford.

What a jerk.

Obviously Pinks had gotten knocked up. Obviously.

Blinking away his exhaustion, Pinks put Zarrie in her crib and grabbed his phone, shuffling around to the front windows of the safe house to make sure no one had found them.

The thing about Zarrie’s species was... she was so rare. And kidnappers wanted to steal her for gods-knew-what.

They’d already been kidnapped once. Pinks vividly remembered the sour stench of the men, the loud bangs of the van doors sealing him, his friends, and their babies into the darkness.

But just because Pinks had escaped didn’t mean the kidnappers had forgotten about him and Zarrie.

He peeked around the curtains of the front-facing windows, taking comfort in the normalcy of the neighborhood: small houses with neatly-manicured lawns, birds fluttering in the trees. No cars drove along this dead-end street, and someone walked their dog not too far away.

He tried to breathe out the anxiety in his chest, going to the windows at the sides of the safe house. The neighboring houses either hadtheircurtains shut, or they didn’t have any windows facing him at all.

His phone buzzed. His new friends—mates of his rescuers—were chatting about using vegetables as sex toys. He couldn’t help a small smile, replying to the conversation.

Guilt stabbed through him, though. His own friends, Walren, Ivo, Nat, and Killian... All of them had been trapped in the van with their babies, and all of them had helped to shove him away, creating a distraction so he could escape.

And here he was, pacing around like a sitting duck because he didn’t knowhowhe could help.

Pinks’ rescuers had promised that they were tracking down his friends, but what if they were too late? What if his friends had already been separated from their babies?

It was enough to give him ulcers.

He wrung his brain for ideas. Then he replied to the chat and crept to the back windows, which faced a dense forest.

Something was off about the forest today.

Pinks froze when he realized what it was: a gray blob maybe fifty yards away, mostly hidden by trees.

That hadn’t been around this morning... had it?

His heart pounded. He stayed as motionless as he could, watching the blob.

It was so still that it could’ve been a rock—except Pinks scanned the forest several times a day, and he would’ve noticed if there was a rock when he’d first moved in.

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