Page 14 of Pretty Kitten

She was scared. Try as she might, she could never quite hide anything from him. They were two parts of the same soul.

“We have no reason to freak out yet,” he voiced. “Turners are extremely rare.”

His words felt empty, even to his own ears. Turners were rare because they came from old families descended directly from the very first shifters - witches had rendered the following generations unable to affect human beings.

But he was a Wayland; his family tree could be traced right back to the top, hence why he turned into so bestial an animal. And she? She was the very definition of a first generation of shifter. Part beast. He’d always been proud of everything she was, but there was no denying that it made their odds look grim.

“I feel danger coming, Rye. I can almost taste it.”

He would have loved to say that he didn’t; but that would have been a lie.

“Hsu would…”

“Hsu is a child. We shouldn’t rely so heavily on her. For one, that could make us complacent. We…”

She stopped talking as a discreet knock interrupted them.

Opening the door, Rye tried to smile as best he could.

“Hey, little one. We were just talking about you.”

The child had been crying. That much was obvious, although she’d done her best to hide it, drying her tears and lifting her chin. Her eyes were still red and puffy.

“What is it, sweetheart?”

“I’m sorry,” she sniffed.

Those words seemed to undo her hard work; she lost her composure and started bawling her eyes out again.

“Hey, hey, now,” he said, effortlessly lifting her from the ground like she was a toddler, too.

At ten years old, the girl rarely accepted that sort of comfort, but she buried her arms in his neck and cried harder.

“What is it, Hsu?” Ace asked, suddenly by their side.

She’d put Zack in his bed; from the corner of his eye, Rye could see the little monster immediately shifting and tearing through the curtains in an attempt to climb out. “You know you can tell us anything.”

“I did something - something really bad.”

“Right. Do I need to get a shovel to hide the body?”

Hsu didn’t laugh, but the joke worked nonetheless; a reminder that they had each other’s back, no matter what.

“I… I saw something last week, and I didn’t tell. I tried, and tried to stop seeing it, so I wouldn’t have to lie.”

Rye caught Ace’s eyes flickering to his for an instant, but they went back on the child.

“Well, now, that doesn’t sound too bad, does it? You know you don’t need to share all your visions, Hsu. No Seer is supposed to. If you constantly meddle with the future, you’re just going to get tired, and anxious, and you’ll feel guilty when you miss something…”

Ace stopped her tirade, catching on at the same time as Rye.

“You saw this. You saw Zack biting Clari.”

A head of dark curls bobbed against his chest. Oh boy.

“And you saw Clari turn,” Rye concluded softly.

It took a minute, but she nodded again.

---