Page 78 of Mysteries, Menace, and Mates

Roadkill rolled his eyes. “Oh gods, don’t tell him I said that. He hates it when we call him that.”

“No, what he hated was when someone painted his claws with sparkly nail polish while he was taking a nap.”

“They didn’t.” Eve snorted. “Oh, I wish I’d seen that.”

Roadkill chuckled. “Don’t worry, I have pictures.”

“What?” Hashtag squawked. “You never told me that.”

“Duh. Because if I had, five seconds later Horvan would have found out, and then he’d have made me delete them.”

“I would never tell.” He smirked. “Okay, yeah, I probably would have before. But not now. Mate’s honor.” Hashtag got his phone out. “Let’s see if H can spare the kids some time.”

Eve and Roadkill left him to his call and walked into the gardens where children of all ages ran around shouting and laughing, the late afternoon sun lighting up the tops of the trees, making them glow. To listen to the happy sounds, no one would ever have guessed the miserable circumstances that had brought the kids to this spot.

Hashtag joined them a minute later. “He loved the idea. He said he’d be right out.”

The words had barely left his lips when screams of delight filled the air.

“Kitty!” one little girl hollered and made a beeline for Dellan, who lowered his chest to the ground to allow her to clamber on his back. Then hepadded carefully across the lawn, followed by a group of three little boys, all clamoring for their turn to ”ride the kitty.”

Rael lay on his back while a boy and girl rubbed his tummy.

Eve chuckled. “So that’s what a lion sounds like when it’s being tickled.”

As for Horvan, he was playing tag with five or six children, and judging by the whoops and yells, they were loving every minute of it.

“Wouldn’t you love to know what kind of shifters they are?” Roadkill mused. “We could be surrounded by snakes, mice, bunnies—”

“Bunnies?” Hashtag snickered. “Cute, Roadkill, very cute.”

A young woman approached them. “I’m Mary Edwards. I take care of the children. I don’t know whose idea this was, but it was a masterstroke.” She watched the children engaging with Horvan, Dellan, and Rael, her smile constant. “They’re so good with children. Do they have any of their own?”

Eve’s chest tightened. “No, they don’t.”At least none that we know about.Something in a nearby tree caught her eye. Nestled in the branches, its tail caught between its paws, was an adorable red panda.

“Oh, look at that,” she said softly.

Mary followed her glance. “Oh my,” she said with a sigh.

It was such a change in her demeanor that it pricked Eve’s senses.

“Is everything okay?” Then it struck her. “Why isn’t he—or she—playing with the others?”

Mary let out another sigh. “His name is Logan. He’s four, and he’s scared to death of everything and everyone. We’d hoped bringing him here, letting him touch grass and climb the trees would help, but he’s so scared he just stays up there and screams if we try to take him down.”

Roadkill growled, and it vibrated through Eve and Hashtag.Those fucking monsters.

“You don’t know the half of it,” Mary muttered.

Oh hell. I said that out loud, didn’t I?“Then tell us the rest.”

“We’ve only recently learned about him. Aelryn’s people have been going over the records they found in Texas. It seems as though Logan was kept in isolation for most of his life.”

“But why?” Eve demanded, aghast.

Do you need to ask?Hashtag snarled.Why did they do any of the atrocities we’ve discovered? Because they could. Because no one knew what they were doing.

Mary regarded her with troubled eyes. “He was rescued from a lab of some sort. He was locked in a cage, crying. When they took him out, he panicked. Even when they tried to talk softly, he screamed. In the end, they had to tranquilize him. The file we found for him had no name listed, so one of our people called him Logan. The name stuck. But if he’s ever adopted, his new parents are welcome to change his name.”

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