Page 4 of Falling in Love with A Tiny Bat

“Still checking out the bunny ritual, sweetheart?”

“Not that time. Which is why I have corrected the direction of my eyes.”

I chuckle, darkly. “Go on. What were you saying before?”

His lips move, silently, as his attention scans my kitchen table, the two YouTube Play buttons I have displayed on the wall near it, the porch swing visible outside the front window. “When Castor kidnapped Meda and Kass, it was a diversion. So I could take a sapling from the dryads.”

I straighten up off the counter. “You didwhat?” I’ve heard about this event from Andromeda at school. Pila was devastated; Andromeda was worried about her. “That wasyou?”

“I assumed he was operating on a chance it would bring forth fruit.”

Fruit?Does he not meana baby?

“I know better now that Castor does not act on potentials where plans of this nature are concerned. Whatever he did with the sapling—”

“Castor has a baby.”

Alexios closes his mouth, finds my expression, and—very delicately—says, “Yes. It is not a dryad, though. Dryads can only be female and seelie; what Castor has is their opposite. An unseelie male. An ent.”

“Is Castor taking care of him? Please tell me he has more going for him than cheekbones.” My skin prickles. “That’s a joke, but I’m not joking.” My voice cracks. “Okay?Is the baby okay?”

Alexios crosses the kitchen to me, lifts his hand, then shies away when I flinch back. Closing his gloved fingers, he says, “Don’t worry, snowflake.”

A nerve pinches. “What did you just call me?”

“You told me you were a special snowflake when we met at the end of winter break. I thought it suited you.”

I glare up at him, searching his stormy eyes. “I’ll allow it. No more interruptions. Finish your script.”

“Alana and I would like to recruit you as a member of the Villain Protection Program. Your first task will be to join me at Castor’s side and relieve him of the need to care for the ent infant. It’s a taxing mission; however, this arrangement would include me. What are your thoughts?”

My brow furrows. “What do you mean this arrangement would includeyou?”

“You have numerous responsibilities, including both your teaching career and your gaming one. I would act as the secondary caretaker, here to assist with household chores and managing the child. Taking care of an infant is difficult for just one person, as Castor has learned. Attempting to handle the small one atop his other devious little plots is making him cranky. In his kingdom, I am the only one suitable for childcare, so…it makes sense he’d choose me to assist you, while keeping tabs on his…assets.”

My heart jolts up my throat and gets stuck.Assets?Right now a little baby boy is with a man who considers him to be anasset? “So what you’re saying iswe’dfoster a baby, here?”

“Yes, ultimately.”

It gets harder to breathe. “Does he have a name?”

“You may name him.”

The heart in my throat tightens and twists. “What did Castor need a baby for in the first place?”

“Collateral.”

He’s holding ababyas collateral against a kingdom with a leader he doesn’t like?

I think I hate Castor.

Screw his cheekbones.

“I don’t want to foster a babyforthe kidnap-happy evil prince,” I say.

Alexios’s brows rise.

“If I agree to this, I’mnotgiving him back.”

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