Page 67 of Grace of a Wolf 2
"You have three seconds to explain why I shouldn't tear your head off," he growls.
Uninspired. I roll my eyes. "Because A: you can't, and B: I'm trying to keep your mate alive, you absolute walnut."
"Walnut?" Jack-Eye whispers from somewhere behind me, sounding far too amused for someone who's supposed to be blindly loyal to his king.
I clap my hands together, loud enough to startle everyone. The brief nudge of arcana to amplify the sound might have helped. "Charming as this display of dominance is—truly, it's riveting—there are way more important questions to ask right now, don't you think?"
Caine opens his mouth, no doubt to say something predictably threatening, when movement catches my peripheral vision.
The feral toddler comes tearing around the corner, her face smeared with what appears to be pizza sauce and possibly chocolate. Ihopeit's chocolate.
Behind her, a girl with braided hair sprints with her arms outstretched, looking equal parts furious and desperate.
"Bun, get back here!" she hisses, reaching for the escaping toddler.
But Bun is faster than she looks. She careens across the floor with the unstoppable momentum of a tiny, sauce-covered missile. Her destination is clear, and nothing—nothing—will deter her.
She launches herself into Grace's lap with a flying leap Olympic gymnasts would admire and lets out a bellow loud enough to shake dust from the cave ceiling. "MAMA!"
The word echoes, bouncing off stone walls and ringing in the sudden, profound silence that follows.
Grace's face goes slack with shock, her mouth wide enough to catch an army of flies as she instinctively catches the child. Motherly instincts. Not surprising, for someone with her fate.
Bun snuggles against her chest, tiny fingers gripping Grace's shirt with surprising strength as she rubs her sauce-streakedface against the fabric. She's babbling a mile a minute, looking aggrieved with her scrunched up expression and fat crocodile tears.
Caine looks like someone just hit him with a sledgehammer. His expression cycles through confusion, shock, disbelief, and something that might be horror, all in the span of three seconds.
Oh.
This.
This isdelicious.
My lips quirk at the horrible misunderstanding going through his head, even as I see panic widening Grace's eyes.
"What," he says, his voice dangerously flat, "is that."
The older girl skids to a halt at the edge of our little circle, her face draining of color as she realizes what just happened. Her pale skin goes even whiter, red eyes wide with panic. "That's the Lycan King, isn't it?"
Grace's hand hovers uncertainly over the child's head, not quite touching. "I—she's not—we're not—" Her face has gone an alarming shade of crimson.
"So," I drawl, enjoying this moment perhaps more than I should, "when were you going to mention you acquired a child? Must have slipped your mind during our quality time together."
"She's not mine!" Grace manages to squeak out. "She just—I don't know why—"
Jack-Eye looks like he's contemplating the nearest exit strategy, his gaze darting between his alpha's increasingly thunderous expression and the child now contentedly nestled against Grace.
Owen steps forward, hands raised in a placating gesture. "I can explain," he begins, then takes a step back when Caine's attention snaps to him, like a predator catching movement in tall grass.
"Please do," the Lycan says, each word dripping with menace.
Chapter thirty-one
Grace: Mama?!
Bun burrows deeper into my lap, trembling against my chest. The cave has gone deadly silent except for her sniffles.
"I can explain," Owen says again, taking another careful step back when Caine's eyes lock onto him like heat-seeking missiles.
