Page 14 of Alpha Wolf's Nanny
“Nice to meet you,” said Daniel, accepting Cassie’s hand. “I’m Danny.”
Logan wasn’t so willing to behave himself. “Are you a human?”
“Hey,” Felix snapped, “don’t be rude.”
“It’s okay,” Cassie glanced back at him with a small, reassuring smile. Felix’s chest tightened.
“Yep,” she said, turning back to Logan. “Human through and through.”
Logan’s face twisted in displeasure, his little nose wrinkling. “So you don’t know anything about us?”
Cassie laughed. “I’ve been told you like adventuring in the woods.”
“It’s not adventuring,” said Danny, rolling his eyes, “it’s ourterritory. We have a fort and everything. We guard it against the Sharp Fangs!”
“The Sharp Fangs, they sound scary.”
“They’re not,” Logan said. “Our friend Thea was mad that I’m the Alpha of the Stone Crows, so she started her own pack soshecould be alpha. As if agirlcould be alpha!”
“Do you fight battles with them?”
“Yes, of course, every Tuesday after school!”
“And how many have you won?”
The boys exchanged a look, an angry cloud passing over Logan’s face as Danny’s eyebrow rose in silent challenge.
“Six.”
“Okay,” said Cassie with a grin, “and how many has Thea won?”
Logan kicked at the floor, his cheeks turning slightly red. “Eight,” he mumbled, almost too quietly to catch.
“Then it sounds to me like Thea is doing a marvelous job of being alpha, girl or not!”
“It’s only because Uncle Dane gives her loads of help!” Danny said. “Logan told him we didn’t need any help, even though I said we did, so he joined the Sharp Fangs!”
Felix rolled his eyes. Good to see that Dane was teaching the young pack members how to fight with one another instead of getting along.
“How do you win a battle?” Cassie asked as the boys led her through to the kitchen, both speaking over each other to try and answer. The war had grown from a simple capture-the-flag style game to an absolute monstrosity of rules and regulations and special cases and forfeits. Felix had long ago stopped trying to make sense of it, but Cassie nodded seriously as she listened to the two constantly interrupting each other.
“So you see, if we can get the red ribbons tied high enough in the fort, they won’t be able to see them and get them! They’ll be hidden!” Logan said, waving his arms around.
“We’re not allowed to hide them; they have to be in plain sight, which is why they should be down by the creek, that’s thefurthest from Sharp Fang territory!” Danny retorted, rolling his eyes as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
Cassie hummed, leaning over the table, tapping her chin in thought. “Have you considered an ambush?”
This stopped both boys short, and they stared at her with a renewed sense of respect. Felix could practically see the cogs turning in their heads, the burgeoning delight at an adult with a new scheme for them to try.
“The way I see it,” Cassie said, “is you should split the ribbons. One by the creek, and one visible in your tree fort. That way, Thea will have to split her forces. Have most of your pack at the fort, making a show of fighting her off, and then have an ambush waiting by the creek. She’ll think you’ve left it unguarded, so when she tries to take it, you can claim your…what was it, six prisoners of war?”
“Seven!” Logan said, puffing his chest out. “One more than the last capture!”
Felix watched as they continued to talk strategy, Cassie throwing herself into the role of mentor as though she’d been playing the game her whole life. His boys were looking at her with a kind of calculating wonder as they tried to match whatever silly, Mary Poppins-style image they’d had of a nanny with the woman in front of them. No doubt they had imagined he’d bring them some austere English harridan with mean, squinting eyes and no tolerance whatsoever for misbehavior.
He had been tempted—for sure, he had been tempted—but he knew his sons would just take that as a challenge, a silent game of how long she would last under their torment. No, much better to present them with someone young and fun who they could actually connect with. He’d done his best to advise Cassie that they would still try and test her boundaries, but she seemedunbothered. She’d met his warning with a kind of airy dismissal, as if she reined in two chaotic boys every day before breakfast.
It was a good attitude to have. It meant that she might actually survive the experience.
