Elias straightens with Kitty in his arms. Her eyes are closed now, head resting on his shoulder. She’s been waiting for him and Sully, I think. Something about Elias’s energy makes her feel steadier.
I slip off the couch to follow the kids to bed, pausing to hold my hand out to Christoph. He looks up at me, old pain etched through his gaze.
“We rescued them,” I say gently, knowing without asking that Christoph worked with Coda in New York because of how trapped his mother felt with his father. Knowing that his realization that Kitty is a seer might have triggered the old wound of not being able to rescue his mother.
I know barely anything about the bear shifter, but I know that.
I continue holding my hand out to him.
Christoph takes it, straightening to his feet to loom over me. I’m utterly comfortable in his shadow, though.
“I didn’t doubt you for a moment,” I whisper. “Not one second.”
He exhales harshly.
I reach up and touch his cheek, then I turn to follow Bolan and Elias back through the apartment. Sully slides his arm around my waist, not pulling me away from Christoph but cuddling us all together.
“We’ll let them sleep,” I say. “For as long as they want.”
Me actually sleeping is apparentlyimpossible, though. Too many questions are still whirling around in my head, even while cuddled between Sully and Bolan, and with the kids safely tucked away in the next room. Though I do try for a couple of hours.
The early-morning sun is flooding through the main room of the apartment as I slip on a new dark-purple silk robe over the long black silk nightgown that Sully swathed me in before snuggling me next to him and promptly falling asleep. The hardwood floor is slightly cool under my bare feet as I wander farther down the hall to check on the kids.
Neither of them stir when I poke my head into their room. But Christoph unfolds himself from a chaise in the corner where he’s been keeping vigil, soundlessly following me as I step back out.
Elias stands on the far side of my sleek, dark-wood dining table. What appears to be a completely different set of neatlyorganized paperwork is on the table before him, along with one of his laptops. His dress shirt is untucked, the collar open and the sleeves rolled up. With his phone pressed to his ear and in the middle of a murmured conversation, the earl gazes out the side windows at the sea of restored Victorian and Edwardian red-brick townhouses predominant in my neighborhood.
Christoph steps past me, heading for the kitchen area. And the already brewed pot of coffee.
Elias glances over his shoulder, his light-blue eyes instantly pinning themselves to me even as he asks the duke, “The kids?”
“Sleeping,” Christoph says. “Tommy’s energy has settled.”
“You were worried he might transform again?”
“Mildly,” Christoph says, pouring himself a cup of coffee, then pushing it toward me.
“Mirth doesn’t drink coffee,” Elias says. “Or tea.” His attention is pulled back to whomever he’s on the phone with. “Yes? Thank you. We will inform you when we’re ready to leave. Yes.” He disengages from the call and tosses the phone onto a pile of papers on the table.
“The locals are still pushing the royal guard for access to the kids?” Christoph asks, leaning back against the far counter with the steaming mug of coffee in hand. He doesn’t sip from it, though.
“You might have to … intercede there, Mirth,” Elias says. “I’ve bought them twenty-four hours, but the guard are getting some push to involve the authorities.”
“Intercede?” I ask playfully, slowly padding over to the table. The earl’s gaze drops to my bare feet, the silk robe and gown swishing around my ankles. “By royal decree? I’m fairly certain only my father can do that.”
“I’ve rewritten the guardianship papers,” Elias says, tearing his gaze away from me to shuffle some documents on the table. “Coda sent through some … suggestions. Additions. I’ve got callsin to ensure we can file them as soon as possible. Today. This morning. I just need your signature. I’ll witness, so we don’t have to haul you in front of a judge.”
I skirt the table to join him. He stiffens as I near, so I pause just out of reach.
“Are you still mad at me?” I ask.
“At the situation,” he says gruffly. “I’m more unbalanced than I wish to be. And … yes, utterly and irrationally, I’m completely furious with you. My …” He shakes his head, rubbing the center of his chest.
“That’s not anger,” Christoph says mildly, pausing to take an actual sip of his coffee before offering clarification. “That’s fear turned inward. Mirth scared you last night —”
Elias visibly bristles at that. “I’m not scared of my —”
Christoph raises a hand, more placating than demanding. “Seeing Mirth on that stage, protecting the kids, scared the fuck out of you. Out of all of us.”
