Page 11 of Moon Tamed

I wrinkled my nose. “I think it’ll be okay.”

My brother pressed the back of his hand to my forehead. “Are you all right?”

“It’s a challenging assignment. It’s the same old monotonous stuff I don’t like. This will just take longer than a few days to complete. There will be good variety of work to keep me engaged. It’ll be an adjustment, but I’ll be fine. I can handle this.”

“Which one of us are you trying to convince?”

“Me,” I confessed.

“In good news, I’m convinced you can handle it. Which faction are you working for?”

“The Hunters.”

My brother whistled. “You’re going to need nicer panties if you’re going to be working there.”

One way or another, my brother would die. Of my options, I savored the idea of wrapping my fingers around his throat. As there was no time better than the present, I lunged for him.

Peter fended me off with a laugh. “It’s true! You always get the cheap, practical stuff. Buy some lace. Wear a short skirt. Date! Come on. The last time you made me shop with you, they had a kitten pattern and tiny bows, and you called that adventurous.”

“I was yanking your chain.” He didn’t need to know I’d replaced most of my underwear with the kitten print. “Hold still so I can kill you.”

“No. Mom expects me to date seriously because you won’t. You go through men like your assignments—a minimum of once a week, and you don’t kiss on the first date. As such, you go home alone and cranky because you don’t have a boyfriend.” Snickering, he caught both my wrists in a single hand. “You just like struggling.”

“Oh, yes. I just love when my little brother kicks my ass with one hand.”

“Yeah. Dad crushed us using only his off hand. It was painful.”

I laughed at him. “You let an artisan beat you, a crafter, at your own craft.”

“It was a slaughter. You should be hugging me rather than trying to kill me.”

A throat cleared from the sidewalk, and when I turned my head, my poor soul fled my body, and I made a horrified squeak.

Calden Stephans stood with my parents, and he raised a brow at me. The source of the sound proved to be my father, who checked his watch.

We had precisely sixty seconds to explain ourselves, after which we would be questioned or sentenced, likely to death.

“I told her she needed to buy better panties than the cute kitten print with tiny bows she loves. This is justification for my murder, right?”

“Darling?” My father asked.

“Enslavement for a month with no chance of parole, with a new trial to be held in a month and a day. Let go of your sister, hug each other, and pretend you’re adults while on our doorstep, please. No killing Peter, Coraline. He’s no use to you dead, and slavery usually isn’t legal, so be grateful.”

Peter released my hands, and I hugged him before I lost my errand helper.

“That’s better.” My mother strolled down the walkway. “Why are there children on my doorstep?”

“You took my copy of the house key after I bought you a flock of doves and let them loose in your sunroom,” I reported. “This was on the day after I moved out, as I knew you would hate having an empty nest.”

The descendants of the doves still lived in the sunroom, and they were encouraged to come and go as they pleased.

“You’re unaffiliated because no faction wants your trickster ways,” Dad muttered. “And you, Peter?”

“Well, after the doves, I thought you’d appreciate a partridge in a pear tree.”

The partridge lived in the backyard with the pear tree, and Mom had bought the baby some friends.

“That was not why we took your key.”

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