Page 61 of Moon Tamed

I stared. “If there isn’t a legitimate emergency, the amount of overtime he will be working is zero.”

“Coraline, that would require a literal miracle. My father likes his work too much.”

“He won’t have time to do overtime with the number of dates he owes women around the world, so you let me worry about making sure he doesn’t do overtime, you worry about evaluating potential step-mothers for their quality. You can’t growl at all of the potential step-mothers, only the ones that are obviously not suitable for your father.”

“I feel like I’m being tricked.”

I giggled. “Yes, I am tricking you into making certain your father jumps back into the dating pool with decent women. I’m not convinced he has a good radar for the users and abusers.”

“He’s decent at it. He told me out of the gate Sarai wasn’t a good choice for me. I did not listen. I probably should have listened.”

“I’d say it was more of a two-way street on that one. She turned down a perfectly good meal!”

“While true, she’s a softy for the animals. Hunting really is not her specialty. She likes hunting money, not living things. Well, unless the living thing is a man with money, in which case she’s a proud and fierce huntress.”

I struggled to comprehend why someone like Sarai would become a Hunter. Then again, the instant I’d learned the Hunters were more inclined to care for animals than hunt them for pointless trophies, I’d gone from anti-Hunters to signing up for extra time spoiling needy animals. “Had I known the Hunters were animal-loving freaks who enjoyed hunting each other and money rather than trophy hunters, I probably wouldn’t have lasted long as an unaffiliated.”

“We do a lot more than care for animals in need, but yes. We do that on purpose. We’d just have animal lovers if we let people know how the Hunters actually work. We do host hunts, and sometimes, those hunts are for fugitives. We do have unsavory work we have to attend to.”

I hadn’t heard about that part. “What sort of fugitives?”

“Escaped murderers is our typical fare. We have to draw lots when we’re out after a serial rapist. We’re contacted by law enforcement around the world to deal with rapists terrorizing women in other city-states. Let’s just say we have issues with how many people want to get a piece of that pie. Rapists don’t tend to last long when we’re on the hunt for them. Most of the shapeshifters in our faction are wolves, and we’re generally inclined to want to heavily romance our women and men. It gets to the point where some couples get nagged at by everyone else to hurry it up already. Wolves are thorough.”

I took a sip of my Champagne before setting the flute aside, clapping my hands to my cheeks, and exclaiming, “Oh no, the Hunters are being threatened with romance. Whatever shall they do?”

“Be wined and dined, apparently. How dangerous.”

“The Hunters need to teach Legacy members about romance, apparently. Do you know what has happened every time I tried to date someone from Legacy?”

“A report on their prowess in scientific detail, with a comparison of historic sexual performances?”

I burst into giggles. “That would have at least shown some effort! Mine have all been ready to romance their books. And I like books, don’t mistake me, but I don’t want to romance my books. The book boyfriends are always taken, they have a set script, and they’re rather two-dimensional when it comes to bedtime.”

Calden snorted, and then he dissolved into giggles, too. “I can see how that would be problematic.”

“In good news, they never interrupt reading time for some reason.”

“I wonder why.”

I snickered. “It may forever remain a mystery.”

“As your family’s resident prankster, you haven’t had much in the way of incidents, have you? You’re the cause of the incidents.”

The thought of what my parents would do if there was an incident involving me disappearing amused me into laughing outright. “Mom and Dad would beyond freak. They’d turn the city upside down. They let me get into trouble until it became clear I couldn’t get myself out of the trouble I created. Then they’d become demon hover parents. I quickly learned to stick to the sort of trouble I can handle without their assistance. They will assist, and they will do so in terrifying fashions. For me. Actually, for everyone involved. My parents are nice until they’re crossed. Then, they’re no longer nice.”

“As you haven’t been stolen from the nest, what sort of trouble have you gotten into?”

“That I couldn’t handle? Very little. My brother, on the other hand, is a little troublemaker. He would go stay with friends without telling anyone and need a way home, things like that. Once, he got locked in a department store because they had a toy section, and he was playing with tester toys. That freaked them out to the point they invested in leashes for us. In the middle of the night, he finally tripped the security system at the store.”

“Okay, that would have freaked my Dad out, too. Nobody messed with me until after I reached eighteen for some reason.”

“Only an idiot crosses a papa wolf with a puppy,” I informed him.

“I suspect you are right. So, we have this lovely bottle of Champagne. We should play a game,” he announced.

“What sort of game?”

“Drink, Truth, or Dare.”

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