Magic Triumphs (Kate Daniels 10)

We both looked under the bed again.

“Okay,” Andrea said. “Okay, he shifted, so he should be hungry. Do you have meat?”

“All the meat is frozen.”

“What’s wrong with you?” she demanded.

“Curran is off on one of his hunting trips. It’s just me and Conlan. I’ve been eating salami sandwiches and ramen for the last three days.”

“Why would you do this to yourself?”

“Because it’s easy?”

“What do you feed him?” She pointed under the bed.

“Chicken, oatmeal, apples, vegetables . . .”

Andrea stared at me. “Do I even know you? What do you have for a treat?”

“Cookies.”

“Your son is a lion.”

“I know that!”

“Cookies aren’t gonna cut it. Do you know any lion hunters who bait their traps with cookies?”

“I don’t know any lion hunters, period. And you know what, apple pie worked for me.”

“I’ve got news for you, it wasn’t your apple pie Curran was interested in.”

She had me there.

“Do you have any salami left?”

“No.”

Andrea growled. “Go get the cookies.”

One minute later we sat on the bed, staring at a plate on the floor with two chocolate chip cookies and a small puddle of honey.

“I don’t think you understand the whole predatory cat thing,” Andrea informed me.

“He likes honey.”

We sat in silence.

“This isn’t working,” I growled.

Her eyes sparkled. “You should try calling, ‘Here, kitty, kitty, kitty.’”

“I will kill you and nobody will find your body.”

She chuckled.

Another minute. Sounds of muffled chewing came from under the bed.

“He’s eating something. What could he be chewing under there?”

Andrea frowned. “Electric cords. Old tissues. Dead bugs.”

Kate Lennart, mother of the year. What do you feed your son? Dead bugs he found under the bed, of course. I jumped off the bed. “We need to get him out now.”

Andrea rolled her eyes. “Have I told you that you’re a helicopter parent?”

“I’m going to be the Wrath of Hell parent in a minute.” I crouched by the bed. “You lift, I grab.”

“Okay.” Andrea gripped the edge of the massive bed and jerked it up like it weighed nothing. A black lion cub the size of a small Chow Chow darted toward her. I lunged for him and missed. He snarled and locked his teeth on Andrea’s shin.

“Ow!”

“Don’t drop the bed on my kid!”

I grabbed Conlan by the scruff of his neck and yanked him back.

“Get him off my leg!” Andrea howled.

I slid my arm under Conlan’s furry throat and squeezed, sinking steel into my voice. “Let go. Let go right now.”

Andrea snarled and the noise that came from her throat was pure hyena. I squeezed harder, applying a choke hold. Conlan released the bite and gasped. I rolled out of the way, moving my son so I landed on top of him, and Andrea dropped the bed. The floor shuddered.

A red stain spread through her jeans.

“Your son bit me!”

“Sorry.”

Conlan bucked under me. I held tight.

“He bit me!” She pointed at her leg.

“He can’t help it. You smell like a hyena, and you’re scary.”

“I’m not scary. I’m nice! I’ve babysat him like twenty times. I gave him ice cream! Ungrateful brat!”

The brat gave up on trying to throw me off and went flat on the floor. I got up. Conlan shook himself. He looked just like a lion cub. His fur was black and velvety soft, with faint smoky stripes, and his ears were round and fluffy. He blinked at me and twitched his ears. I cracked up.

“He’s adorable,” Andrea said. “I’m still pissed off, but he is so fluffy. Baby B used to be that fluffy.”

“Rawr rawr,” Conlan told her.

I reached out and popped him on the nose with my fingers. “No.”

He recoiled like a chastised kitten and blinked.

“You bit Aunt Andrea. We don’t bite our friends.”

Conlan noticed the plate and wandered over to it. A pink tongue slid out of his mouth. He licked the honey.

“Now I’ve seen everything,” Andrea said. She hiked her jeans leg up and showed me a red wound on her shin. “I felt his teeth scrape bone. He’s got a hell of a bite. That’s a lion right there.”

“Sorry.”

“Oh, you’re going to have to do better than ‘sorry.’ Your son assaulted the alpha of Clan Bouda.” She wrinkled her nose at me.

“It’s already closing, you big baby.”

“It will close better if you buy me a late lunch and some margaritas.”

Conlan licked the plate clean, crawled into my lap, and draped himself over me. He had to be at least thirty-five pounds. Probably closer to forty.

“Lunch might have to wait. I’ll tell you what, give me a crash course in shapeshifter toddlers, and I’ll give you some of our homemade sangria.”

The sangria started as an experiment. Before the Five Hundred Acre Wood formed, someone in the area must’ve grown grapes in their backyard, because we came across a clearing with several old vines. Christopher mentioned that he grew up on a vineyard in California, I asked him to teach me how to make wine, one thing led to another, and now I made forest sangria. I had also planted some of the vines in the backyard, but they were too young to produce fruit.

Andrea’s eyes lit up. “Did you make a new batch?”

“I did.”

“Deal. Usually they shift at birth and then about once or twice a week, so you get a chance to get used to it. But your boy never turned before, so your mileage may vary.”

My mileage always varied. “How long does it last?”

“He’ll shift back when there is something he needs hands for or when he gets tired. Same rules as an adult shapeshifter: one shift, maybe two per twenty-four hours, and after that second, he’ll need a nap. The babies don’t know their limits yet, so be prepared for him to try two shifts in a row and flop right on his face. It’s kind of funny. They just go boop and fall over.”

The last time he fell over and got a knot on his forehead, I drove him to Doolittle like a bat out of hell.

Andrea sat next to me. “Cheer up. Babies are easy. It’s the adolescents who make problems. Before you know it, he’ll be a teenager and Curran will start teaching him half-form.”

“Stop.”

“The worst is over. He’s well formed, he’s proportionate, no weird bones sticking out anywhere . . .”

“I mean it, stop.”

“Okay, okay. So what else? Oh, he will have a bit of a learning curve figuring out what he can do in each shape. Some things are instinctive. Like if he is chasing something, he may shift without thinking. But a lot of times, they’ll try to bite things while in human form or change shape and want their sippy cup. Baby B carried her spoon around in her mouth when she turned into a hyena. It was the funniest thing. I’d cut up meat for her and she still wanted me to put it on the spoon and feed her. Wait until I tell Raphael.”

“I wish you wouldn’t.”

“What? Why?”

“Because your husband gossips like a church lady.”

“Please. Don’t insult me. Church ladies line up around the block to take gossip lessons from Raphael.” Andrea grinned. “No, seriously, why?”

“Because if you tell Raphael, the entire Pack will run over here to gawk at him, and I can’t do this right now. I have shit to deal with.”

“Is it Roland?”

“No.” I told her about Serenbe.

“Well, fuck,” she said.

“Yep.”

We sat quietly for a while. Conlan was sprawled on my lap, making a low rumbling noise. It was almost like purring. It felt oddly comforting.

“If you had to shoot a dog in the eye with an arrow from a regular bow, what’s the longest distance you could do it from?” I asked.