“Forget it, Graham!” the large, dark-haired woman yelled back. “I don’t have time, and I don’t have room. You have that huge house with only you and your nephew. You take them.”
Graham put his hands on his hips. “Wait, I can’t raise twin cubs and run Shiftertown!”
Nell turned her back, put her arm around the huge man, Cormac, and walked away with him. “Suck it up, Graham,” Nell said. Cormac looked back at him and grinned.
“Shit.” Graham folded his large arms and glared at the two cubs, whose tails had started moving faster.
Behind Graham, his Lupines watched, faces softening in relief, but they were still wary. Misty realized that while Graham could stamp around and let himself be made fun of, he’d showed that, when need be, his word was law. His Shifters disobeyed at their peril.
“Don’t think you two can get out of this by being cute,” Graham said to the cubs. “Bring them, Misty. We need to talk.” He growled as he turned away. “Hell, now you’ve got me saying it.”
• • •
Graham threw open the door of his house, went inside, and signaled Misty to follow. No one was in the kitchen, but the place was the disaster area he’d left. Misty stopped, looking around in dismay.
“The servants all quit,” Graham said, deadpan.
Misty stood motionless while Matt and Kyle crawled down her and dropped to the floor. No longer afraid, they started running in circles between Misty and Graham, chasing each other, fear forgotten.
What Graham liked about all this was that Misty wasn’t shying away from his nakedness. She wasn’t exactly staring at his goods, but she didn’t avert her eyes, flush, turn away, or yell at him to please get dressed.
Graham was the one who left, to step into the living room and grab some sweatpants he’d left in there. He didn’t mind Misty seeing everything, but if his thoughts kept rampaging, he’d never hide his growing hard-on.
When he came back into the kitchen, Misty was at the sink, sorting dishes, scraping them, running the water.
“You don’t need to do that,” Graham said quickly. “I’ll get Shifters in my pack to do it; or have Dougal get his butt home and help. Here, I’ll call right now.”
Misty kept on rinsing and scraping dishes. She never, ever simply obeyed Graham, as everyone else did, which both intrigued him and drove him crazy.
“My mom and dad divorced when I was ten and Paul was five,” she said, for no reason Graham could discern. “We lived with my dad a lot because my mother remarried right away, and her new, successful husband didn’t want the bother of kids around. He was nice to us, but it was pretty clear he wasn’t interested in my mom’s kids from her previous marriage. I had to learn very fast how to take care of men. My dad was always buried in his next business idea, and Paul was too little.” Misty had the dishes sorted out, scrubbing them in one side of the sink, rinsing them in the other. “I learned early that men aren’t good at taking care of themselves.”
“Shifter males are different,” Graham said, leaning against the counter. “We have to take care of ourselves, our families, and everyone in the pack. We’re good at it.”
Misty glanced around the wrecked kitchen, gave him a wry smile, and returned to the dishes. “No, you’re not.”
Graham loved how her nose wrinkled when she smiled like that, loved how one strand of her hair had come out of the ponytail and fallen to her bare neck.
“Are you going to tell me why you tried to call me before?” he asked. “And how the cubs got into the back of that car?” His gaze swiveled to Matt and Kyle, who were trying to lick dried ketchup off the floor. “Leave it!”
Matt and Kyle jumped, looked guilty for about one second, then started running around the kitchen again.
“We don’t know how they got into the back of the car,” Misty said over rattling dishes. “They were just there. The car was in the parking lot all day; the guy who owns it didn’t take it anywhere, not even on his lunch break. He ate at the convenience store.”
Graham stepped in front of Kyle and Matt’s next wild circle of the room. “Stop!”
The cubs came to a startled halt but looked up at him without fear. They knew the difference between Graham as alpha, disciplining the pack, and Graham the irritated babysitter.
He fixed them both with a scowl. “How did you get into that car?”
A series of yowls and yips followed as both cubs tried to excitedly explain. Misty turned around from the sink, concerned.
Graham held up his hands. “Quit that. You sound like a bunch of coyotes. Speak human, so Misty can understand.”
The wolves morphed almost instantly into boys. They were good at shifting. Not all Shifters were—some struggled with the change—but these two had a natural ability.
“We don’t know,” Matt said. “We were playing hide-and-seek with Dougal.”
“We were hiding,” Kyle clarified. “And Dougal was looking at a female.” His confused look told Graham Kyle didn’t understand why.
“Then Dougal was mad, and yelling,” Matt said. “And we fell asleep.”
“Woke up in the car,” Kyle finished.
“Where were you hiding?” Graham asked.
The cubs looked at each other, their big eyes filling with fear again. Fear made them fall silent.
“Just tell me,” Graham said.
Kyle curled into a ball and hid his face against his knees.
“You’re scaring them,” Misty said. She wiped her hands on a clean towel she’d found and came to the cubs. Crouching down, she reached out for Matt’s hand. “It’s okay, Kyle. We just want to make sure you weren’t hurt. And that no one else gets hurt. You’re not in trouble.”
“I’m Matt.”
Misty blinked at him, taking in his hazel eyes. “Sorry. Matt. You can tell me.”
Matt considered for a time. Then he squeezed Misty’s hand and leaned forward confidentially. “A house,” he said. “A house that isn’t done. In the basement.”
Kyle raised his head and smacked his brother on the arm. “We promised!”
“Ow! We said we wouldn’t tell any Shifter. Aunt Misty ain’t Shifter.”
“Who did you promise?” Graham said above them.
“Don’t know,” Matt said. “But Shifter spaces are secret, aren’t they? We’re not supposed to tell.”