Page 15 of A Kitten for Alpha Kenny

She hugged him around his furry neck. “Next time, I’m bringing a tutu for you. I think your wolf could use one.”

I’d need to talk to her about that. Putting a tutu on a pack alpha was far from proper etiquette.

She asked us to run races, and we did. Then she asked us to lie down so she could see which of us was better for snuggling—and we did. She picked Kenny. And, finally, she asked us to switch back because she had something “really, really funny” to tell us.

Well, that really, really funny thing was all about the fact that I was a cat and Kenny was a dog.

“My second most favoritest book,” she explained, “is about a cat and a dog, and they are best friends. Like best, best friends. Not like the kind that are mean, where you say, ‘Oh, you’re my best friend’ because you want the other person to know they’re not.”

Gods, sometimes I hated school. Kids could be so mean. The best friend thing had been a big issue at the beginning of the year—not with her particularly but with the entire class—and we spent an entire parents’ meeting listening to the principaland teacher telling all the parents how to handle it at home. Apparently, it was still fresh on Madeline’s mind, and I filed it away as something to ask the teacher about next time I saw her.

“Anyway, they get into so much trouble—not because they’re naughty though—they just are in the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s hilarious.”

“And what’s your favorite book about?” Kenny asked.

“Oh, that’s about when Father broke Daddy out of jail.”

Kenny’s eyes snapped to me.

“It wasn’t jail.”

Kenny broke out laughing, already knowing the story.

“Is that your only book about Daddy?”

She shook her head. “No, Daddy made me lots of books so I don’t forget my father.”

“Maybe you can read them to me one day?”

She bobbed her head up and down. “I can try. I’m not good at reading yet, but I can pick out a, the, and cat. And Madeline. I can tell you the stories, though.”

“That sounds great. I’d love to hear them.” Kenny wasn’t threatened by my past. He wanted to know all about it.

“Are you going to be my papa?”

Kenny looked at me as if I had all the answers. This was just as much new territory for me as it was for him.

“Papa?”

“Yeah. I have a daddy, and my father is with the Goddess. So that leaves papa. Is that gonna be you?”

“Is that what you want?”

“Yeah. I really want a papa. And Daddy gets lonely. He needs a dog to get into mischief with.”

I…wasn’t gonna argue with that, not if that “dog” was Kenny.

Chapter Eleven

Kenny

After our fun and exciting day, Madeline drowsed in her car seat all the way home to their house. When I turned the car off, I waited, thinking she might wake, but Mulder shook his head. “She’s down for the night. I would like to give her a bath after all the running around, but she’ll have to have one in the morning because that would wake her up and then she’d be bouncing off the walls until midnight.

“That doesn’t sound like a good thing.”

“It’s not, for a lot of reasons.” He winked at me. “A couple not even related to her being rested at school tomorrow.”

“She wants me to be her papa, right?” I was pretty sure that’s what her asking then mentioning the cat and dog being friends added up to.

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