Page 38 of Pleasantly Undead in Dark River

There were pirates everywhere. How the hell had I slept through that?

Nico was dressed in a striped shirt that came from god knows where, and he was sword fighting with Carmen, who had an eyepatch made of aluminum foil and string, a shirt wrapped around her head like a bandana.

Christopher was walking the plank off the edge of the table, and Enit was holding a stick and apparently catching a fish off the back of the couch.

“Uh? Permission to come aboard?” I asked, poking my head around the door jamb. Nico straightened, grinning at me, until Carmen took advantage and stabbed him with her spatula.

“Oh no, I’ve been stabbed. Tell Raine I love her,” he gasped dramatically, sinking to his knees. He toppled to the side, arm outstretched. “Rose. Bud,” he gasped, which made me laugh and confused the hell out of the kids. But luckily I dated a film major in my freshman year, so I got theCitizen Kanereference.

Carmen giggled as Christopher leaped from the kitchen table to the back of the couch, and I zipped across the room before he landed on his sister, catching him mid-air like a football.

I put him in the air, leapt over Nico’s now prone body, yelling, “Touchdown!”

His body was shaking in my hands, and I swore to myself. Shit. I fucked up. When I lowered him down though, he was giggling silently, his face stretched in a grin.

I swear, a happiness I didn’t know existed swelled in my chest. I squeezed him tight and then put him down. “I gotta tell you, Christopher, you’re a wolf shifter, not a bird shifter. You can still go splat on the tiles, you know.”

He just grinned and headed over to Enit on the couch.

When I looked up, Tex was standing at the edge of the room, his eyes slitted like a snake. “I felt your happiness. I wanted to see what made you feel like that.” He wrapped his arms around my waist. “But I get it. I’ve been there.”

I rested my head on his chest. “This is weird. Can you imagine when we had such a meltdown about safe sex before I went off to college, we’d still end up twenty with a bunch of five year olds?”

Tex snorted. “Not even in my wildest nightmares.”

Eventually, the kids got too wild to be indoors any longer, and Tex took them outside, shifting to his python form while the kids shifted to wolf, jumping over him as he wrapped them up. I stayed inside with Nico, curled up on the couch, listening to them play.

Nico pulled me onto his lap and kissed every inch of my skin he could get at. Not like he wanted to get into my pants, which let’s face it, we all wanted, but like he was just happy to worship me as some kind of goddess. I all but purred as we sat there talking about the opening of The Immortal Cupcake. Everything was almost done. The menu was locked down, and I thanked whoever the patron saint of the undead was that I could no longer get fat. We were set to reopen next week, and I was so damn nervous. But at least no one was trying to kill me.

I knocked on my skull superstitiously, and Nico looked at me like I was insane. “What are you doing, Raine?”

“Knocking on wood.”

He laughed and kissed where I’d just tapped. “You are the strangest, most wonderful thing that ever happened to me, Raine Baxter.”

He kissed me again until I was panting. I’d never been to Nico’s house in Dark River, but I was suddenly seeing the joy of not all living together now that we had three kids. I snorted at the idea again.

“Hey, do you think Dark River will say yes to Eden’s request?”

Nico shrugged. “I will push hard for it, because I believe it is the right thing to do, but there are far more conservative members of the Town Council. However, I think Catherine will go for it, and that will help sway the other members.” Catherine was the chairwoman of the Town Council, and she was simultaneously warm and terrifying. I didn’t know that was a thing until I became a vampire. “Why do you ask?”

I shrugged. “Maybe we could send the kids there for school. Because you’re an ancient vampire, I’m a college dropout, Tex is far more musical than book-smart. X and Judge could teach them how to dismember bodies, but probably not algebra. I thought we’d have to ship them up here to Nîso for school, but it would be kind of good if they could go to school with, I don’t know, other kids. Not just shifter kids, but all kinds of kids.”

I shrugged. Nico kissed my forehead. “We haven’t passed having the kids by the Town Council yet either, but considering Brody is their Alpha and I am, uh, a father figure, I do not think they’ll protest too much. Besides, Beatrice seems to have adopted them as unofficial grandchildren and she holds more sway over the town than you’d think.”

Oh, I didn’t doubt that one little bit. The diner, and Bert’s food, was the heart of Dark River. It wouldn’t be the same without it.

What would I do if the Town Council said no? Would I ship the kids up here to someone else? They’d be happy, even if they didn’t like the idea of being in a Pack right now. But I was kind of attached to them as well.

I swallowed hard. I’d cross that bridge if we came to it. Or maybe I’d just burn it down.

Chapter Twenty

As the sun set, the kids got more and more agitated. Why? Because Brody’s grandmother had invited us to a cookout. That meant other kids. Nell was a canny old bat, and as soon as word had gotten around that we adopted three wolf pups, she of course wanted to meet them. And she was the Matriarch. You didn’t say no.

So the kids were scrubbed of dirt and freshly combed, but they were nervous. Enit was in a pretty dress, Carmen was in black leggings and an oversized hooded sweatshirt, and Christopher was in jeans and a plain t-shirt, his hair combed and perfect. He’d done it himself but I could still sense their anxiety.

I resisted the urge to hug him, because I knew that's not what he needed right now. But it was tough. “We are just going to go, and if you want to leave at any point, you just say the word. We’ll show our faces and then skip town if we have to. No Pack dynamics. Just meat and good times.” I wasn’t sure if that was reassuring or not. “Besides there’ll be other kids there, so you guys can play. It’ll be fun.”

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