Page 7 of Family: Posy 4

Your humans so big and powerful,I told him.Even bigger and more powerful than Alpha Briggs, and he—

What, Lark? He what?

He hurt me,I whispered. He hurt me so bad, Garnet. I too small and weak to do anything!

Oh, sweetheart, he breathed.No one will harm you ever again, not in any way, and if someone tries, we will kill them. Don't be afraid anymore.

I love you, Garnet. Sniffling a little, I wiped my wet eyes on Mason's shirt.

I love you, too, sweetheart, more than my own life. Our boys love you, too, in the same way we love Posy, and they want to get to know you. Trust them. I swear by the moon that you won't regret it.

"Lark?" Mason scratched under my chin. "Are you okay?"

Nodding, I reared up to put my front paws on his shoulders.

"Yes, precious?"

His gray eyes were as soft as rabbit fur as he looked at me, and I licked his cheek. He chuckled and ran his fingers down my back and stopped to scratch what Sid called the Good Spot at the base of my spine. Joy fizzed through my whole body, and I licked all over his face, my tail wagging frantically.

"Okay, okay," he laughed. "Don't wear out your tiny tongue! We'll do this again soon, I promise. For now, should we wake Posy? It's almost dawn, and she needs to get ready for the rest of our date."

There more to the date? What we doing?I jumped off his lap and hopped around on the bed in my excitement.

"We're going to a flea market, precious."

A market for ... fleas?I shuddered in horror and slowly shook my head.I no want to go there.

And I couldn't understand why he laughed so hard.

#

Posy

After Mason explained what a flea market was to Lark and me, we were both excited to go, but once we were there, the size of it overwhelmed me.

Thankfully, we had the place mostly to ourselves, and I understood why Mason rolled me out of bed and into the shower as early as he had. As the main building began to fill up with other shoppers, my nerves flared and I clung to his large hand with both of mine.

I knew I wasn't in danger, and even if I was, Mason would kill anyone who tried something. Still, old fears died hard.

"Let's go outside," he leaned down to murmur in my ear. "I think I know a few stalls you'll like out there."

I nodded and let him lead me to the door - and I quickly discovered he was right. I could breathe again away from the crowd.

Before we went too far, he opened the cloth shopping bag he'd brought along with us, took out my sunhat, and plopped it on my head. I rolled my eyes at him as I straightened it, and he grinned down at me.

"Where'syourhat?" I demanded with my fists on my hips.

"I can't stand a hat," he said as he reached into the front pocket of the cloth bag. Pulling out a pair of black sunglasses, he perched them on his nose and looked down at me with a raised eyebrow. "How do I look?"

"Hmm. George-us," I teased him.

"Don't steal Reau's lines. Goddess, the two of you loose in a school together is going to give me gray hairs." He held my hand again as I giggled. "Come on, little flower. First stop: Kawaii Town."

"Kawaii Town?"

"Just the name of one of the stalls," he said with a shrug. "Kawaii means cute in Japanese."

Then he took me to a booth set up with tables and shelves full of items I foundverycute. I went right to a rack of pretty sunglasses and picked out a pair of lavender heart-shaped ones with silver glitter in the frame. I put them on, and Mason stared down at my upturned face.

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