Page 16 of Bully Wolf's Nanny
“Yes!” Thea chirped before Daisy could answer, racing past him and out onto the drive.
Nicolas turned back, one eyebrow raised. Daisy could only shrug. “She’s very energetic.”
“I can see that,” he said, his voice wry. “How old did you say she was again?”
Daisy swallowed, schooling her features in a perfect picture of calm and composure. “She’s five. Nearly six.”
Nicolas nodded, “She’s very intelligent for a five-year-old.”
“Yes, she is, it’s why she’s skipped a grade,” Daisy said, following her daughter outside, unable to make eye contact with Nicolas.
“She skipped kindergarten?”
“No, she went to kindergarten a year early. Summer birthday. I had the choice of when she started and…well, as you can see, she’s smart. So she’s in first grade.”
Nicolas didn’t respond, or rather, Daisy didn’t give him a chance to. Instead, she busied herself strapping her squirming daughter firmly into her booster seat, tapping her nose and telling her to behave.
Her daughter, who was decidedly not five years old. Her daughter, who would be turning seven in a few months. But she could have hardly told Nicolas that, not when he would have easily done the math. So, she had taken advantage of her daughter’s relatively small size and told a little white lie. Luckily for her, Thea had found the idea of lying about her age to be utterly hilarious. As she got older, however…
Well, that would be a problem for later.
She could only hope Nicolas, with his cunning eyes and his razor-sharp intelligence, wouldn’t catch on before she figured things out.
***
The town of Silvermist was almost unrecognizable. Gone were the crumbling, dusty shop fronts, the dirty streets, the huddled, nervous people. Instead, the streets were thriving withgorgeous pine buildings, reminiscent of some French chalet town, interspersed with houses and bustling shops and wide, happy smiles from everybody they passed.
“What happened here?” Daisy breathed as they walked towards the town square, where a great statue of a wolf carved from pine sat with its head lifted to howl at the moon.
“Felix happened,” said Nicolas as he pushed Gracie’s stroller, his eyes keenly focused on Thea’s little form as she darted from one shop front stall to another, gaping at pretty flowers and breathing in the rich warm scent of spiced cider.
“Yes, but he’s only been the alpha for what, five years? This is like a brand-new place altogether!”
Nicolas shrugged. “There was a lot of damage to undo, for sure, but it was amazing how quickly things started looking up when we overthrew the Old Guard. The number of resources they were wasting on territory squabbles was borderline criminal.”
Daisy gulped. She knew it was just a turn of phrase, but…well, there had been a lot that could have been considered criminal about the Old Guard. She remembered well her father’s sunken eyes, his frown lines deepening from stress as the old alpha sent the Vanguard out on yet another scouting mission. Not everyone came home from those missions. It was the way of things, and had been since time began; the shifters governed themselves. There was nothing the police or anyone else could have done.
So the killing continued.
She shuddered. It wasn’t worth dwelling on. Nicolas hardly seemed inclined to share any more with her, and why should he? After all, she’d made her position clear. She wanted nothing to do with the Iron Walkers.
Her attention was quickly stolen by a huge log-style shop just beyond the statue, several grand pianos visible through the windows.
“Is that a music shop?”
Nicolas glanced over. “Oh, yes. Iron Logging has recently expanded into spruce and signed several contracts with major piano and violin manufacturers. That right there is our flagship location.”
Daisy couldn’t help but run over to the storefront, hands pressed against the glass, heart aching at the beautiful instruments within.
“We can go in if you’d like.” Nicolas’s voice was suddenly very close to her ear, and she nearly squeaked as she turned, having to crane her neck upwards to meet his eye.
“Oh…no thank you. I mean, that’s very kind, but…I’ll just get distracted. And you have things to do, I’m sure!”
His eyes turned almost wistful then. “I forgot you used to play the piano,” he said, his voice uncharacteristically soft.
She gulped. “I mean, yes, I did, but…but I haven’t recently. Not for a long time, anyway.”
He glanced over to Thea, who was busy trying to clamber up the enormous wolf statue, his sharp features unreadable.
