Page 37 of Killian
“But you were brilliant!”
“No, I wasn’t! I just promised something that I have no idea how to do. Find the warlocks? How? Get rid of them? How? There were at least fifty of them. How are we going to kill all of them?”
“We don’t have to kill all of them,” said Killian. “We just have to kick them out of the library.”
“I don’t know how to do that either!” barked Moira.
Killian paused in straightening the wreck they’d made of the bedcovers on their way out of the house.
“Moira, calm down. You’re acting like this is all on you. We said we would help the elves. Help. As in: they will also be working on this. We have resources.”
We. Killian kept sayingwe.
Of course, he said we. They werewe. He was her one. So obviously, they were in this together. Why was she acting like she was in this alone?
“Moira?”
Moira looked up into Brandy’s freckled face. Brandy was a nice aunt, abit younger than Moira’s mom. She had two pups that were nearly seven and eight. Brandy made good fry bread, was excellent at quilting, and always gave out full rabbits at the solstice.
“Um…” Brandy looked nervous. “So… I was thinking about putting the boys in the human school.”
“Oh, cool,” said Moira. “There aren’t many kids their age. I was thinking it must be hard for them in our school.”
“Yes!” exclaimed Brandy as if Moira had said something brilliant. “It really is hard! Everyone is older or younger. We’ve been working on their control. They can go a whole school day without any accidents. Not one stray wolf ear!” Moira nodded. That was impressive. Sneezing out a wolf ear wasn’t uncommon for kids. “Only…” Brandy looked nervous.
“Only what?”
“Well, do you think you could ask Albert about it?”
Moira wasn’t sure why Brandy couldn’t ask Grandpa herself.
“I don’t think he’ll mind, but I don’t want to bother him, and I thought maybe you could ask for me?”
“Sure,” said Moira, confident that her grandfather wouldn’t be upset. “I can do that.”
She was seventeen, and that was the first time someone had asked her to ask Albert. After a while, Albert had told her to just use her best judgment and tell them whatever she thought he would say. It had saved time, but it hadn’t felt like a partnership. It felt like being the very trusted but very junior vice president. And it was isolating. Her friends had stopped telling her some things because they couldn’t tell the boss everything, and in return, there were things she couldn’t explain to them. The system kept the pack running smoothly, but it made her lonely.
“I… Thanks,” Moira said, shaking her head. “I just feel like I opened my big mouth and talked some smack, and now we’re going to have to pay up.”
“But we can pay up,” said Killian, turning down the light. “I know we don’t know what we’re doing right this second.”
“Try ever,” muttered Moira.
“But we will come up with something.” He said, taking off hispants. She sighed as the pale glimmer of lights from the guard boats filtered through the windows and painted his body in the softest sepia-tone shadows. It was a good thing he was her mate because if he wasn’t, she’d sit down and cry for not being able to have him. Actually, that didn’t sound like her at all. If Killian weren’t hers, she’d have to kick down a few doors, blow down a few houses, and drag him home with her. Moira didn’t care if that were primitive Neanderthal behavior—she wanted what she wanted, and what she wanted was Killian.
“You sound so confident,” she said, wishing she felt the same.
“Iamconfident,” he said, laughing again. “Between the two of us, we can solve this. We’ve done it before. We can do it again.”
“Have we done it before?” She was hoping he’d had a memory of the two of them together.
“I have no idea,” said Killian. “But fighting warlocks seems like something we would do.”
“It does, doesn’t it,” agreed Moira. “I nearly got shot in the face because I laughed when you threw that one guy.”
“Please do not get shot in the face,” said Killian, visibly shuddering.
“I didn’t,” said Moira. “I did bite someone, though, and he tasted like something died in my mouth.”
