“That’s not really the point at the moment. The point is her daddy is not chill over the idea of her not being with us in our place.”
“Is he about to go category five on this place?” Jacque whispered.
“Might want to get back to Kansas, Dorothy. A tornado is coming,” Jen said as she ended the call and hurried after her mate, who was striding down the hall toward Sally and Costin’s suite.
“Remember they’re our friends, our pack,” Jen called out to him.
“Don’t care.” Decebel growled.
“Yes, you do,” she retorted. “You’re just having a fit.”
“I’m not a child, Jennifer. I don’t have fits.”
Jen laughed. “Really? You think you don’t have fits? Sorry, B, but you’re a world-class fit thrower. You could hold your own against a pissed off three-year-old.”
“And you’re a world-class stripper. We all have to have our talents, mate.”
Jen nearly stopped as her eyes widened at her mate’s back. Had he really just called her a world-class stripper? Did he have a death wish? Yes. Yes, he must have a death wish because that is the only reason he would say something so asinine.
“I’m going to temporarily forgive that statement because I believe you are under severe duress. I’m not sure you should be. Your freaking friends are playing with your kid. Oh, the horror,” she said, slapping a hand to her forehead and letting her eyes roll back in her head. “I mean, how dare they want to love on our child, the fools?”
“They should have asked,” Dec called over his shoulder. “You don’t just snatch someone’s kid. That’s called kidnapping.”
“Decebel, these aren’t creepers at a park that lured our kid away with a lollipop and the promise of an afternoon of playing with puppies. These are people we trust with our lives,” she pointed out.
“Maybe our lives, but not hers.” He reached Costin’s door and knocked.
The door opened, and Jacque and Sally both stood shoulder to shoulder smiling. They were the kind of smiles found on the faces of mental patients, not friendly, sane people. Jen nearly smacked herself in the face just to keep from smacking them in theirs.
“Hello, Decebel,” Jacque said, her smile growing wider. She was beginning to resemble an insane clown.
“Where’s Thia?” he asked, not bothering with the niceties, not that Dec was known for conversational niceties to begin with.
“Okay, before you flip out… Jacque began.
“Too late,” Jen muttered, getting a glare from her friend.
“Fane and Costin have her,” Jacque continued.
“They aren’t here?” he asked, his eyes narrowing dangerously.
“Honestly” Sally spoke up. “We thought they were bringing her back to you two.”
“Have you contacted them?” Jen asked, tapping her forehead indicating the bond.
“He’s blocking me,” both girls said at the same time with eerily similar irritation in their voices.
“They probably just decided to take her on a stroll,” Jen said, eyeballing her mate.
Decebel’s hands were fisted tightly at his sides. “Yes, because Costin and Fane are often possessed with the desire to take a stroll around the mansion with a three-day-old infant.”
“That’s not a fair sarcastic statement,” Jen said. “There’s never been a three-day-old infant in the mansion, so we have no idea if they are the infant-strolling type. Who knows, maybe they both secretly want to be nannies.” She paused and pursed her lips. “Though, they would be called mannies or wannies, because they’d be werewolf nannies. Okay, sorry, sidetracked. Anyway, maybe all their lives they wanted to be wannies but have never been presented with the opportunity to pursue their dream. Maybe Mary Poppins was their role model, and they’ve never told anyone for fear of being ridiculed.”
“And maybe when Santa farts it smells like candy canes,” Jacque said, rolling her eyes at Jen.
Jen grinned. “Are you bitter because your mate wants to be a wannie? It’s okay to have mixed feelings about it.”
Decebel snarled. “Are you two done?”
Before they could answer, Sally’s phone rang, and she pulled it out of her pocket. Not bothering to look at it, she answered. Thinking it was Costin, she put it on speakerphone so he could explain to Thia’s father why he and Fane had stolen the child.
“Sally, it’s Rachel. I’ve got some information for you about a plant that can be used as skin dye. I happened to have some on hand, so I mixed you up a batch—” Rachel’s words were cut off as Sally ended the call. Her eyes were wide as she looked at Jacque. It was a look of guilt that Jen had long ago come to recognize on her friend’s face.
“Sally … what was all that about skin dye?” Jen asked, her eyes narrowed on Sally, watching as her friend fidgeted. “And why do I think it has something to do with my daughter?”
“No, it’s for Sally,” Jacque blurted out. “You see, it’s embarrassing, and Sally didn’t want you to know, but Costin has this blue body paint fantasy … and … and … Sally wants to indulge it for him. She’s just … well, you know how Sally is. She’s very obliging. Just wants to make her man happy, that’s our Sally.” There was complete silence when Jacque stopped speaking.
Sally looked like she wanted the earth to open up and swallow her, while Jacque looked as though she was going to puke.
“And these are the people you trust with our child?” Decebel bit out through clenched teeth as he turned to look at Jen.
Jen held up her hands. “In my defense, they’ve never, ever talked to me about creepy cartoon fantasies. If I’d have known sixteen years ago that Sally was going to be such a freak, I would have befriended her much sooner.”
Jen was pretty sure that if steam could come from a man’s ears it would have been pouring out of her mate’s.
Decebel pulled his phone from his back pocket, pressed a button, and then held the device to his ear. After several seconds, he spoke. “This is your Alpha. When you get this message, you are to call me immediately. That is an order.” He ended the call and then looked at Sally. “I can’t give Jacque orders, but you are a member of my pack. You, I can give orders to. As soon as you hear from Costin, you are to contact me. Am I clear?”
Sally nodded, her lips tightly pressed closed in a straight line.
He gave them one last snarl for emphasis, then turned and walked back in the direction of their suite.
“Where are you going?” Sally called after him.
Without turning back to look at her, he shouted out, “Hunting.”
“He’s going to hunt our wannies, isn’t he?” Jacque asked.
“You know things are going from bad to worse when a werewolf is hunting wannies,” Jen said, turning back to her friends.
Sally shook her head. “At this point, the ridiculousness of our conversations has begun to lower my IQ. I’m literally getting dumber because of your wannies.”
Jen held up her hands. “Hey, don’t be blaming the wannies. They’re on the front lines of childcare, up to their elbows in baby poop and spit up.”
“Will she go away if we shut the door in her face?” Sally asked Jacque.
“Naw, she’ll just yell through the door.”
“Dammit.”
“I’m right here,” Jen said.
“The question is why?” Sally asked.
Jen’s eyes narrowed. “Listen up, you nomad magic user. You two geniuses are the ones who took my kid without so much as a ‘hey, we’re taking your kid.’ I’m the one who gets to be irritated. Not you two.”
“She’ll never let us live this down, will she?” Jacque said.
“Kind of like my holding a boob thing,” Sally said.
Jen and Jacque shook their heads. “Nope, that trumps my BFFs stealing my kid. Getting left behind because you got fascinated with a synthetic model boob trumps just about anything.”
“Not a synthetic model scrotum,” Jacque said. “Totally doesn’t trump that.”
r />
“Agreed.” Jen nodded. “Synthetic scrotums trump synthetic boobs. So go get left behind over a model scrotum, and we’ll leave you alone about the boob.”
Sally stared blankly at Jen. “I can actually feel my brain cells dying.”
Chapter Eight
“I woke up this morning clueless that I might be maimed to within an inch of my life at the claws of a pissed-off wolf-daddy. Had I had even an inkling something like that might happen, I would have stayed in bed.” ~ Costin
“Dammit all, she just puked again,” Fane said as he tried to keep the blanket between him and Thia so no more of her baby vomit would get on his clothes.
“Is that what smells like curdled milk?” Costin asked.
Fane nodded. “It’s all over her … and me. If we return her to Jen and Decebel like this, Decebel won’t be the only one who wants to kill us.”
“Is there a change of clothes in that diaper bag?”
“Probably,” Fane said as he went back into the bathroom. They’d been planning to take Thia straight back to her parents, but then she’d projectile vomited all over Fane halfway through the trip. So they’d made a detour to the nearest guest bathroom and clean up as best they could. They hadn’t been back in the hall for half a minute when she’d projectile vomited again.
Fane handed Thia to Costin and then dug through the bag until he found something clean to put on her. There was a another blanket in the bag, so he laid it down on the counter and then motioned for Costin to put Thia on it.
“Have you ever changed a baby’s clothes?” Costin asked, sitting the baby down gently.
Fane shook his head. “You?” Costin was quite a bit older than Fane, like four decades older, so he was hoping the wolf had even a little experience with babies.
“Nope.”
Hope shattered. He unzipped the pajama-looking outfit Thia was wearing. As he started pulling her legs and arms free of the material, he chanted under his breath, “Don’t pull off her arms or legs. Don’t pull off her arms or legs.”
“She feels fragile, right,” Costin said.
Fane nodded. “I just feel like one tug too hard and pop, like the arms and legs of a cheap action figures. They just would come right off.”
Once he’d gotten the girl’s vomit-covered clothes off, and she was lying there in nothing but her diaper, the smell continued to assault their senses. Fane leaned down and sniffed. He pulled his head back quickly. “I think it soaked into her skin. Removing the clothes didn’t help. She still reeks.”
“I’m guessing hosing her down isn’t an option,” Costin said.
“That would be bad. But, a bath should work.” He thought about it for a moment and then started to wrap Thia up in the blanket. “Let’s take her down to the bathroom by the Gypsy Healer lab room. There’s a tub in there, and it will buy us some time if Decebel is looking for us, which I’m sure he is.”
They hurried out of the bathroom and down further into the bowels of the mansion. When they got to the Gypsy Healer lab room, Rachel wasn’t there. They walked briskly to the bathroom at the back. Once inside, they shut the door, and Costin started the water in the tub.
“Make sure it’s not too hot,” Fane said. “I’ll hold her while you bathe her.”
Fane stripped off the blanket and tiny diaper and checked the water before lowering her into the tub. He cradled her in both hands and simply let her recline in the warm bath. He looked over his shoulder at Costin. “Find some soap and a washcloth or something.”
He watched as Costin searched the different bottles sitting on the counter next to the sink. Most of them didn’t have labels. Costin began picking them up, opening them, and sniffing. He made some gagging noises on the first couple but smiled on the third. “This smells like soap.”
“Perfect. If it quacks like a duck, walks like a duck, and smells like a duck, then it’s probably a duck,” Fane said as Costin snatched up a small hand towel to use as a washcloth.
He wet the towel and then poured some of the silky blue liquid, which smelled strongly of fresh berries, onto the rag. Then he started rubbing it all over Thia, but not on her face since they didn’t know if it was the tear-free stuff. When bubbles started filling the sink, he knew they’d found the right bottle. The puke smell quickly dissipated, and Thia giggled at the sensation of the warm water and soap suds.
When they were convinced of Thia’s cleanliness, Fane pulled the stopper on the tub and ran some fresh water to rinse her off.
“Uh, oh,” he said, after a few moments.
“Holy monkey butts, her skin is blue.” Costin yelped. “It won’t come off.” He kept putting clean water on her, trying to rinse off the soap, but her skin just became bluer and bluer.
Fane closed his eyes and shook his head, though he tightened his grip on Thia to make sure he didn’t drop her. “We’ve turned Decebel’s daughter into a blueberry,” he said quietly and opened his eyes to look at his partner in crime.
Costin was fighting a smile. “This shouldn’t be funny. I realize in a few minutes, it’s not going to be funny at all, but bloody hell it is funny right now.”
Fane lifted Thia out of the water and grabbed one of the folded towels from the shelf over the sink. “Lay that blanket out there.” He pointed to the counter. Costin did so and Fane laid the girl on it, wiping Thia dry. He stupidly hoped the color would wipe away from her skin as she dried. No such luck. “Grab a diaper from the bag,” he commanded. Costin snatched one up and held it out to him.
Fane took the diaper from Costin and clumsily began putting it on the tiny creature. It took a few tries, but he finally got most of the important parts covered. Then Fane wrapped the blanket around her blue body and handed the girl to Costin. “Here, comfort her. She’s bound to freak out when she realizes she’s blue.”
“She’s a baby, Fane. She doesn’t know what blue is.”
“True, but when her mother starts screeching like a banshee, she’ll understand that. It’s an instinctual female thing. I’m betting they understand crazy, pissed-off-momma language, even as infants.”
Costin laughed. “You’re probably right.”
Fane pulled out his cell phone and found his dad’s contact. He pressed the call button and then tried to figure out exactly how the imminent conversation would go.
His dad picked up on the third ring. “Fane.”
“I have a small problem, and I think the only one who can help is Peri,” Fane said without any preamble.
“What sort of problem?” Vasile asked.
“It might be better for you not to know. That way, when you’re questioned about it later, you can honestly say you had no idea what was going on,” Fane told him.
Vasile sighed. “You’re right. I don’t want to know. I’ll contact Peri and inform her you have a situation. Where are you?”
“In the Gypsy Healer lab room in the Serbia mansion. Let her know that time is of the essence.”
“I told you they were unoriginal!” Fane spun around as Jacque’s voice rang out in the room.
“Is that your mate?” Vasile asked.
“Gotta run, dad.” Fane hung up the phone and let out a sigh as he watched his mate and Sally stride toward him. They were staring with wide eyes and opened mouths at the blue infant.
“Your hands are blue too,” Sally pointed out to Costin.
Fane looked at his hands for the first time since bathing Thia, and his were just as blue as Costin’s. Fantastic.. “Yes, that’s my mate. I’ve got to go. Please tell Peri to hurry.” He ended the call and then braced himself for the crap storm that was bound to erupt from his redheaded, fiery mate.
“You’re right,” Sally said as she bumped Jacque’s shoulder. “They have no originality. They should have bead-dazzled her.”
Costin frowned at his mate. “I feel like I should be insulted, but I’m not really sure exactly how.”
“I’ll tell you how. First, you stole the baby we rightfully took,” Jacque said. “Then you dye
d her blue before we could.”
“Wait.” Fane held up a blue hand that he quickly dropped. “You’re telling us you were planning on dying Thia blue?”
Sally shrugged. “It sounded like a good idea, but now that I see her, I realize … it was a great idea. It’s hilarious. But I bet y’all didn’t even mean to do this, so what happened?”
“Yeah,” Jacque chimed in. “I thought you were going to return her to her rightful owners.”
“We were. But then she projectile vomited all over the place twice, and she stunk. We figured Jen would skin our pelts if we returned her kid in such a state,” Fane explained. “So we brought her here to bathe her.”
“You bathed a newborn?” Jacque asked, looking a little awestruck.
“Yes, and then I dyed her blue,” Fane said.
“I was the one who found the soap … er … what we thought was soap,” Costin said. “It smelled good. All the other bottles stunk. Apparently, it wasn’t soap.”
“Obviously not. So, what’s the plan?” Jacque asked Fane.
“I called my dad and asked him to get in contact with Peri. If anyone can fix this fast, it’s her,” Fane answered.
Jacque pulled out her phone and started texting while speaking to Fane. “Text your dad and tell him to have Peri meet us in Jen and Decebel’s suite. I’m going to tell Jen that you guys took Thia to the Romanian pack mansion to see Alina because you knew Decebel wouldn’t attack Alina.”
“Good plan,” Costin said and looked at Fane. “Why didn’t we think of that?”
“Because she was puking everywhere. There wasn’t much thinking going on, just surviving.”
“From the way Jen’s been acting, I think that’s just par for the course with a newborn,” Sally said.
“Okay, let’s head to their suite,” Jacque said. “Jen just texted back. They’re on their way to the Romanian pack mansion. Oh, she also said, ‘When I get my claws on your mate and his partner, Dimples, I’m going to turn them into pincushions.”
“You guys can probably just ask Decebel how it feels to be a pin cushion if you’re worried. I’m sure that’s a form of foreplay for Jen.” Sally shot her mate a sly smile.