Guard Wolf (Shifter Agents Book 2)

by Lauren Esker

  Thinking longterm? Well, it didn't seem they'd be handing the kids off to a foster family anytime soon. Actually, it was starting to look they were stuck with them until Avery and the SCB could figure out who the bad guys were and neutralize the threat. She wasn't entirely sure how she felt about that, but if it meant seeing a lot more of Avery, she was all for it.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Avery got to Nicole's sister's place by following her taillights, focused on those to the exclusion of all else. He had insisted on driving—he didn't want to leave his car parked on the street—but realized the depth of his exhaustion once he was behind the wheel. He drove on rote instinct, and it took him moments to realize they were stopped, now, not for a traffic light, but because she had parked. There was no room for him in the driveway, so he parked on the street, parallel to a low fence with a white house behind it.

  Nicole had parked in the driveway of a tidy two-story house, crammed in with a minivan and a Honda Fit. She was leaning into the backseat of her car to unbuckle the kennels. Avery came up beside her, along the edge of the driveway, haunted by the eerie sense of unreality that came from being very tired and half asleep. The front yard was a dark mess of some kind of vegetation, draped over an assortment of trellises and a white ornamental bower. Rosebushes, Avery realized, when he brushed a nearby branch with his fingertips and felt the prickling of thorns.

  He didn't have much experience with suburbia and the kind of people who lived there. Most of his friends were single—as Jack had been, until this summer—and, in essence, wedded to their work. They lived in apartments and condos, worked evenings and weekends, and were more likely to spend their free time on the firing range than nurturing rosebushes.

  Nicole cleared her throat and, when he looked around, handed him one of the kennels. The puppies stirred sleepily inside. "Almost there," Avery murmured to them, touching soft puppy fur through the bars.

  "Let's see if we can do this without waking the household," Nicole whispered as she led the way under the rose bower and up the flagged walk to the front door. "Fortunately, my bedroom is the only one on the first floor. It'll be the first door on your left when you come in. Erin's bunch are all upstairs."

  She unlocked the door and let him into a short hall. Straight ahead, the hall opened up into a large space, some kind of open-plan living room. He couldn't see much from here except boxy shapes of furniture or countertops, framed against the city's night glow streaming through large windows. There was an odd smell in the air, sharp and a little turpentiney, like some sort of cleaning product but fresher and less chemical.

  Nicole took a sharp left turn and flicked on a light. "Come in," she whispered, and turned off the hall light, then closed the door behind Avery when he came inside.

  So this was Nicole's room. It was large for a bedroom, with sunny yellow walls and lace curtains. The bed was made up with an abundance of pillows and a yellow-and-green quilt with embroidered flowers. There was a desk with a computer in the corner, and a bureau of dark wood with a vase of fake flowers and a clutter of cosmetics on top of it.

  It was ... not girlish exactly, but very female, which made Avery consider that most of the women he knew weren't feminine in that particular way. Jen Cho was stylish, in her own way, but not particularly girly. Eva Kemp, the orca shifter who led the Pacific Northwest SCB's #1 strike team, exuded lethal predatory grace from every line of her body. Even Casey hadn't feminized Jack's condo when she moved into it, so much as added her own newly acquired weapons and weight-lifting supplies to his.

  "Bathroom's through there," Nicole said, pointing out a door beside the computer desk. "I have to hand it to Erin and Tim, they really went out of their way to give me my own space. The bathroom's been remodeled to open directly from the bedroom—it used to be off the living room. And with my bedroom right next to the front door, I can come and go with as much privacy as possible." She set the kennel on the floor and knelt beside it. "Now, shall we give these poor kids their freedom?"

  Once the puppies were out and bouncing around, Nicole slipped out of the room, coming back a few minutes later. "I suppose we shouldn't get in the habit of feeding them at night, at least not if we want to be able to sleep through the night ourselves. I thought for tonight, though, a snack might help them and us sleep."

  She'd brought a carton of milk and some bowls for the puppies, and sandwiches for the adults—two for Avery, guessing (correctly) that he'd be starving as his body healed the damage from the fight.

  "Okay if I take a shower?" Avery asked, when the food had restored a little of his flagging energy. He could still smell the other werewolf on himself, the taint of sour wrongness making him uneasy.

  "Make yourself at home. Feel free to use anything you need."

  The bathroom was as female-styled as the bedroom, with fruit-scented bath products and a toothbrush holder shaped like a koala with its legs wrapped around a tree trunk. Avery usually disliked artificial scents, but right now he welcomed anything that would cover up the smell of the other werewolf. He sudsed himself down thoroughly with raspberry body wash. Most of the claw marks had already healed to thin pink lines, and his bruises looked a day or two old; by morning, they'd have faded until they were hardly noticeable.

  While he was in the shower, his clothes quietly vanished from the bathroom. He came out wrapped in a towel. "I threw them in the washing machine," said Nicole, at his baffled look.

  She was lying on the bed, reading a book. She'd changed into a fluffy dove-gray robe, disarmingly koala-colored; the bed had been stripped down to the sheets. Neither the blankets nor the puppies were anywhere to be seen.

  "Did you put the kids in the wash, too?"

  Nicole grinned. She leaned off the bed and pointed under it.

  "Oh," Avery said, startled. The missing blankets had been repurposed to make a nest, in which sleeping puppy bodies could be glimpsed.

  "My closet is small and full of stuff, but I thought that might be a reasonable compromise."

  He couldn't figure out whether to be flattered or insulted. Maybe a little of both. "I'm not completely incapable of falling asleep anywhere other than the closet, you know."

  "I ... well, I didn't know, but I wanted you to feel at home here." She closed her book. "Go on, shift and get in there. I'll be down as soon as I brush my teeth. And if you'd rather sleep on the bed, we can fix it up again."

  The cozy space under the bed did look inviting. Her bed frame was old-fashioned, heavy dark wood to match the bureau, and high enough to leave a reasonable amount of room underneath. He shifted, dropping the towel, and crawled in.

  The light went off, and a moment later, Nicole's plump koala shape wriggled in beside him. She smelled like a blend of koala, Nicole, and, somewhat incongruously, toothpaste. The puppies had been noticeably squirmy, but as soon as Nicole joined them, they settled down.

  As he drifted off to sleep, Avery wondered just how badly they were screwing with the kids' sense of pack. Did they think that Avery and Nicole were their packmates now? Might they have imprinted on Nicole and now think they were koalas?

  Okay, now you're just being ridiculous. Go to sleep.

  ***

  The happy gurgling of a childish giggle woke him.

  Avery experienced a moment of intense disorientation. This wasn't his usual closet.

  The child's laughter came again, followed by happy babbling.

  At this point he woke up enough to recognize by smell that he and Nicole were alone in their blanket nest under the bed. She was sound asleep, giving little whuffling koala-snores.

  Avery struggled out from under the bed, still wolf-shaped, and sat up on his haunches.

  The kids had shifted again—all of them. The giggler was a boy with sandy brown curls, lying on his back and playing with his toes. That one must be Gael. A girl with hair the same color—Sophie?—was sucking on the handle of a hairbrush she'd somehow acquired. Dark-haired Hunter napped on his stomach on Nicole's green-and-gold shag
rug. And Ginger was in the process of slowly and with great concentration pulling herself upright by holding onto the drawers of Nicole's bureau.

  Avery, bemused and not quite sure where to begin, shifted to human form. Ginger turned to look at him, wearing a childish look of bafflement (I'm standing up and now what do I do?) and then lost her grip and fell heavily on her bare behind. Her face screwed up with imminent tears.

  "Hey, no, let's not wake the household, why don't we?" He scooped her up, and holding her with an arm under her butt, he freed the slimy hairbrush from Sophie's grasp. Now it was Sophie's turn to screw up her face and open her mouth in the beginnings of a wail. This woke up Hunter, who joined the chorus.

  "Ugh. What." Nicole wormed her way out from under the bed, humanform. She rubbed her eyes and then squinted at Avery, who now had both baby girls in his arms, jiggling them in an attempt to distract them from crying. "Kids," she said blankly, and then with a bit more vigor in her voice, "Avery, that child is peeing on my rug."

  "I'm out of arms. You'll have to do something about it."

  "I believe diapers just became a priority." Nicole picked up Hunter and then realized the folly of this move too late. "Ah! No! Not on me—What did parents ever do without diapers, Avery?"

  "I guess they got peed on a lot."

  "You're a great deal of help."

  With Hunter slung on one hip, she went into the bathroom and emerged with a towel. Next she rummaged one-handed in the mess in the bottom of the closet and came up with a sewing kit.

  "What are you doing?"

  "Making diapers." She sat on the floor and let Hunter sprawl over her knees while she cut up the towel into four equal quarters. "I'll have to apologize to Erin for ruining her towels, but really, we need something until we can run to the store."

  "I might be able to get them to shift back."

  "If you could, that would be a help."

  None of the children showed the slightest inclination to follow Avery through his shifts except for Ginger, who had easily caught onto the rules of the "Let's shift!" game but, unfortunately, also followed along every time he shifted back to human, until he gave up.

  "Here," Nicole said, shoving a rectangle of towel at him. "See what you can do with this."

  Neither of them were entirely clear on how to fold a cloth diaper, or how to make it stay on, since Nicole had only found two small safety pins in her sewing kit. Avery's solution was to tuck the cloth straight through the babies' legs and then tie it in a knot at each side. This did keep it from falling off, but also made the babies look like little packages waiting to be unwrapped. And, as Nicole pointed out, it probably wasn't going to do a very good job of containing what she euphemistically termed "things".

  "It'll do for now, though," she said, buttoning a blouse over her breasts—a process Avery watched with some regret. "Sadly, your clothes are still in the wash, but I'll see if I can find any of Tim's things that'll fit you."

  "Won't everyone be at school or work by now?" He wasn't entirely sure what time it was, but it was full daylight outside—though somewhat gray and dismal—and there was no sound from elsewhere in the house.

  "It's Saturday," she pointed out. "I don't have to be at work, either. Although Erin generally works from home in any case."

  "Oh," Avery said, nonplused. With everything else going on, he'd completely lost track of the days.

  Nicole, dressed but barefoot, slipped out of the bedroom and shut the door quietly behind her. Avery heard female voices and laughter; then Nicole came back in with a bundle of clothing in her arms. "You're in luck!" she said. "Erin wanted to put some laundry on this morning, and found your things, so she put them in the dryer for you. Get dressed and then we can take our bundles of joy and meet the fam."

  Up to this point, he'd had enough on his mind that the thought hadn't even occurred to him that he was about to meet Nicole's family. Not a big step, right? We're not even officially dating yet ... exactly ...

  Yeah, that didn't actually help with the nerves.

  At least he didn't have much time to dwell on it. Nicole picked up two of the kids, and Avery hastily finished dressing and got the other two. He followed her out into the main part of the house.

  The front entryway opened into a large living room with an adjoining, open-plan kitchen. High ceilings and large windows gave an impression of light and space, but what really surprised Avery were the trees. Most people didn't have trees in their living rooms. One entire side of the room—the east-facing side, with the biggest windows—was a virtual jungle.

  Nicole grinned at the look on his face. "That's Erin's arboretum. Go on, have a closer look."

  Avery went closer. The jungle was located in an extension of the house, an attached greenhouse set a few steps down from the level of the living-room floor. Its walls were almost entirely glass, giving him a view of a pocket-sized backyard that appeared to have been largely annexed by the greenhouse. The trees were actually in pots sitting on the tile floor, with large flowerpots between them, as well as a patio table, chairs, and a couple of benches.

  On a sunny day, the effect must have been incredible, with sunlight shafting through the greenhouse's skylights. It would have been like a little piece of a subtropical forest transplanted to the Pacific Northwest. Today was gray and dreary, and light rain streaked the windows instead of sunshine. Still, the overall effect was impressive.

  And something in the greenhouse was the source of the sharp smell he'd noticed when he first came into the house. It was much stronger here.

  "Gum trees," said a strange woman's voice.

  Avery jumped. He'd been too fascinated by the indoor jungle to notice that one of the benches was occupied. It was right up against the glass, with the best view of the backyard, and largely blocked from sight by planters flowing over with flower-studded greenery. Still, this was a rare lapse of vigilance, for him.

  "Sorry to interrupt your daily commune with nature," Nicole said dryly. "Erin, this is Avery."

  Erin closed her laptop and stretched. She resembled Nicole closely enough that no one could doubt they were related. Like her sister, she was short and curvy; it was plain to see why Nicole could get away with borrowing her sister's clothes, since they were almost exactly the same size. Where Nicole seemed to favor plain business attire, though, Erin wore a brightly patterned skirt and a stylish scarf, and her darker, straighter hair was clipped in a trendy style, fastened up at one side with a dragonfly-shaped clip clearly of the same set Nicole had been wearing the other night. Her feet were bare, the nails painted gold.

  "You were wondering about the trees, right?" Leaving the computer on the bench, she padded barefoot across the tile and skipped up the carpeted steps to the main living room. "They're gum trees, otherwise known as eucalyptus. It's one of the things I missed most about home, but I figured, what's the point of owning your own home if you can't do a bit of remodeling? Oh, hello there!" This last was to the babies in Avery's arms. Erin bent over to smile at the children, who stared back at her with worried frowns. "I have to say," she remarked, "I was expecting them to be a bit more, er, fuzzy."

  "So were we," Avery said. Standing with the kids' weight in his arms was starting to aggravate the ache in his leg; he began discreetly looking around for someplace to put them down. "They shifted this morning and apparently they're determined to stay this way."

  "Awww, hi," Erin chirped at Sophie, tickling the little girl's chin and getting a gap-toothed grin in return.

  "Where is everyone, anyway?" Nicole asked.

  "Hannah's over at a friend's, and Tim took Forrest to band practice. They should be back in an hour or two." Erin planted her hands on her hips. "But look at me being a terrible host. You want breakfast, right? Or possibly lunch."

  Erin took cheerful charge, and soon she had cereal simmering on the stove for the children, and was cooking omelets for the adults, ignoring Nicole's indignant protests that "Cereal and toast will be fine, Erin, really!" Meanwhile, the child
ren explored their new environment. With three adults to watch them and herd them back from anything dangerous, it was possible to keep them loosely corralled without physically confining them.

  "So how long have you and our Nicky known each other?" Erin asked Avery.

  Avery did some quick mental math. Stopped. Did it again. It couldn't actually be that short a time, could it? "Uh, just a few days, actually."

  "My, my." Erin winked at her sister. "When you go for it, you really go for it."

  Nicole turned pink. "You keep telling me I should get out and date more."

  "Yes, but I'm not used to actually having you take my advice. I have to say, I wasn't expecting you to turn up with a brand new boyfriend and four kids, though."

  "They're not my kids," Avery protested.

  "How old do you think they are?" Nicole asked her sister.

  "Don't you know?"

  "We've only been guessing. It's a lot harder to tell when they're wolves, and they've mostly been wolves."

  Erin leaned down to deftly separate Gael from the drawer handles he'd become fascinated with. "Just from looking at them, I'd say around a year and a half, maybe even younger. It's always difficult to tell with shifter kids, but they don't seem to be walking yet. Are they?"

  "Just kind of pulling themselves up on things," Avery said.

  "Then they're probably more on the young end. Of course, different kids are different. Hannah didn't ever really crawl; she went straight from scooting to running, to use Tim's phrase. And Forrest was a late walker. I think he was still crawling at sixteen months—I remember we had a talk with the pediatrician about it."

  She seemed to be drifting off in maternal reminiscing. Nicole cut in with firm practicality. "Erin, could you help me make a list of everything we're going to need? Caring for them was a great deal simpler when they were puppies. We're going to need diapers and—oh heavens, I suppose clothes as well, don't we? After breakfast, I'll run out and—"