Chapter 19: Two Fathers at One Table

At six o'clock sharp, the King of the Lycans knocked on our kitchen door.

He had washed, and shaved, and put on a clean gray shirt, and he was holding a loaf of bread his own cooks had baked.

He stood on the mat and did not come in until Mom said, "Don't be silly, wipe your boots."

The general came behind him, with her scarred eyebrow raised and a bottle of something dark.

"For the Alpha," she said, and handed it to Dad, and sat down at the end of the table.

The kitchen was too small for the number of people in it.

My six brothers had not stopped staring at Aldric since he walked in, and the baby stood against the wall with his mouth slightly open.

"You can sit," Mom told him. "Nobody here is going to bite."

"Trudy," Dad said mildly.

"Well, they aren't," she said. "Not at dinner."

Aldric sat down across from Dad.

For a minute neither of them spoke.

Dad was cooking, because he cooks when he can't sit still, and the whole kitchen smelled like onions and browned butter.

He was humming without knowing it, four notes, over and over.

I saw Aldric hear it, and I saw his hand go flat on the table.

"That's what you hum," Aldric said.

"I don't know what it is," Dad said. "She screamed all night the first week we had her. Lester said to try this, and he hummed it."

"It's a lullaby," Aldric said slowly. "My wife sang it. Her mother taught it to her."

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