His Pups Called Me Mama. He Called Me Nobody. novel · Chapter 7 of 24

Chapter 7: The Ash Meadow

"Again," Mags said.

I was on my back in the ash meadow for the ninth time that morning, in wolf shape, with all the air knocked out of me.

Mags stood over me in her big gray coat of fur, and then she shifted back and stood over me in her jeans, which was worse.

"You fight like a nanny."

I shifted too, so I could argue.

"I am a nanny."

"You were a nanny. Now you're a five-year-old wolf in a grown woman's skin, and you've got twenty days."

"Nineteen."

"Nineteen. Again."

The second claim was in my pocket, folded small.

A second heir.

No name.

The sponsor's name sealed, same as mine.

Mags hadn't said a word about it.

"Whoever it is," she said, when I'd been flattened a tenth time, "they need the real one dead before the Moon Court. So you're going to stop being easy to kill."

At noon the cook rang a pot lid and we stopped.

That was when the old woman with the bad hip pointed her cane at the north trees and said, "Oh my."

Aldric Langtry was walking out of the woods with a child on his shoulders and another by the hand.

Clover was riding him, both fists in his hair.

Arlo was carrying a picnic basket nearly as big as himself.

I stood up so fast I got dizzy.

Clover saw me and screamed.

Aldric set her down at the edge of the ash, and she came across that meadow.

I caught her.

She smelled like syrup and little girl and no silver at all.

"MAMA. Daddy carried me the whole way and he doesn't know ANY songs."

"Not one?"

"He knows the bad one about the bus."

"That's not a bad song."

"He sings it bad."

Arlo arrived more slowly, dragging the basket.

"I told him what to pack," he said. "He was going to bring only sandwiches."

"Sandwiches are a picnic," Aldric said from the edge of the ash.

"Sandwiches are a lunch," said Arlo, with deep scorn.

I looked at Aldric over Clover's curls.

He was in an old flannel and boots, not black, not an Alpha coat.

He looked like a man who had carried a four-year-old over a mountain.

"Does Cordelia know you're here?" I asked.

"Cordelia thinks I'm walking the east border."

"And when she finds out?"

"Then she'll find out."

The cook was already marching toward him with her ladle.

"You," she said. "In. You're letting the heat out of my meadow."

← Chapter 6 · All chapters · Chapter 8 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend