Javier gave her a small smile. “I don’t know when Alastor got there, but he’s the one who got me off the guy,” he said, his tone calmer. “Alastor was healing him when the kid said some shit to Alastor.” He ducked his head down.
I waited for him to continue when Teddy asked, “Did you go after him again?”
“Yeah, but Kieren grabbed me before I could.”
“I’m pretty sure we shouldn’t condone fighting, but you have a good group of friends. I’m proud of you for defending them,” Teddy said, taking in the smile that built on Javier’s face. When she held her arms out to him, Javier stepped into her embrace. “Thank you for defending Alastor too.”
“We’re family.” A blush rose from his neck to his cheeks. “Kind of, right?”
Teddy slipped her hand to the crook of his arm. “We are family.”
She tugged him inside, where they passed the watchful girls and disappeared into the kitchen.
“Is Javier in trouble for fighting?” Jasmine asked, her arms crossed and tone serious, ready to defend her brother the way he’d done earlier that day.
“No,” I answered. “He defended his friends”—I jutted my chin toward the three young fae and Alastor, who sat on the lone recliner, his careful attention on me—“and family.”
Jasmine’s eyes flared, and I watched her examine me. She seemed to piece me apart.
“Neither Teddy nor I are going to be upset with any of you for defending or protecting those important to you,” I continued. “Are you all right?” I asked the female. “Javier said they struck you above your eye.”
The female nodded. “Alastor was kind enough to heal me.”
As soon as I sat on the large couch in our living room, opposite the smaller couch where the fae huddled together, Victoria crawled onto my lap.
Teddy crossed the room to hand five flowers from our herbal plant to Alastor. While I didn’t want to intrude, I heard her whisper about him taking them for his head pains, which I guessed were a more constant problem than an occasionalheadache. With a nod, he put them away in his inner pocket of magic.
Not satisfied, Jasmine narrowed her eyes. “What if an older kid was being mean to me and Javier beat him up?”
I gripped the edge of the couch to steady myself. Forced myself to still before I could rush out of the house and tear through whatever youngling had harmed Jasmine.
“What older kid is being mean to you?” I tried for it to come out calmly, but I heard the tremor of violence in my voice.
Jasmine shook her head dramatically, her long braid flinging from one shoulder to the other. “It was a long time ago,” she answered, rolling her eyes. “Our dad got really mad at Javier for fighting the kid.” She lifted her shoulder in a half shrug. “But he’d pushed me down and hit me.”
“That’s different, Jazz,” Javier said. “Dad had a lot to deal with working all the time and Mom being sick.” He turned his brown eyes to me, wide in a way that seemed to beg me to understand. “He needed me to be the man of the house and not get in trouble.”
“Yeah, but?—”
“He was overwhelmed,” Javier snapped, his temper rising in a way I’d never witnessed from him before. “Instead of making life easier for him, I made it harder.”
Teddy ran a hand over Javier’s back and whispered something for only him to hear.
My heart clenched in that familiar way it always did when I thought about the younglings’ father. They didn’t talk about him often. Rarely, really. And seeing the way both Javier and Jasmine fought their emotions made me wonder if that should change. If I should ask about their parents so they could work through their emotions safely.
Although I wasn’t sure how safe they’d consider me if they knew their father’s death sat heavily on my shoulders.
Javier nodded at whatever Teddy told him, and with a small smile, he went to sit on the edge of the couch, right beside the female fae. I wondered if the young female was the one he’d told me about. Delaney. I couldn’t remember the name he’d used earlier when he spoke of the kids hitting her with a rock.
“You defended me,” Jasmine muttered under her breath.
“Sometimes when adults have a lot going on, we don’t always react the right way.” Teddy chewed on her bottom lip. “I’m not saying your dad reacted right or wrong. He reacted the best way he could at the time. I didn’t have a big brother to defend me, but I had Ry and Donnie, and they always had my back. Sometimes my mom didn’t like the way we dealt with kids who weren’t nice to us, but she was always grateful we had each other. And I think that’s the most important part. Your dad may have preferred Javier not to fight, but I bet he was grateful he had your back.”
“That boy never hit me again,” Jasmine whispered.
Teddy stroked the top of Jasmine’s hair, careful not to disrupt her braid or the flowers that always seemed to be twined through the girls’ hair. Teddy bent over to kiss Jasmine’s head, and Jasmine wrapped her arms around Teddy.
When Teddy looked up at me, I mouthed the wordready. She bit her lip, her eyes glistening with joy. I kissed Victoria’s head before I stood. When I held my hand out to Teddy, she took it as she wrapped my arm around her stomach and leaned her back against my chest. Her fingers trailed over my arms, making my muscles twitch at her contact.
