“Now, gimme sugar and I’m going back to sleep.” They made kissy noises at each other. “Love you.”
“Love you, Auntie Nami.”
“I mean it, Dewi. Love you.”
Dewi blinked back the tears. “Love you, too, Auntie Nami.”
They settled in and Dewi let Bebe lie there and watch TV for a few more minutes until several large yawns hit her. Only then did Dewi use her Prime again to nudge her into sleep.
Once she was softly snoring next to her, Dewi let out a huge sigh of relief. She didn’t know if that had been the best way to encourage Bebe to shift back, but at least now Dewi knew the little girl could shift and shift back deliberately, not just accidentally. And they could use their Prime to guide her about when it was appropriate to shift and when not to until she was old enough to understand.
Now came the harder part—figuring out the best approach between then and Monday to break the news to Lu’ana and Reggie without having to overwhelm them with their Prime powers to get them to understand.
Yes, she totally got the irony that she had no problems using her Prime to make a dirtbag nut-punch himself, but she was reluctant to use more than necessary on family. Especially on a young child.
But Dewi knew, just like they couldn’t artificially force Tamsin to get through her grief with their Prime powers, that this had to be dealt with carefully, tactfully.
Lovingly.
I absofuckinglutely never want to be Pack Alpha.
Not if this was just a hint of the bullshit Peyton had to deal with on the regular.
Now how thehelldo we break the news to Lu’ana and Reggie?
CHAPTERTHIRTY-THREE
BADGER
Saturday morning,Badger sat in his car for a moment outside the nursing home in southeast Atlanta, and reviewed his notes on his tablet. He drove straight up from Tampa, stopping only for gas and breakfast before getting there.
The DNA swabs he took from Imani and Davis before he left Tampa last night were already safely tucked in an overnight delivery box he’d seal after he finished his errand here today and added these swabs to the mix.
Getting in to see Corrine wouldn’t be a problem.
The probably would be, depending on her level of cognitive decline, if he’d get any answers from her. Useful answers, anyway.
He was taking five DNA test kits in with him, just to be certain. They fit neatly into the little messenger bag he stowed his tablet and the video camera in.
Reggie’s mother, Imani, was seventy-two and the eldest of four siblings—three daughters and a son. All of them still alive. Their father, Caleb, had passed away of a heart attack over forty years prior, and Corrine never remarried. She’d married him at nineteen and had Imani nine months later. There was no preliminary evidence from Badger’s initial searches of Caleb’s available family information that the shifter was in his line.
Heading inside, he put on a smile as he made his way to the front desk. The young woman who looked up from her computer frowned when she saw him. “May I help you?”
He held out his hand, as if to shake with her. “Yes, thank ye kindly. Rodney Williams. I’m here to visit Corrine Ronald.”
She automatically shook with him, and when she did her face went blank.
“I need a visitor badge, her room number, and directions there, if ye please,” he softly said. “No need to take my picture for it, either. You’ve seen me in here plenty of times before and know I’m a frequent visitor of hers. Happy to see me again.”
He released her hand and she offered him a beaming smile as she started tapping into her computer. “Mr. Williams, so good to see you again!”
He glanced at her name tag. “Good to see you, too, Amber,” he replied. “Have they moved her room since my last visit?”
“Nope! She’s still in 306 in the memory care wing.” She tapped a button and a visitor pass decal printed out. She handed it to him with another smile. “Just down that hallway there, to the green elevators. They’ll buzz you in through that lobby. I’ll tell them you’re on your way up.”
He took the thermal printed sticker pass and pasted it onto his shirt. “Thank ye kindly, dear. Always a pleasure to see yer smilin’ face here.”
“You, too! Have a good visit and a great day.”
