Badger’s eyebrows tangled. “Uncle who?”
“One of Father’s younger brothers. He died in the Great War. I mean, World War 1,” she added. “I never met him, obviously.”
“Died where?” Duncan asked.
“I’m not quite sure. I believe he was either the youngest or second-youngest sibling. Father never spoke about him. Father rarely spoke of several of his siblings. Mother told me who Uncle Hamish was when I found a picture in the attic when I was a child. She also told me never to ask about him or even mention him around Father, so I imagine it was a very tense topic.”
Badger looked at Dewi. “On it,” she said, reaching for her phone to text Peyton. “I’ll have Peyton ask Trevor to see if he can find and send a copy of the picture.”
“Right,” Badger said, returning his focus to Tamsin. “How old was Hamish, do ye know?”
Tamsin shifted Maisie onto her shoulder to gently burp her. “I’m not certain. I believe he was younger than 100 when he left home. He was a shifter, and an Alpha.”
“Any idea the cause of the bad blood ’tween ’em?” Badger asked.
“Mother didn’t say in great detail, but my impression at the time was that marriage arrangements were in the works when Hamish suddenly enlisted in the military and left home. Such as he did not wish to be forced into a marriage.”
“I’m certain this would be a very interesting discussion under different circumstances,” Mateo observed, “but Lu’ana will be here to get Bebe in less than four hours.” He pointed at Bebe. “And while Bebe’s every bit as adorable shifted as she is in human form, I believe it will trigger a few…questions. So unless we are prepared to reveal this truth to Lu’ana today, we need to think of something.”
“Did you try to talk her into shiftin’ back?” Badger asked.
“Gee, we didn’t think ofthat,” Nami wearily snarked.
“Yes, we tried before you arrived,” Tamsin said. “We all did. I mean, Carl and I did while everyone else was supportive. We tried to show her how. We aren’t certain if she’s unwilling or unable to shift back. That’s why I asked for a Prime. I thought perhaps you could…order her to shift back?”
“It doesn’t work like that,” Duncan said. “If she doesn’t know how to do it, it’s impossible to make her do it. For example, if she can’t swim, and we ordered her to swim, she wouldn’t be able to. She has to be able to perform the action. What we should be able to do, however, is communicate with her. Once she wakes up, obviously. She needs to rest. She’s so young, and shifting is extremely exhausting for little ones before they have the hang of it. If we can keep her calm, she might be able to figure it out.”
“Or she might even shift back while she’s asleep,” Badger said. “That’s not uncommon with little ones. To shift and shift back in sleep. That happens less the older shifters get and have more control over it. Usually doesn’t happen with adults.”
“Terrific,” Nami said. “So we have to worry about her just randomly doing it when she’s at home?
“Once she knows how to do it,” Badger said, “we might be able to use Prime powers to help her control it. But we do need to think about how to break this to Lu’ana and Reggie. We have the standin’ Prime order to them to call us immediately if anything strange happens, but that was before we had this confirmation. We’ll have to figure out how to tell them about this.”
“Well, at least you get your wish, sweetheart,” Duncan said to Dewi.
Her head snapped up. “Huh? What?”
Duncan smiled. “You now have a valid reason to indefinitely postpone your trip to Idaho.”
Dewi gently pumped her fist so as not to awaken Bebe. “Yes!” she whispered.
CHAPTERTHIRTY-ONE
DEWI
Unfortunately,once Bebe woke up, she was so happy to see Dewi, Badger, Duncan, and Ken that she either couldn’t or wouldn’t shift back. She was having too much fun running around, happily chattering away as she normally did, but only the three Primes could understand her, just…
Shifted.
And trying to talk everyone who was a wuffie to “play wuffie” with her, too.
As the afternoon wore on, Ken set up his laptop and worked while Dewi, Badger, and Duncan, along with Tamsin and Carl, tried a variety of techniques while making calls to Peyton and others for ideas.
At one point, Dewi was sitting on the floor with Bebe, trying to talk with her, when Nami tried to get Dewi’s attention.
“Dewi—”
“Honey, please give me a minute to think, okay?”
