“All right, thank you.”
She hurried off. I stared at the door. It was the only barrier between me and the meeting I was dreading. The practical part of my brain knew everything I was imagining was way worse than anything she’d say, but that didn’t matter. The vast majority of my mind had already come up with several catastrophic and very convincing scenarios that reinforced me being a bad father and an even worse alpha.
“Hello?”
Well, might as well get it over with.
Commanding myself to calm the hell down, I opened the door. The voice on the phone had sounded young, but I’d anticipated the classic, middle-aged woman with spectacles and her hair in a sensible, slick bun.
That was not who was waiting for me at all.
“H-hello!” I sputtered slightly. The woman who was standing by what had to be the teacher’s desk was the most beautiful fairy that I had ever seen.
Her long, red hair was half piled on top of her head in one of those effortless, messy buns. She had cat-wing eyeliner—at least, I think that’s what it was called—and cute glasses hanging around her neck from a rainbow-beaded chain. She was a slightthing, as fairies so often were, her bone structure prominent and her nose upturned just enough to be appealing but not so much that she seemed like she was looking down at me.
“Daddy!”
My attention was ripped away from the ethereal beauty, and thank goodness, because I was feeling all sorts of off-kilter. Not because I didn’t know how to act around women, but I was just incredibly surprised to meet one of her kind at all!
As far as I knew, fairies wereveryEuropean, and although there were tropical subtypes, they were few in number and rarely traveled over open waters. Seeing one of their kind was an incredibly rare thing for a schmuck like me!
“Hey there, kiddo!” I said, opening my arms as my son launched himself at me. I loved that he was still young enough to like such things, because I knew all too soon, he would be far too cool to be flinging himself at his old man. “How’s it going?”
“It’s going great. I was killing it at four-square before Mickey and Johnny had to go home.”
“That’s my boy.” I put him down and looked at Miss Fischbacher, who was regarding me with a kind expression. “Hi, I’m Ben,,” I said, offering her my hand.
When she took a couple of steps towards me, her scent hit me—pomegranate, orange, and something lightly floral—and I was quite shocked when I picked up that she wasentirelyhuman.
Huh.
So not a fairy. Even if I’d never met one of their kind, I knew the scent of a human as well as I knew the scent of a wolf shifter. She was just a regular, intensely beautiful woman.
Double huh.
“I’m Miss Fischbacher,” she answered, taking my offered hand and giving it a surprisingly firm shake considering how delicate her frame was. “Why don’t you have a seat at my desk?”
“Sure.”
“Benny, why don’t you load up one of the games we play during free time on the back computer for a few minutes?”
“Games? Okay!”
He hurried off to play, and the kind teacher suddenly looked a lot more serious.
Was this how kids felt when they were in trouble at school? I had to admit, it wasn’t the greatest sensation, and I was an adult.
“So, Mr. Poynter?—”
“Please, call me Ben.”
“Right, of course. Ben.” I liked the way my name sounded when she said it, but even thinking that made me recoil a bit at my own thoughts. She was being professional and kind, all qualities one would want in a teacher. I didn’t know what was going on in my head, but I was going to blame it on the fairy/not-a-fairy shock and move right along.
Still, maybe she had an ancient ancestor, because the similarities were uncanny.
“I asked you to come here today because I’m a little concerned about Benny.”
“You mentioned that.” Hmm, that came out a bit more terse than I meant it to. I guess after largely being a hermit for a little over a year, I didn’t have such a great handle on my tone anymore. Not that I’d had the gift of gab before… everything that had happened.
