“Lauchlan.” He grinned. “Happy to help.”
“Lock, there you are. We gotta go before your papa gets mad.”
An older boy gripped his shoulder and Kyleigh watched as the two ran off.
“Let’s go home, child. The twins will be wanting their lunch soon.”
“Yes Nanny.” Even as she followed her nanny down the road, back to her home, she thought about the boy who’d helped her twice now.
Age Ten
It was hard being one of only two girls in a family of six. At the age of ten, she was too old to play with the twins, who were only five, but her older brothers said she was too young to play with them.
It was early summer, the sky was clear, there was a faint breeze rustling the leaves from nearby trees, and Kyleigh was itching to go outside and play. As soon as the nanny was focused on getting the twins down for a nap, she snuck outside. Her eyes narrowed in on her three older brothers—Ainsley, Balfour, and Barclay—as they headed toward the path that would lead them away from the castle.
“Whatcha doin’?” she asked and grinned when all three boys jumped, startled.
“Dang it, Kyleigh, don’t do that!” Barclay groused. “You scared us.”
“But it’s fun to make you jump.” She grinned up at them. “Where are you going?”
“We’re meeting some friends in the hollow for a game of Rounders,” Ainsley replied. Rounders was similar in many ways to American baseball.
“I wanna play.”
“You’re too little. Go play with the twins,” Balfour sneered.
Kyleigh stuck her tongue out at him. “Am not,” she grumbled. “Don’t wanna play with them,” she added under her breath. She watched them leave and moped for all of five seconds before she took off after them. Just because they wouldn’t let her play didn’t mean she couldn’t watch. In secret.
She was silent as she crept closer to the bushes edging the hollow. It was what the grownups called ‘neutral ground’, not that she really understood what that meant. All she knew was that the boys liked to go there to play Rounders with other boys from the surrounding area.
Kyleigh settled down to watch the game. She peered through the leaves, a pout still on her face, because her brothers wouldn’t let her play. The pout intensified when she saw a boy not much bigger than her playing with them.
“Stupid boys,” she grumbled under her breath.
The sound of running approached her, pulling her from her thoughts. Kyleigh looked up in time to see the ball coming right for her and her hiding spot. A squeak offearescaped her and she knew she wasn’t going to be able to move fast enough to keep from being spotted.
Just as she thought the ball was going to land o top of her, a shadow blocked out the sun. her eyes lifted and her fear turned to surprise.
It was him. The same boy who’d chased a bully away at the park when she was really little. The same boy who’d helped her when she’d gotten lost at the market.
In that brief moment, they shared a secret smile before he moved away from the bushes and resumed their game.
Chapter 2
Lauchlan
Age Eight
For most eight year old boys, their biggest worry was if they would get to play with their friends. Lauchlan Adair wasn’t like most eight year old boys. As the first born, and eldest son of the Adair family, he was already being trained to one day take over the family reins.
As a clan of Griffin shifters, that meant having very little time for fun and games. Most of his days were spent reading about the history of shifters around the world, training to fight in both human and griffin form, and joining his father during meetings.
However, every now and then his mother insisted he get to enjoy his childhood some. As those days were few and far between, they were most precious to him.
It was early afternoon when he found himself at the park nestled close to the hollow, where other children were playing. For a brief moment, he could just be a boy playing with others.
“Ow!”
