The boy turned away. “I don’t care.”
Elena’s glare contained enough heat to scorch anything flammable as the boy jogged toward the rest of the children.
“I swear, Auntie. If I have to deal with these brats for much longer, I can’t promise there won’t be bloodshed,” Elena muttered as Ziva giggled next to her.
“I’m afraid that is not part of the deal you made with me,” Harlow said as he walked toward them, a serious expression on his face as he regarded Elena.
To Kira’s surprise, her niece clammed up. Her face a tad sulky at Harlow’s arrival.
“You have class,” Harlow said. “I suggest you join your peers.”
Elena shot Kira a pleading look.
“He’s right.” Kira tugged on a lock of Elena’s hair. “This is an opportunity. There are things they can teach you that I can’t.”
Kira and Selene might have given Elena the skills she needed to physically survive in a harsh universe, but her education was seriously lacking in other areas.
The use of her soul’s breath for starters.
Formal training would help with that. Then there was the socialization aspect of what Harlow was proposing.
This was a rare chance for Elena to interact with children in the same age group as her. To learn what it was like to grow up in an environment that didn’t necessitate keeping secret who and what she was.
Although Elena was close to the rest of Selene’s waifs, they were no more familiar with what it meant to have a normal childhood than Elena.
It was an opportunity Kira hoped her niece would grasp with both hands.
“I agree with our seon’yer,“ Ziva chimed in with a serious expression that looked almost comical on her young face. “We can’t overlook this chance to obtain allies for our future endeavors. We have to get to them while they are young and build trust for later.”
“Right. That’s not what I meant at all,” Kira said, knowing it was a lost cause from the growing determination on the faces of the girls.
They weren’t listening.
Kira pinched the bridge of her nose as she reached for patience. “At least tell me you remember the rules.”
“Don’t show off even if you are better than everyone else at something,” Elena recited. “But, also, don’t let others walk all over you.”
Not exactly but good enough.
Kira made a shooing motion at the two. The girls turned and raced for the crowd of children as Harlow stepped up beside her.
“What did you teach those children?” he asked her.
“I don’t even know at this point.”
The only thing Kira was certain of was that Ziva showed as much of a tendency as Elena to hear only what she wanted to hear.
Kira almost pitied the poor soul responsible for the two of them over the next few hours. They had no idea how to manage the wrecking balls currently heading in their direction.
After offering a brief prayer for the person’s future sanity, Kira lifted her chin at her uncle. “You do realize Elena is my responsibility. Next time you make a decision in her education, I’d like to be informed of it beforehand.”
Kira didn’t debate the fact he’d made the right call. Elena deserved to know what it was like to interact with other Tuann the same age as her.
Kira just would have appreciated the heads up.
Elena was wild in the same way Kira and Jin were at that age. Kira would have liked to say Elise had been the same but by that point Elise and the rest of the forty-three had been long gone.
It meant her niece had to be approached in a certain way. Otherwise, Harlow risked another incident where Elena made off with the closest ship for a cross-galaxy adventure.
