I didn’t have a theme in mind, but I was half thinking about doing something ocean-themed, maybe boats or fish. I hadn’t decided yet, and time was rapidly coming to an end. I spent the next half hour looking up different suggestions, finally settling on a book that combined the ABCs with fish and another one about a fish who wanted to fly. I grabbed them off the shelf and read through them, having to do so a few times because my mind kept wandering back to that dream.
I knew not to discredit my mate’s dreams. My mating was proof that they were right. And even though he didn’t say, “This is what was going to happen,” I could tell he believed it too.
Books settled on, I printed out some fish outlines and grabbed a ton of stickers. It wasn’t my best craft, but kids loved sticker projects, so it worked.
As I sat down for story hour, I was sad by how few kids were there. The weather was gorgeous and on days like this, the library tended to be slow. Among the children were the cubs and their foster siblings. They looked fine, but their foster parents, both of whom came today, less so.
And when it was time for them to go work on the craft, the omega father came up to me while their mate went with the others to the craft table. He was holding the baby close and whispered, “I didn’t tell the kids yet, but this is going to be their last day here.”
My stomach dropped. “How come?”
“Our baby needs a specialist. They have a vision issue that, if we can get treated early, they won’t lose their sight. But the only one who does it pediatrically is in Arizona, which means we need to move there too. But since it’s out of state, as much as we want to take all the kids with us, we’re not allowed to. They’re…you know…” I could tell he didn’t want to say shifter. In the library, as quiet as we were being, there were ears everywhere.
“I know,” I said. “They’re like us.”
“The reason my mate and I started fostering was to help keep children like us out of group homes, and right now, even the group homes are nearly full. They’re probably going to be split up. We feel guilty, but…”
“But your child’s medical needs shouldn’t be ignored. You’re doing exactly what you should as a parent.”
“Thank you for understanding.”
“I do. Do you think you can give me your information?”
“Sure.” I didn’t want to promise anything or even offer anything, but something said I needed to act, and act now. I took their number and left work using the excuse that I wasn’t feeling right.
On the way to the car, I texted my mates, telling them to get home, too. We needed to act fast if we were going to make a difference.
They were there before I was. They must have broken a thousand traffic laws to do so.
“Is everything okay? How’s the baby?” Ty was worried, and I felt horrible about that. In hindsight, I should’ve given them more information.
“The baby’s fine, but come inside. We need to talk. It’s about Freid’s dream.”
We sat in the living room, and I told them everything. About why the family needed to leave and the kids were probably going to be split up. They needed a forever home. All of it.
Shifters weren’t in foster care unless there was nobody. It wasn’t like human foster care, where sometimes it was temporary. In cases like that, packs usually picked up the slack, or there were other packs who would bring them in. This was an entirely different system. They were either orphans or abandoned. It had been one thing when I saw them happy with foster parents, and seeing them grow happier with each week that passed. It was another thing entirely to think they were going to be ripped apart from each other.
“I can’t make this decision for us,” I said. “You know my story. I’m a little jaded.”
“And you know my dream.” Freid hugged me close. “This is what we were meant to do.”
“There’ll be five,” Ty said, holding up his fingers as if the number was too large for us to count without a visual aid.
“We have six hands. We still outnumber them,” I teased, unsure if that was even close to true. But one thing was true. This was what we were supposed to do. Those kids needed us.
Chapter Twenty-One
Freid
We hadn’t even started to put the nursery together for the baby we were expecting, and suddenly we’d made plans to bring in four children of toddler-ish age at once into my formerly bachelor dwelling. I was scared, but not nearly as frightened as I probably should have been because I had a lot of faith in the dream.
The first one brought me my mates.
Of course, I became obsessed with the details, trying to remember the toys and everything, where they were placed in the room. Their colors and sizes and shapes. I hadn’t even seen the bedroom. We had boys and girls coming, and my home, our home only had three bedrooms. We’d already planned on making one bedroom into the baby’s nursery, but wouldn’t the boys and girls need separate bedrooms? Maybe for each?
Penn came upon me standing in the third bedroom doorway, about to pull my hair out in frustration and doubt. “Alpha? You okay?”
“We don’t have enough room for them. Where are we going to put them? I’ve already ordered most of the toys from the dream, at least as I best remember them. I paid for fast delivery so they’ll be here this afternoon. What if they are wrong? And something I did makes them not come? They’ll be here tomorrow, unless I screwed it all up.” My voice rose in pitch as the worries I’d harbored came spilling out in a flood. “They need us…”
