Odette was a precocious six-year-old who made her laugh when no one else could.
“What are we watching tonight?” Echo asked Odette as they snuggled down on the sofa with a bowl of popcorn between them.
Her little sister considered this. “Frozen.”
“Again?” Echo teased.
“Well, do you have a better idea?” Odette shrugged, her tone that of a beleaguered forty-year-old.
Laughing, Echo nodded and picked up the remote. “I’m introducing you to a Disney classic.” When Echo had been a child, their father, William, had been around for her in the evenings. During the day, she had a werewolf nanny who was obsessed with Disney movies. Now that Echo was twenty, William seemed to have passed parenting Odette on to her. Not that she minded. At all. “Mulan.” The movie opening credits started and Echo glanced down at her sister. “It’s about an ordinary girl who becomes a warrior to protect those she loves.”
“Okay, cool.”
A few hours later, they’d watchedMulan(Odette was a fan) and had startedFrozenwhen Odette’s eyelids started to flutter. Echo pulled her sister into her arms, comforted by her warmth.
“Echo?” Her sister’s quiet, sleepy questioning tone drew her gaze from the screen.
“Yeah?”
“There was a new girl at school today. Lucy told her our family is weird. Are we weird?”
For now, Odette was too young to know the truth about supernaturals. She imagined their father would explain the way of things to her at the same age he’d chosen to reveal it to Echo. Eight years old. She’d learned William adopted her after the death of her parents. That if she ever told the truth about who he was or any of the supernaturals in The Garm, she could cause their deaths too. Her innocence had been stripped from her and a dark responsibility placed upon her shoulders. It hadn’t bothered her before. But the thought of the same being done to Odette filled Echo with fear and sorrow.
“We’re not weird,” she reassured her sister.
“I’m the only one at school who has a guard.”
It was true. Echo had endured the same embarrassment of having a bodyguard throughout the entirety of her schooling.
“It’s just to keep you safe. You know that.”
“There’s a new guard.”
There was. Their father had assigned a hulking werewolf to Odette’s daylight guard. “Gideon?”
“Weird name.” Odette wrinkled her nose. “I don’t like him.”
Echo tensed. “Why?”
She shrugged. “Dunno. Just don’t.”
“Has he done something?”
Instead of answering the question, Odette asked, “How come I only ever see you at night now?”
Her six-year-old sister was a little too smart, though. “Because I have a new job that keeps me away.”
“Like it keeps Daddy away?”
Echo hid her scowl. Perhaps it was time to have a discussion with their father about how rare his visits with Odette had become. “He’s just … busy. Making lots of money so we have a nice life.”
“Oh.”
“I’ll never leave you, Odette. I might not be around all hours of the day, but I’m always here for you.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
