She blew a raspberry at him, before turning away again.
This little…Severo’s sweet gummy bear, my ass, he thought. Killian took a deep breath.No yelling at babies, he told himself. He would never live it down. How does one bribe children into liking them?
He eyed her. She had large golden eyes and a button nose, and these beautiful cyan curls. There was no denying Skya was a cute little shit.
OH—food! Babies liked food. He pressed his finger to the thumb sensor on the large locked drawer in his desk, and it popped open. Pulling it out, he stared at his food stash and tried to think what she could and would eat.
Wait…could she even eat solid foods? She was almost one, right? Eight months! Yes, she was eight months. She would be turning nine months at the end of October. Eight months was surely old enough to eat some of this junk—wasn’t it? Cryptid children did tend to develop faster, so surely…
He eyed the stuff real hard, before grabbing something he didn’t think would kill her. Eyes locked on her, Killian opened the bag. Skya looked over at the sound. He smiled, trying to appear friendly.
“Would Skya like a cookie?” he asked, grabbing and slowly holding up a large chocolate chip cookie.
Her eyes went wide as saucers. “Ookie.”
GOT HER!
“I’m Killian, a friend of Oh-Oh’s,” Killian said while handing it over to her.
Skya wrapped her arms around the cookie and attacked it, munching away with such ferocity that he feared she’d choke. But she didn’t… Skya was, however, a chocolate-stained mess by the time she finished. Both her face and the pale green frog onesie she was wearing were covered in chocolate smudges.
He eyed her, and she eyed him back.
“Oh-Oh.”
“Yes, that’s right. Oh-Oh is my friend.”
“OH-OH!” she squealed, sounding like she was demanding something.
“I don’t…” He trailed off as a hand landed on his shoulder.
Plastering a smile on his face, Killian slowly looked back. Severo did not look pleased.
“What did you give her?” the man asked, eyes narrowed.
“Well, about that…”
“Please, tell me you didn’t give her sugar right before her nap.”
“Well, you see, about that…”
“I specifically said when I left her with you, to not feed her anything, as I fed her before coming here, because she didn’t need to eat anything else before her nap.”
So that’s what Severo had been going on about. Killian had sort of zoned out in pure horror the minute the man had informed him he’d be watching the little monst—mmm, precious bundle of joy.
“Well…about that… I may have fed her a little cookie.”
“Ig Ookie!” she squealed happily.
Killian winced as the brat tattled on him and Severo’s eyes narrowed further.
Seri staredunmoving and emotionless at the tray of food that was placed in his lap by a maid. He wasn’t surprised to find a bloody rare-cooked steak underneath when the cover over the tray was removed.
“Eat,” Preston demanded.
“No.”
“You will eat every single bite. I won’t leave until you do.”
