Besides, she was anelf.
Viktor huffed a laugh. “Cam, I’ve worried about you every single day for twenty years. And before you bring it up, yeah, I know you’ve been trained in defense. Doesn’t mean I can’t worry about my girl.”
It was like he’d knocked the wind out of her. Camille could barely catch her breath when she whispered, “I… Okay. I’ll text you when I get back to the apartment.”
“Thank you, sweetheart.” He paused before adding, “I’ll miss you today.”
“You’re seeing me tonight, remember?”
“Seeing you tonight means I’m not seeing younow.”
The pull was half challenge and half driving need to please. In that moment, Camille wrestled with the overwhelming urge to tell him she was on her way. If he wanted to see her, the beast that lived in her soul was more than happy to oblige him. Gods, did it want to oblige him.
Digging her claws into the mattress, she forced herself to say, “You should go shower, Vik.”
“Yeah, s’pose I should.”
“Bye.”
There was an unmistakable thread of longing in his voice when he replied, “See you soon, sweetheart.”
* * *
The sun was out, but thick gray clouds lingered on the horizon as Camille stepped out onto the sheltered patio of the Treasure Island Nursery. A stiff wind laden with brine blew the dense clouds closer and tossed her short hair around her cheeks.
The patio overlooked a large, heavily guarded play area scattered with tricycles, elf-proof jungle gyms, and a crowded sandbox. Everywhere, elves ranging from one to twelve years old ran around, shrieking with delight over a caught ball or tumbling to the ground in a heap of jewel-colored limbs.
Scattered around at regular intervals were those elves trusted with the highest honor — looking after their young. Dressed in svelte uniforms of deep blue, they did everything from teaching arithmetic to changing diapers to breaking up a bloodthirsty feud over access to the monkey bars.
Everyone was encouraged to visit the nurseries, since it gave even solitary elves a sense of deep grounding to interact with their young, but only a select few were trusted with their day-to-day care and protection.
One of those people was her friend Linnea Stafford.
Camille shaded her eyes with her hand and scanned the yard, looking for a pale pink face and a head of corkscrew curls. It only took a moment to find her with a cluster of toddlers playing with large foam shapes in the grass. Dodging squealing, carefree children, Camille only stopped to help up a fallen little boy with chubby cheeks and dark green skin before she came to stand next to her friend.
Like always, Linnea did not appear to care that her uniform was covered in grass stains from sitting with the babies, nor that the little one currently in her lap was happily drooling on her shoulder. She was perfectly at ease amongst the chaos, and when she spotted Camille, her grin was immediate.
“Cammie! It’s so good to see you!” Linnea reached out to tug on Camille’s hand, urging her to sit down in the grass.
Wearing charcoal gray jeans for this very reason, Camille gracefully sat down beside her friend and opened her arms to the toddler who, without so much as a wary look, crawled into her lap. All the children felt perfectly secure with adults of their kind. It was a deep, hardwired instinct all elves carried.
Violence amongst adults was common and even encouraged in the right spaces, butchildrenwere another matter entirely. Young were universally off-limits. As a result, it was rare to meet an elvish child who felt skittish around strangers. Adults could come and go in the nursery without fearing they would upset the children, allowing both to take comfort in a sense of community.
Camille let out a long, relieved sigh and rested her cheek on the silky hair that crowned the toddler’s head. For her, there was little in the world more restorative than time spent in the nursery.
“Hey Linnea,” she breathed, stroking the little one’s back as he began to fiddle with her gloves and babble semi-coherently. “It’s good to see you, too.”
Gently untangling a sticky, clawed fist from her curls — so pale pink they were almost blonde — Linnea gently asked, “How are you doing?”
“Better.” She could hardly believe it, but it was the truth. Despite everything, Camille was leagues better than she had been when Linnea saw her at her mother’s funeral.
“I’m glad to hear it,” she replied, her voice as sweet and high as a songbird’s. Addressing the wide-eyed toddler in her own lap, she asked, “Isn’t it good to see Miss Solbourne again? We missed her, didn’t we?”
There was a chorus of agreement from the toddlers, though Camille didn’t think they had any idea what they were agreeing with. She knew from experience that few people had a way with children like Linnea did. When she spoke, they very rarely fussed, and generally did whatever it took to earn a kiss on the head or a treat in their fists.
Camillelovedchildren, but even she didn’t have a way with them like Linnea did.
“I’ve missed you, too,” Camille replied, reaching out to adjust a sun hat over the eyes of a little girl attempting to stack a foam cylinder on top of a rectangle with the utmost concentration. “How have you been, Linnea?”
