I grinned as our son bounded into the eclectic group of shifter kids. Azure the black-and-white wolf cub was the oldest, leading the pack. On his tail was Celeste, the fox with the shadowy energy wings, courtesy of Animus. Trailing behind the canines was Autumn the bear, grunting for them to slow down. Annabelle and Jace, who arrived at the same time, blended seamlessly into the playful group.
"Yo, Azure!" Zak called. "Careful not to step on Jace when he's shifted, okay? ...I don't think he's listening."
Meeko grinned. "Don't worry about Jace. We mouse shifters are nimbler than you think."
Bear had the same idea as Zak. He frowned, rapidly waving a strong arm to get his daughter's attention. Unlike the wolf cub, Autumn skidded to a halt to hear out her father.
"Mouse behind you," Bear signed. "Be gentle with him. He's young."
Autumn nodded, then sat on her plump bear bottom to examine Jace. He was in human form, crawling around next to her. I laughed at how cute they were—a bear cub and a human toddler roughly the same size.
Slowly and gently, Autumn reached out her furry brown paw to pat Jace on top of his head. He put her paw in his mouth, then spat it out and giggled.
"Oh, Jace, don't—" Meeko said, then sighed. "Never mind."
I stifled a laugh. "I don't think your conversation's gonna happen, Meeko. We're all too busy watching the kids have fun."
My uncle Len, a hare shifter, strolled over in human form with his usual gentle grin. "You might be right about that, Cloud." He glanced at my uncle Red. Streaks of grey shot through his fox-red auburn hair, but otherwise his wry expression hadn't changed a bit since I was a kid. "A babysitter would be helpful right about now, eh, Red?"
Red snorted. "Hey, I've done more babysitting around here than all of you combined. It's time for me to pass on the torch." He glanced at Len's son, Leveret, who was sitting alone in his hare form by a patch of clover. "Yo, Lev. You busy?"
Leveret's ear twitched but he didn't turn around. "Yes."
"Doing what?" Red asked.
"Looking for four-leaf clovers."
Red chuckled and casually waved him over. "C'mon, you can do that later. Do me a favor and watch the squirts while the grown-ups talk, okay?"
I wasn't quite sure why Uncle Red talked to him like that. Leveret was actually older than me and the rest of my cousins. He and his twin Lupa were the first kids to be born in the pack. Maybe it was because Red had helped raise Leveret, so he always thought of him as a kid despite being a grown man.
At Red's insistence, Leveret turned around with a slight frown. He seemed to mull it over for a moment before relenting. He shifted to human form and slowly walked over to where the kids romped. He wasn't as expressive as his gentle father Len, or as gruff as his other dad Hugo. Sometimes I had difficulty reading Lev's emotions, since I wasn't as close to him as some of my other cousins, but I loved him all the same.
Now that I'd found Meeko, the number of single shifters in the pack was dwindling, and Leveret was among them. Starry was uninterested in romance at all; Lupa was the opposite, dating around and leaving behind a trail of broken hearts until she found her perfect match.
And then there was Leveret. I wondered if he was like Starry and didn't care to find a mate. He was good enough with children to imply that he would be a great parent, but then again, so was Starry and she'd made it clear she didn't want kids of her own.
Leveret kneeled by the rowdy crew of children without a word and let them clamber all over him. He smiled slightly as Jace waddled up to him in human form.
"Hi," Leveret said.
Jace took his thumb out of his mouth to reply. "Hi."
I didn't know if he was using mind-magic or what, but Leveret somehow wrangled the kids into silence without a single word. Then, with an edge of excitement to his usual neutral voice, he said, "Let's go find four-leaf clovers."
"YAY!"
And that was that. Leveret and the kids crowded around the clover patch nearby, seeking only the perfectly shaped ones.
"How the hell did he do that?" Meeko mumbled in awe.
"No idea," I said.
With Leveret babysitting, we finally got around to the topic at hand: the spirit Animus. Since my uncles didn't have much experience with him, it was the middle generation who did most of the talking. We went around in a circle, each pair of fated mates chiming in with their memories.
"It started with us, didn't it?" Zak asked, crossing his arms at his mate Kamari.
Kamari frowned. He was known for his distrust towards Animus. "Yes. He caused a slew of problems that everyone seems to be forgetting about. The coast was a total wreck. He upset the balance of nature itself by siphoning Nautilus's magic."
