Niklaus’s cold blue eyes track their movements until they’re out of sight. He lets go of my shoulders and takes a step back. “The world we were raised in is a lot safer than the one our parents grew up in.”
Obviously.
“We need to stay out of sight,” he adds.
“Out of sight,” Dellilian agrees with that innocent, soft voice floating through our minds.
I flinch, forgetting she’s been by my side observing this whole time. Looking down at her curious little eyes, I smile at her comment. She blinks in surprise, wagging her tail, then going abruptly stiff.
My smile falls.
“Spitfire.” Niklaus’s voice rings with a warning, raising the hairs on the back of my neck.
I turn to see a great RottWeilen standing behind us. Large cinnamon eyes. Mahogany markings on his brows, chest, and paws. Residual blood still dripping from his mouth in long, goopy strings.
I’ve never seen him like this.
Shit. He’ll know me in a few decades. Not now. I’m a threat.
“DaiSzek,” I mutter.
The RottWeilen’s lip curls up, showcasing his sharp incisors. He snarls, taking slow predatory steps closer. I sense Niklaus shift his wide-eyed stare to me, probably expecting me to call him off. To command my massivefuturepet to stand down.
“Do something,” Niklaus says through clenched teeth.
“He doesn’t know me yet!” I hiss under my breath.
I think back to when I was eleven, and I tripped over DaiSzek in the hallway, falling on my tailbone. It was the first time I cursed. My mom heard me call him a big, stupid animal. She told me to be careful with how I speak to him.
“He isn’t like most animals, Sapphire. He can understand your words clearly. The same way you’re understanding me now. It’s what makes him so wonderful, and so dangerous…”
“DaiSzek,” I say again, forcing the shakiness from my voice. “You don’t know who I am yet. You don’t know if I’m a threat or not.”
He snaps his thick teeth at us with a growl that could make a lion bow to him.
How am I supposed to prove to him that he can trust me?!
I hear my mom’s voice again. “DaiSzek spent so much time lying his head on my pregnant belly before you two were born. He could catch your scent and Krimson’s miles away when I gave birth.”
“But how could he recognize our scents if we were in your belly?” little Krimson asked.
“Because you have the same blood in your veins as his two favorite people in the whole world. Me and your dad.”
Of course!
“Wait!” I hold up my hand as he lunges forward again. “You can trust me, DaiSzek! Youknowme! Just smell me! Look into my eyes. Can’t you see it? I look like your two favorite people in the whole world.” My vision blurs. I lay a splayed-out hand across my chest, clutching at my heart. Why does this make me so sad? I point to my left brown eye and the right green one.
Can he sense the heavy emotion pouring off of me? I didn’t realize how much it would sting to have my sweet, lazy boy not know me as he stares into my eyes.
That gargantuan head leans in, nostrils flaring as he huffs and sniffs an inch away from my forehead.
“Please believe me, Big Guy.” My chin trembles. The rusty odor of fresh blood crawls up my nostrils. The wind calms. The trees stop whispering. No one moves a muscle.
DaiSzek’s wise, ancient eyes turn down as he registers my scent, then they snap up to meet mine abruptly. He is stiff and unflinching, quiet with slow breaths. And then there is his famous head tilt. It’s the small movement of his neck, making those ears twitch when Mom talks about my father. When she sayshisname.
Dessin.Kane.
And he always checks the house as if his old friend has finally come home.
