Cal tried to relax, but it was something almost impossible to achieve these days. Maybe a few years ago. Before the whole deal with the morphine started. Nobody knew exactly what had happened to lead him into the state he was in. Well, the serval who was the smaller cat shifters’ mouthpiece in the Council knew, but only because the Council had insisted he told someone. They wouldn’t have agreed to help him otherwise.
This, coming to Finland, was a last-ditch effort to get him clean, get him to shift—Cal didn’t want to think about that—and to retain his sanity. He knew what his reputation was in the Council and everywhere he’d gone before.
He didn’t want to be that man anymore. He wanted to be someone who would always be there for Kit, for the son he’d chosen and who had chosen him.
Mikael cleared his throat. “So, we’ve managed to make the Metsala farm habitable. It’s very basic and needs more work, but during a summer like this, it’s good enough for the time being. There’s some of the necessary furniture and such, so if you want peace, we can take you there. If you want a hot bath, a TV, and a working internet, then I’d suggest coming to the main house with us.”
Mikael turned to Cal and Kit, who was slowly waking up. “Do you have a preference?”
Cal thought for a moment. Before he could answer, Maxim murmured, “There’s better food at ours. Don’t have to cook there.”
That, and the lure of a bath and internet for Kit, made Cal open his mouth and grind out “Your place.”
“Our place it is.” Mikael smiled and turned on his blinker to turn right onto an even narrower dirt road.
When Cal glanced at the dashboard clock, he blinked in confusion. Then he realized this must’ve been what the whole “nightless nights” thing of Finnish summer was about. It was still light outside. Not daylight bright, but still, he could see into the woods by the roadside.
He felt pretty sure that if he’d shifted and gone into the forest, he could’ve seen just as well he did in daytime. Not that he would be shifting anytime soon. He hoped.
“Dad, you okay?” Kit asked, squeezing his hand—when had he made a fist?—carefully.
“Yeah,” he managed to say, flashing Kit a small smile.
Kit obviously wanted to say something else, but held the words for the time being, and looked out of the window into the summer night.
They got to the farmyard, and Kit vibrated with excitement. This was what he’d been waiting for, Cal knew. Somewhere safe, somewhere he could be in his tiny fox form and not be bothered by bigger shifters.
He’d wanted somewhere clean and quiet, and Cal had understood. He’d tried giving that to Kit once before, a few years ago, in Italy. It hadn’t worked out, in fact, it had backfired hard enough that now he was here, trying to hang onto his sanity.
Shaking his head, Cal got out of the car and took in the Jarvela farm.
Mikael had parked in the middle of the yard, and Cal could see two houses on either side, with a lake behind the smaller one. There was even what Cal thought must’ve been a sauna on the shore.
He could smell and hear horses and sheep somewhere nearby. Yeah, Kit would love it here.
“Dad? We’re going inside,” Kit said, gesturing with his shoulder, as his hands were full.
Somehow, Cal had wandered off a bit, and he returned to the car to notice that the bags had been placed neatly on the bigger house’s porch now.
He felt like a patient suddenly. Except his wasn’t a physical injury, it was mental. Instead of not letting a person with a healing broken arm carry his own stuff, the others were now gauging his moods instead.
He tried to smile, knowing it looked like a tight grimace, as he followed Kit to the house.
“We have couple of free rooms upstairs, we’ll show them to you in a bit. But I’d like for you both to meet everyone who stays in this house, so there won’t be any surprises. The wolf pack will stay in the old house across the yard until tomorrow,” Mikael spoke calmly in a way only a human who had been around shifters for a long time would.
Cal nodded and Kit seemed both excited and cautious. Cal knew the caution came from him, not Kit. It was because his son wasn’t sure how Cal would react to being around shifters larger than them both.
“Sure,” Cal grunted.
Mikael showed them into the living room and Kit sat in the corner of a loveseat, leaving the nearest side to the door for Cal.
“Okay, so you know Maxim and me, he’s a Siberian tiger and I’m half-one, my mom was a tiger. I never met her, she passed away after giving birth to me,” Mikael explained. “Maxim, can you get the others?”
Maxim grunted, and soon enough, two men and a boy around Kit’s age stood in the doorway. By scent alone, Cal could tell one of them was a fox—the boy, probably, based on his rangy build—and one a jaguar. The third one was another big cat, but Cal didn’t know the scent. Had to be rare as hell, because there weren’t many shifter species he hadn’t met.
“I’m Anton, I’m the fox. I’m nineteen,” the young man said, smiling slightly. He looked curiously at Kit. Cal was glad about Kit having people his own age here.
“I’m Kit, I’m a Fennec fox,” Kit said, waving at Anton.
