“You’re not going to knock?”
“In a house with a baby, who may or may not be sleeping? I value my life, thank you.”
Lainie and Harrison’s house was, in Maya’s mind, perfect. And not just because the piles of laundry made her feel better about her own housekeeping. Harrison was a griffin shifter, and had built their hilltop nest using all the skills at his disposal and all the love he felt for his cherished mate. It was all warm wood and cheerful color, with windows perfectly angled to catch every hour of sunlight and views out over the town in one direction and the vast ocean in the other.
The beach where she and Corin had their picnic was tucked under the cliffs on the ocean side. Invisible from the house, and accessible via a secret passage in the ruins of the old lighthouse.
Tomás ran ahead. Maya followed him, confident that her little dragon would unerringly know how to find his newest partner in crime. Lainie and Harrison’s maybe-griffin, maybe-human.
She hoped they had a longer wait to find out whether their firstborn was a shifter than she had.
And a shorter one than her mother. And, potentially, her.
“Baby!” Tomás announced triumphantly as he stood in the doorway to the lounge. He looked back at Maya and Corin and pointed into the room, making sure they both saw. “Baby!”
“They’re in there, huh?”
She crept in, anyway, because the presence of Baby didn’t mean that Baby was awake—and found Lainie leaning over the bassinet.
“Good timing,” she said, lifting a tiny bundle out of the bed. “He’s just waking up.”
“Baby!” Tomás stormed up to them. “Look!”
“Don’t throw—” Maya began, starting forward. Tomás gave her a look of extremely teenaged, toddler-ish disgust. “Oh, no. Of course you wouldn’tthrowyour hoard. How undignified.”
Lainie sat back in her chair, her son cradled in her arms. He was barely awake: little eyes scrunched up like he wasn’t sure about any of this, mouth pursed, hands grabbing at the air.
Then he saw his mom. His eyes opened wide and his little fingers stretched up towards her.
“Hello, my love,” Lainie murmured, kissing him. “Welcome back from your nap.”
There was a loud snuffling sound from the other side of the room. Maya turned and jumped slightly before she connected the dots that the huge pile of fur and feathers in the corner was Harrison in his griffin form.
“You can stay asleep,” Lainie called to her mate. He huffed and went quiet again.
“He’s still not sleeping?” Maya asked, sitting down next to Lainie and arranging the picnic they’d brought on the coffee table. Corin helped her, laying out sandwiches and fruit.
“Do you need to ask? Oh, you’re the best,” Lainie groaned as Maya passed her a plate.
“Thank Caro, not me.”
“I’ll thank you both, thank you very much. She cooked, you lugged them up the hill. Both very important parts of the job.” She sighed. “Though … tomorrow’s dumpling night at the Hook and Sinker, isn’t it? Maybe I’ll have to lug myself down the hill.”
“Everyone would love to see you.”
“And catch me up on all the gossip, I hope.” Lainie’s black eyes were a sharp contrast to her blonde hair, and there was something sharp and bird-like in them as she quirked an eyebrow at Maya. Lainie was human, but her father was a magpie shifter. Even though she couldn’t shift, her heritage was still a part of her. “Shifters are so used to news traveling by light speed on the telepathic grapevine, they forget some of us are limited to more earthly means of communication. So. Is this the guy?”
‘The guy’ did his best to look kind and trustworthy, and not like the infamous dragon who’d chased Maya into Hideaway’s waiting arms. She laughed. “Yes, this is Corin. Which youknow.”
“Sure, I knowlotsof things about him. Felicity’s told me stories about him and Montfort’s fights.”
“Oh, god,” Corin muttered.
“But I haven’t met the man you decided to let back into your life.”
She sat back, her baby in her arms, her hair a tangled mess and shadows under her eyes, every inch the queen of this homely nest on top of the hill.
“So,” Lainie said. “You’re the guy, huh?”
