“Blossom.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Blossom,” Oak said, smiling at the toddler.
She gave a small giggle but hid her face against Isidore’s shoulder.
Oakley straightened. “Come on, let’s get out of here.” They waved at the other kids standing near us. “Come on, everyone. Let’s get some food, water, and blankets. I’m pretty sure my dad made sure they had cookies out there.”
That seemed to get some of their attention, and soon, Oakley was leading the entire group up the stairs like the pied piper.
One little girl, around six, had trouble keeping up because her leg was injured, so I asked her, “Can I carry you?”
She seemed hesitant, but when she saw how far behind we were, she nodded, so I scooped her up and followed my viramore out of the building.
We left the group of kids with some healthcare professionals, and Oakley took my hand as they searched for their Dad and Tan. We finally found them helping other survivors, handing out food to them and taking down names.
Oakley marched right up to their dad and started talking before Gar was even looking at them. “Dad, can you… will you…there’s three kids that need…” They sighed and rubbed a hand over their face before taking a breath, meeting Gar’s gaze, and speaking a mile a minute. “Dad, there’s three kids that need a foster family. If you don’t want to do it, I will, but I think… I think you and Tan—Daddo—would be better at it. But two of them are blood witches, which I know is gonna make people scared of them, so it’ll be a lot harder to find them somewhere to stay, which is why I would do it. Well, that’s not why. I want to help them because I care about them. But anyway, it really is possible to be an ethical blood witch. Just like how vampires need blood, right? But they’re not all bad—in fact, most of them are good. The same goes for blood witches. They get a bad rep, but I swear that’s not how Izzy and Reef are. They’re really good kids. Really good. They just need someone to teach them how—”
Garrick cut off Oakley’s verbal diarrhea by pulling them into a hug and saying, “I’d love to take them in.” He released Oak, holding onto their shoulders. “I assume you know these blood witches?”
“Yes.” Oakley blew out a breath, clearly relieved. “You’ll really take them in?”
“Yeah, kid. Of course.”
I added, “The third one is a baby dragon whose parents passed away.”
Garrick’s eyebrows rose. “Really?”
I nodded.
“Well, alrighty, then.” They hugged Oak again. “Take me to these kids.”
Oakley smiled at their dad, then looked at Tan and asked, “Are you okay with this?”
Tan smiled. “I love kids. Lead the way, Oak.”
Oakley closed their eyes and breathed out in relief, and all I wanted to do was wrap them in my arms and take them homewhere I could cuddle them and feed them and make love to them and take care of them forever.
But… we still had a lot of work to do, a lot of people to help.
Chapter Forty-One
Oakley
The social worker was clearly overwhelmed by my dad.
I couldn’t blame her. He looked grumpy and mean and was the king of the Sedoba Territory. Who wouldn’t be overwhelmed by that?
But finally, she got him to sign a bunch of stuff, and my dad was suddenly in charge of about seventeen children, including Isidore, Reef, and the youngest, a two-year-old dragon named Blossom.
Since the blood witches were taken down, Isidore hadn’t put Blossom down or let Reef move more than a foot away from her.
Dad came over to me, saying, “We’re taking all the kids with us to Sedoba where we can put them with foster families until we… figure out if their parents were involved in this mess.”
“What’ll happen to the ones that don’t have any parents?” I asked quietly, my eyes not leaving Coral’s siblings, my heart in my throat.
“We’ll find them families, okay?”
“All of them?”
