His cocky nod said he liked being right and I had to fight back a smile. The fates had clearly given me a feisty mate and I couldn’t help but wonder how the rest of the pack would appreciate it.
Dorian was going to drive everyone bananas…and the chaos was going to be fun to watch.
“I’ll be much more up to speed with everything once I can put the pieces together.” Shaking his head, he didn’t seem to notice how hard Emeric and I had to work not to smile. “It’s difficult only knowing odd bits and pieces about cultures.”
I could understand that, but I wasn’t sure how to respond to it reasonably.
“Yeah, it’s like me trying to understand human high school stuff.” Emeric mirrored the way Dorian shook his head and even nailed the sigh. “Some of it makes sense out of context but a lot just doesn’t.”
Nodding, Dorian took the comment seriously. “But now you’ll have a chance to go to the regular high school if you want.”
He would?
Had it actually been decided that I was keeping the little troublemaker?
“You think?” Glancing back and forth between us, Emeric gave a beaming smile as I nodded since I seemed to be keeping him. “Regular high school?”
“Yes.” Dorian made it sound like the whole thing was settled. “I have students that are really quite strange and you won’t stand out at all except for how smart you are.”
For some reason, that was the part that had Dorian frowning seriously. “You’re not going to be allowed to play dumb just because it’s trendy. There are only so many papers I’m willing to needlessly mark up with red pen just to make someone feel better about themselves.”
He was right…his students were weird.
“I’ll be smart.” Looking a bit like a pup ready to bounce around and bark for attention, he sat straighter again. “Honest. I’ll do my best.”
“That’s wonderful.” Dorian’s frown slipped into something more frustrated. “We should always be proud of what makes us special, like being smart in math or street smart and not ending up getting adopted by a human looking for a dog.”
Grinning, Emeric slipped back into his bouncy personality. “I was kind of worried at first. Sorry for growling at you.”
Before I could say anything, he aimed wide eyes at me. “Sorry, Alpha. I didn’t realize he was… I didn’t really think about it being mean.”
Good save.
The pup seemed to realize how pleased I was at his careful wording because the smile came back in full force, but since I knew he hadn’t seen it on my face, I was guessing I was fucked.
The pack bond was already forming.
Damn it.
“I think we can just put that behind us.” Dorian charged right back in, ignoring anything he didn’t want to hear. “It kept you safe and you did a wonderful job communicating with me so I could get you help.”
Yep, they were both very smart and very insane.
“You just looked at him and knew he wasn’t a real dog?” The magic wasn’t supposed to work like that. “Most people see us and immediately start making excuses for why they didn’t see what they thought they did.”
The magic could work in subtle and more obvious ways, but most people walked away from us in our shifted forms shaking their heads and talking about how big dogs could get. The woman at the pound had already started explaining away how odd Emeric had looked as we’d left the building. Within a few days she’d have forgotten any of it had been out of the ordinary.
Dorian shrugged, not looking concerned about it. “I’ve always been able to tell the difference between human and, well, other. He was clearly other.”
Emeric cocked his head, but he was a smart little shit and kept his mouth shut about how strange it was. “You were really smart and found help really fast.”
Taking that as an opening to shift gears, Dorian glanced between us. “I hadn’t met Alpha Braun before, but I had met the man who usually runs the gas station. I probably looked insane when I was trying to ask Braun where the other man was.”
I just nodded since I wasn’t going to lie.
As Emeric snickered, Dorian slouched in his seat and sighed. “It was slightly awkward, but I bet you knew what he was the first time you met him.”
It wasn’t really a question but Emeric nodded. “Yeah, we came up a couple of years ago. We couldn’t stay too long but I remembered the gas station guy. He’s funny.”
