Which, on second thought, didn’t seem like such a bad idea.
“Salut,”Claudio said from the table, where he and Lenore were sipping from steaming mugs.
“Morning,” I grumbled. He probably had no idea how close I was to snatching the cup from his hand and draining it. Until I spotted the half-full coffeepot on the counter. “Last night was another good one. You didn’t even come out of the bedroom.”
“Yet somehow she looks like a pregnant zombie,” Lenore added, smiling at me over her mug.
“Gallagher slept in front of the door again,” I told them. “He had to put me back to bed twice.”
Claudio looked surprised when I pulled a mug from the dish drainer, but he knew better than to comment when I half-filled it from the coffeepot, then filled the empty space with milk.
Caffeine for me, calcium for the baby. Win-win.
Lenore refilled her own mug with the last of the coffee, and I tried not to hate her for that. “What is that, three nights in a row now?”
“Yes.” And I felt every single sleep-deprived second of all three of them.
The first few nights after the incident at Oliver Malloy’s house had been as peaceful as any period of posthomicide sleep could possibly have been. I’d had a few bad dreams, but no tug from my inner beast.
But then, on Thursday night, I’d tried to leave the cabin in my sleep. Gallagher had caught up to me in the main room, before I’d gotten close enough to the front door to alert Claudio. He’d woken me up and guided me back to bed, only to repeat the entire nocturnal adventure three hours later. And for the following two nights.
“Okay, Genni and I will be on the lookout for any unexpected scents on our run today,” Claudio said. “Again.”
The theory was that if I was being drawn to a victim, he must be close. And he must have left a scent. But so far, none of the shifters had smelled anything amiss in the woods.
I nursed my makeshift latte for as long as I could keep it warm, but by the time Gallagher lumbered out of the bedroom half an hour later, everyone else had woken up and I was on my second three-egg omelet.
The baby insisted she was starving.
“How are you feeling?” As usual, Gallagher ignored everyone else in the room until he’d made sure I didn’t need anything.
“I’m fine. Just ready to carry this baby in my arms, rather than my pelvic floor. And to sleep through an entire night without fighting the personification of justice for control of my own body.”
Eryx snorted, and I turned a weary smile on him and Rommily, where they sat on the window seat, which supported his weight much better than the couch did. “What? Is that too much for an expectant mother to ask for?”
Zyanya shrugged as she folded up the sleeper sofa. “I tried to keep my prayers centered on good health and two full years with my child, but to each her own.”
“Oh, I’m praying for those, too,” I assured her as my smile wilted. I couldn’t imagine how hard it must be for her to watch my baby grow—to see Claudio with his daughter—while her own children were still at the mercy of whoever’d bought them when Vandekamp had raided the menagerie.
“Is everybody ready for tonight?” Gallagher asked as he began cracking eggs for his own breakfast.
“Je suis prêt,”Genni said.
Claudio shook his head. “You’re not going to the lab,chèrie.”
“I am old enough and I want to help rescue Miri and Lala,” the pup insisted, using sharply accented English to drive her point home.
“I would not risk your safety for anything in the world.” Her father pulled her close and laid a kiss on her forehead. “And anyway, there isn’t enough room in the van for everyone, so we need you and Lenore to stay here with Rommily,” he whispered.
We could never be sure whether or not the oracle was listening to us—she seemed to be staring into the future more often than into the present—but we tried not to offend her by openly speaking about the fact that it wasn’t safe to leave her alone, in case she zoned out while she was cooking and burned the cabin down.
Genni looked disappointed, but she knew better than to argue.
Zyanya gave her a sympathetic smile, and Eryx patted her shoulder in solidarity on his way into the kitchen to fill his drinking glass—actually a one-gallon bucket—with ice water.
Gallagher sat next to me with his plate. “Are you sure you’re up to this? You haven’t been sleeping well.”
“I’ll take a nap this afternoon. Feel free to guard the door to make sure I don’t kill anyone.”
