All Kidding Aside - Macy Blake Page 0,5

Seconds later, he caught the scent of other. Riggs had frozen in the doorway. His eyes met flaming red ones, and he’d immediately known he was face-to-face with one of the infamous hellhounds.

At that moment, Riggs hadn’t been sure what to do. So he’d stood there, motionless, damning his love of coffee and cinnamon rolls. He’d always known his sweet tooth would get him into trouble one day.

More scents filled his nose with his next nervous breath. Wolves and lions, and something that he couldn’t quite put his finger on. So many of their kind in one place. It confused his senses, and only in that confusion did he dare break the hellhound’s gaze and look around.

Kids. Around a half dozen of them huddled behind another man who… Riggs breathed in again. Lion. And an alpha at that, no doubt about it.

“I don’t mean any harm. I’ll leave now.”

He took one step back and something extremely sharp pressed against him. He glanced over his shoulder and found a vampire standing behind him, a sword aimed at his spine.

“Hold,” the lion said. He looked at the hellhound, who moved to his side. “You guys stay here with Jedrek,” the lion alpha said to the kids. “I’ll be right back.”

A little girl with flowing black hair and… Riggs blinked… wings, whimpered and held up her arms. The lion paused and scooped her up without a thought, then stepped closer to Riggs. Not too close, though.

“Don’t move,” the vampire threatened.

Riggs didn’t plan on it. He hardly planned on breathing. He’d heard rumors of the vampires and their weapons and had no doubt exactly what this one would do to him if he put one hair out of place. Add to that a hellhound who looked ready to rip his throat out at the slightest provocation, and no, Riggs didn’t plan on moving at all.

What followed was the strangest conversation of his life. After introducing himself, Nick managed to pry Riggs’s life story out of him within the first couple of minutes. And then the little girl—Robin, Riggs had learned her name later—reached out her hands to him. The alpha looked as stunned as Riggs felt, but let her go.

Riggs held her fragile little body carefully, so afraid his giant hands would somehow cause her harm. But she’d settled against him and smiled, patting his cheek sweetly.

“You want coffee?” Nick had asked, a strange calm settling over the room as he said it.

“Please. And a cinnamon roll? If it isn’t too much trouble.”

“Nah, Mikey’s cinnamon rolls are famous. Joe! Can you hook us up?”

“Sure, Nick!” The young man behind the counter got busy, and Nick gestured to one of the small tables. The hellhound got the kids back in their seats, and they all ate the treats in front of them.

And then… Nick offered Riggs a job, which… looking back, he should have turned down. Because shit like that didn’t happen to him. Dream jobs didn’t just appear in the middle of a coffee shop in the middle of nowhere. And with hellhounds and vampires and kids… Who had that many kids? No one. Riggs had never heard of such a thing.

But Nick’s charisma was hard to deny. He’d explained the situation, no doubt leaving out giant chunks of information, but Riggs had found it impossible to say no. He could do the job, even though it was bigger than any he’d ever managed. He had no doubt about that. But part of him really worried about what exactly he’d gotten himself into.

Now, less than a week later, he walked with Victor to the construction area, trying to herd him onto a safe path. The cub in Victor’s arms kept looking at Riggs like he had all the answers. He didn’t. He knew how to build stuff, and build it well, and that was about it.

One lesson he’d learned, though, the very first day Nick had brought him to the compound: whatever the kids needed, you did it. Period. Without hesitation. If it meant stopping work to hold a crying toddler, you did it. If it meant sitting quietly on the grass while a young bear cub sniffed nervously at you, you did it. If it meant shifting into your bear form and letting a bunch of cubs crawl all over you… you did that too.

Like most of their kind, Riggs didn’t know much about kids at all. Kids were a rarity in their world, except… something had changed in the magic lately. There