the face of a child of about five or six, the boy’s dark hair messy silk. “Hello.”
“Zach said you teleported him!” The boy was all but jumping up and down. “Can you teleport me?”
Do you think he has any idea I’m considered a deadly threat by most individuals on the planet?
Nope. Sahara’s eyes laughed at him. He thinks you’re a new toy.
It cost Kaleb nothing to teleport the child to the far side of the compound. He could hear the boy’s excited cry from here. “Perhaps we should leave before he tells all his small friends.”
Weaving her fingers through his, Sahara tugged him forward. “Come speak to the adults. They’ll make sure the children behave.”
Kaleb found himself next to Judd not long afterward, Sahara having led him to the man who was his friend. “You two talk,” she said. “I haven’t had a chance to catch up with Faith yet.”
“Do you get asked to be a personal teleporter?” Kaleb asked Judd after Sahara blew him a kiss and began to weave her way through the crowd to find her cousin.
“Yes.” A slight smile from the former Arrow. “Even though I occasionally dump them in the lake.”
“I probably shouldn’t do the same as I’m a guest, and over half the people here are still certain I’m going to kill them at any moment.”
“True.” Judd nodded toward Annie and Zach. “Saw you talking. You know them?”
“Yes. From a lifetime ago.” He realized he’d never told Judd of the childhood incident, did so now. “She’s going to give her child Kaleb as a middle name.” He still wasn’t sure how he felt about that.
Judd’s expression turned solemn. “An honor and an invitation.”
“Yes.” Kaleb saw a child running toward them, teleported the girl right next to her elders—who grabbed her by the shoulders and made her sit down to eat at a picnic table. “It appears I’m gathering even more . . . people.”
“People?” Judd shook his head. “I think you mean family.”
“Sahara is my family.”
“She’s the center, yes, but a family is a living organism. It grows in many directions. Like Xavier’s Nina—she’s now part of our family, too.” Judd’s eyes followed a pair of leopard cubs who’d snuck under the food table and were attempting to pull down the tablecloth. A tiny panther cub stood on this side of the table and looked at them with an inquisitive expression on its face.
A second later, the leopard cubs found themselves in front of a tall brunette dressed in a fitted gown of shimmering bronze. She looked down at their startled faces, then located Judd in the clearing and called out, “What did they do?”
Judd pointed to the tablecloth they hadn’t quite managed to dislodge.
Hands on her hips, the brunette scowled down at the cubs who were now both sitting up in an attentive pose. “You do realize I could punish you by saying no more dessert this entire party?”
Flopping onto their fronts, the cubs hid their eyes using their paws.
Kaleb could see the brunette struggling not to smile.
Going down on her haunches, she lifted the cubs by the scruffs of their necks. “That was a very naughty thing to do,” she said sternly. “I’m going to give you a pass because it’s a celebration but any more naughtiness and I’m taking you home and making you Brussels sprouts for dinner.”
The cubs’ mouths fell open.
“Yes,” she said in that same stern tone. “Brussels sprouts, with spinach for dessert. Now, will you be good?”
Two quick nods.
“Hmm. I’ll be watching.” Setting down the chastened cubs, she managed to keep a straight face until they were far enough away that they didn’t see her grin as she came over to Judd and Kaleb. “People keep telling me they’ll get into less mischief as they get older, but I swear they’re just getting smarter about their naughtiness.”
“They know they’re safe,” Kaleb found himself saying. “It gives them the freedom to push boundaries.”
The brunette, who he’d identified as the DarkRiver healer, Tamsyn Ryder, nodded. “I know, but I’m already starting to dread their teenage years. I have visions of jetcycles and climbing up girls’ walls at night.” Affection colored every word. “Knowing the two of them, they’ll work together to steal ladders to scale those walls.”
Kaleb didn’t understand children, especially not children like this. He understood Arrow children the best. But he could also see why Aden was working so hard to reform the very foundation of Arrow society. It had to do with love and with trust.
The kind