Dance Around - Susi Hawke Page 0,34

jobs, we should merge."

"An interesting idea. How would it work? Our families bring different skills to the table."

"Exactly." Gil grinned triumphantly. "I've been giving it a lot of thought over the past few weeks, and this is what I came up with. You and your brothers could form an elite squad, used on small jobs or ones requiring a certain finesse. The brood would handle the large-scale ones or the ones requiring more bodies or our specialized fighting skills. And we could even mix it up and do some cross-training."

I liked the sound of that. "Wow, amazing, Blondie. Our options would be endless if we were working together. We can teach the brood more about safety and make sure you never lose another brother to a misfire accident." I couldn’t think of a kinder way of saying we could teach them never to look down the barrel of a loaded, jammed gun. Or at all, in fact.

"At the risk of sounding arrogant, the brood will go for whatever I suggest. We keep it simple. What about your family? Do you think they'd be interested?"

Pulling him onto my lap, I took a moment to wrap my arms around him and enjoy knowing I could do this now. Remembering what we were talking about took me longer than it should have.

"Yes, I think my family will be intrigued. Nash should be head of the elite squad from the outset. We've always done things democratically in my family, but after seeing you in action, I can see the value of a designated leader. When we did our last joint mission to find Isaac, I realized Nash is a natural leader. Probably because he's the oldest and likes bossing us around. All kidding aside, he is good at running things, and I think it would solve my need to not see you killing yourself with too much stress."

Gil smiled softly as he nodded. "I agree, I do work too much and push myself too hard. Lately, I've been thinking I need to delegate more and give others a chance to shine. I can oversee things without personally making every damn decision. Edgar has been my assistant for years, and he has his finger on the pulse of everything. It's time for me to give him more responsibility and let him help me find brood members who can supervise in smaller capacities. Maybe break the brood into units, with leaders who answer to Edgar, who then answers to me."

My puma and I agreed. "When we talk to my brothers, don't be surprised if they jump at it. Since we're all mated, they haven't been as interested in fieldwork. You might find my brothers will prefer working in an advisory capacity and training brood members to do the kinds of jobs we've always done. Also, can I say we need help with the online shit? We really have to know how to do your tracking, not to mention hacking and digging up information. We've been way too dependent on Morty because none of us are as technologically advanced as we should be."

Gil was clearly making a list of mental notes. I had no doubt he wouldn't forget a single one, either. "I can work with each of your requests, and quite easily. Look at my arm—I have goosebumps. The idea of setting up new training classes excites me that much. Instead of solely focusing on our fighting forms, we should be having workshops on everything from gun safety to basic hacking. I love your suggestions, and I'm going to come up with a workable solution to incorporate them into the idea I was already putting together. Once I have a proper proposal, we can have a big family meeting and present it to everyone."

"Sounds good to me." I was antsy. We'd been away from our kittens for too long. Judging by the way Gil kept glancing back toward the house, he felt the same way. I only had one more question before we went inside. "On a side note, could you tell me when our babies might become human? Before today, I had no idea it was possible for a shifter to be born in animal form."

Giggling, Gil leaned close enough to give me a brief kiss. "It's a bunny thang, Danny boy. A kitten will instantly shift into their human counterpart as soon as their alpha parent or guardian compels them. They won't shift again until they're older, like normal shifter kids. I think this