Moon Child (The Year of the Wolf #2) - Serena Akeroyd Page 0,29

been enough to get me by, to enable me to earn a living from fortune-telling as a carny, and to help me ascertain if I was in danger or not—very helpful when you were on the run.

But Lara’s gifts were life-changing. And not in a good way.

She’d often stayed at home to avoid people, because she couldn’t deal with them and their emotions. She’d often evaded school trips and the like, because she couldn’t cope with being around too many people. The trouble was, of course, when you lived like we did, surrounded constantly by humanity as we traveled from town to town, hustling, there was never any peace.

She needed that.

In more ways than I thought she even knew, and that was another reason why I’d brought her here.

The twins had lived in a cabin just off the packhouse. It was enough of a distance away that she could stay there, be close, while being able to cut herself off too.

The packhouse was a lot busier than before. With Eli having changed how he ruled the pack, it was no longer a case of meetings only happening at the totem. People visited us every day, at all hours between nine and six, and we had a lot of humanity trampling through the place.

But the cabin would give her a respite from that. It was a little too far away for her to actually feel people’s emotions, but if she did, maybe she could help. She’d always wanted that. Had always wanted to be useful, but she was so sensitive that she couldn’t.

I hoped that had changed, hoped for her sake that she’d been able to lead more of a life than what she’d had before, but I doubted it.

Especially from the aura around her… While her energy was good, upbeat, her aura was filled with sadness. Sorrow. Apathy.

Not a good sign, and it made me all the happier to know she was here, because maybe we could do something to improve her quality of life.

She broke into my thoughts with: “I thought you were allergic to dogs.”

I snickered. “I used to be. Apparently getting spidey senses is the best antihistamine going.”

“Apparently,” she said ruefully. “Especially with this little man here… I can’t believe I have a nephew. My, he’s a strong one,” she rumbled.

I sighed. “I know.”

She grinned, and it was genuine and earnest and so beautiful to behold, that I knew I’d done the right thing in finding her. Not only because I’d been there on that call, the one that had kept her going while the hyena attacked, but because if I could bring her out of herself, I’d consider it a job well done.

“Eli’s son, no?”

I nodded, surprised that she’d figured that out. Knight, as much as I adored him, was still a mush of features that were forming into how he’d look when he was older. And considering the men were all bound together by blood anyway, it would be pretty impossible to discern a difference between them at this point.

A shifter would scent it, even though my she-wolf did find it difficult, simply because of how much time Knight spent with all four of us. I liked the idea of that though. Of the lines of fatherhood blurring simply by how much we were all together.

Sure, Austin was finding it hard to acclimatize, but they were all so good with him. I couldn’t be anything other than grateful for their help.

Lara hummed under her breath, then said, “I trained as a doula.”

It wasn’t only Eli who was going to have me gawking at them today. “You? You trained as a doula?”

She snickered. “Yeah, I did. I didn’t do it long, though. I couldn’t cope when things went wrong.” A memory had her blowing out a shaky breath. “But I can tell you now, you’re doing okay. He’s happy. Hungry, but happy.” Her head tilted to the side. “You’re breastfeeding, aren’t you?” Then her cheeks burned. “God, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked. That was so rude of me. I mean, you’re probably using formula, aren’t you? And that’s perfectly fine too!”

I had to laugh at her babbling, because it reminded me of the young Lara, a Lara who hadn’t been as somber, who’d been a lot goofy too.

At her verbal diarrhea, I placed a hand on her shoulder and murmured, “Lara? You can ask me anything you want and I will always answer. I’d say you could ask me all the stuff you never had