To the Edge and Back [The Royal Wolves] (Siren Publishing Allure) (28 page)

Mina was laughing along with them, and when they took their seat at the booth, they placed Katherine between them. “I will take your coat, little one,” Mina said with a smile that quickly left when she saw the stricken look on the little one’s face. “What is it, darling?”

“I don gots no cwean cwoves an feese cwoves gots big holes in fem.” But it was all she had, so she simply made due.

“Oh honey.” Mina chewed her lip, “All right, we won’t make you take them off, dear, but after we leave here, we will go and get you some clothes, all right?” She looked at Janos. “You don’t mind, do you?”

Shaking his head, Janos ran his hand lightly over Katherine’s hair. “No, no I don’t mind. In fact, I think I insist on a little shopping adventure.” Despite how much he hated shopping. Well, for some things he really didn’t mind so much, he thought, looking to Mina as he remembered shopping for her underwear.

Mina grinned because her thoughts just shifted to underwear and suddenly she was more than a little warm. “I think this is a marvelous idea. There is a small shop just down from the bookstore. We can go into there to get you a few things to use before we go shopping for everything.” Of course, the small shop was a designer shop, so they would get very few things from there, just enough to put on the little girl so that she could feel like a fairy princess.

“Are you sure?” she asked with big, wide eyes that were full of adoration for Mina and turned those same eyes to Janos, too, with a new appreciation for the large Wolf as she took both of their hands in hers. “We gonna be a famiwy?”

Staring into those huge eyes, Janos was a total goner. Right in that moment as she squeezed his fingers in her little hand all he could do for a moment was nod. Clearing his throat, he smiled. “Yeah, honey, we’re going to be a family.” He hoped. At that moment he wasn’t sure who would be more heartbroken if it didn’t work out, he or Mina.

Once they had their menus in hand, Mina said, “We will get you anything you want, honey. Would you like me to read the menu to you, little one?”

“Weed it to me pweeze,” Katherine said with a grin. “I wants veggies and maybe some chicken nuggets?”

“Of course, love.” Mina began to read the menu to Katherine, helping Katherine choose her meal, and then made her choice for her meal as well. When the waitress came back, Mina gave hers and Katherine’s orders as well as the drink orders and waited for Janos to make his choice as well.

Rolling his eyes at the females, Janos ordered lots of meat and ignored the “roughage,” as he termed the vegetables. Sitting back as Katherine and Mina talked softly, he watched his mate and the restaurant, his eyes tracking constantly. Sliding his hand along the back of the booth, he sat toying with Mina’s hair gently, his fingers sliding up and down her spine and then back to her hair.

She looked over at Janos with a smile on her face and nodded. She loved him, too, so very much that it was consuming. When their food came, Katherine got onto her knees and looked at the food and then Mina and Janos before asking, “Can I eat now?”

“Of course, sweetheart, dig in and eat until you are full, all right? Don’t eat past being full though, sweetheart, or you will be sick, all right?” she asked with a smile and touched the little girl’s hair. “We will get some snacks for during the time I finish up my shift at the bookstore and then we will go shopping before going home, all right?”

“Oh-kay,” Katherine said, grinning, and then began to eat her food. Mina watched her for a time, knowing the feeling of finally getting food in an empty stomach, so she had to watch her and make sure she didn’t overeat.

Stroking his finger over her cheek, Janos smiled. “She doesn’t have to worry about that ever again, just like you, love,” he said softly. “Eat up, darling.” He winked. “You’ll need the energy later, my sweet.”

She sincerely hoped so, and the look she gave him told him as much. “I hope so,” she said finally and licked her lips with a grin as she began to eat the breaded tilapia that she had ordered.

She watched Katherine eating and then Janos as they both began to eat as well and smiled. This was her family. Janos and Katherine, they were her life.

Pushing his plate aside once he was done, he slouched down slightly with a sigh. “That was good stuff,” he said with a grin, picking up his water and taking a drink. Watching Katherine, he noted how carefully she ate, slowly putting her food away little by little. It wasn’t how a child normally ate, and he had a feeling it was something she’d done to spread food out whenever she’d gotten it.

Mina had noticed how the child ate as well and felt like screaming. The poor child should never have been left alone as she was. She leaned back as well and looked at Janos and gave him a sad look. “Katherine, sweetheart,” she said and touched the little girl’s hair, “sweetie, you will never again be without food. I swear this to you, honey.”

Katherine looked at Mina and shrugged. “Oh-kay.” The way she said the word made Mina hurt. It wasn’t the way a child would say okay. It was drawn out as if she were testing the truth of the word. “Can we take some back for later?” she asked softly.

“Of course, honey. We will get an order of anything you want for later. I’m sure Benedek won’t mind us storing it in the fridge and heating it up, will he, Janos?”

Shaking his head, Janos held onto the rising anger and smiled when Katherine looked up at him, making sure his eyes remained fully human. “Course he won’t, but watch out for him. He likes to steal vegetables. If he does, smack his fingers and tell him his brother said to behave.”

Katherine giggled and nodded. “Okay.” This time it was said more like a child would say it and not the measured tones of an adult. “Can I gets more of these chickies and french fries this time?”

“Yes, ma’am, we can even have them put you some ketchup and barbecue sauce in there to go, too, if you want, love,” Mina said and gently petted her, determined that this child would never know the harsh realities of life as she had been living, never again.

Looking up, Janos waved down the waitress and looked back to Katherine. “Did you want anything else, little darling, to go with this?” he asked her softly.

“Can I have some miwk, too, pweeze?” she asked hopefully.

Mina smiled at Katherine and then at Janos. He was going to be amazing with Katherine. Their family was going to be amazing together.

Smiling at her, he nodded gently, stroking the back of his finger over her cheek. “Of course you can.” Looking to the waitress, he grinned. “We’ll take a container of milk as well, if you please.” When the waitress left to package Katherine’s meal, get the milk, extra goodies, and the bill, he looked to Mina and grinned. “What?” he asked in a self-conscious manner.

“You are going to make an amazing father,” Mina said with pride in her voice. “You are the best of the best.” And he was. He was more amazing than she could have ever hoped for.

Katherine turned hopeful eyes up to Janos, a small tremble in her lip as she nodded, and the large eyes and hope there spoke more than any word she could have uttered. It was clear and plain what she wanted, needed. She needed parents, she needed a family, and she was hopeful that it would be Janos and Mina.

Smiling at Mina, he shook his head. “We’ll see if you still say that in her later years after a while under my influence,” he teased.

Looking back to Katherine, he frowned slightly and rubbed her cheek gently with his finger. “What’s wrong, honey?” he asked her gently, worried about the wet look to her eyes. He really didn’t do tears well and had a feeling, just like Mina, she could tear his heart out all too easily with them.

“Can you be my daddy?” Those small five words said in a bare whisper from a child they had just met tore at Mina’s heart. It made her teary eyed and hopeful. Some things simply were meant to be, and it seemed that having Katherine as a part of their lives was one of those things.

Swallowing hard, he stared at her, feeling something clench inside, and leaned closer to her. “If that’s what you want, baby, I am more than pleased to accept the position. I’ll be your daddy for however long you want me, Katherine,” he promised softly.

Katherine jumped up and into his arms, her scrawny little arms holding him tight as she cried little tears of liquid joy. “Fank you,” she murmured and kissed the side of his neck.

Wrapping his arms gently around her, Janos breathed her in and hugged her close. “You are very welcome, baby girl,” he breathed softly.

Mina wrapped her arms around them as well and hugged them both. “I love you, Janos.” She kissed the back of Katherine’s neck and smiled. “And I love you, too, sweet pea.”

Just that fast, just that quickly, they were a family.

Mina pulled back and smiled at Janos. “I think that I am going to call work a day, love. Let’s go and get our daughter some clothes and then take her home, shall we?”

Nodding, Janos handed his card to the waitress and just sat holding onto Katherine until he had to sign. Even then he was reluctant to let the little girl go. She’d given her trust so completely and so easily to him that it staggered him.

Rubbing her back, he looked to Mina as he put the card away with his receipt. “Let’s go,” he said softly, knowing he’d have to call Max and tell him to cover for the night.

They’d have to call someone else in, but since Janos had originally been planning on just doing paperwork for the majority of the night it wouldn’t be too bad if they were overly busy. Sliding from the booth, he held Katherine on his hip and tucked Mina in close to his other side as they left the restaurant.

Mina had her head on Janos’s shoulder as they walked, a grin on her face as more than once she touched Katherine’s leg and then Janos.

As they were waiting beside the truck, Mina was about to say something when just behind her she heard, “Give the brat up. She is a little con artist and needs to pay for her crimes.” The voice growled from just to the left of her.

Mina twisted quickly, her hand on Janos even as she placed herself close to Katherine to protect her just as she heard Janos growling.

Passing Katherine to Mina, Janos faced off from the man and let his lip curl just a bit. “I think you just might have the wrong girl, don’t you?” he asked in a low tone, his words calm and very relaxed. His body language was that of a protector, his legs apart and braced and both hands loose at his sides.

Mina pulled Katherine close to her body and passed her into the vehicle that Janos had just unlocked, climbing in with her and locking the doors, before once more pulling her in close.

“No, I have the right girl.” The man cracked his knuckles. “Give her up, princeling lost, and I will think about letting you live, at least for today.”

Smiling coldly, Janos bared his teeth, letting them and his eyes shift to that of the Wolf. “I think you should leave before I show you just what learning my mother’s blood was smeared on the walls of my bedchamber made me do as an adult. I’m not a pushover like all the other punk asses you have serving under you. I will fucking rip your heart out of your chest and let you watch it pump the last fluids free as you fall dead at my feet, and no one can do a damned thing about it.”

The people seemed to sense there was trouble building around them and moved away from the men who seemed to be circling each other. The man growled as he grinned. “I am going to tear the little bitch to pieces and then”—he looked at Mina and back at Janos—“then I will make your so-called mate our pack’s whore, see how many litters she can give before she dies on us.”

Not rising to the bait even though he had the urge to tear the man’s throat out for that comment, Janos just
tsk-
ed at him and shook his head. “She’d gut you before you got within five feet of her. Besides, she’d be bored to death with the lot of you after having a real Wolf.”

Mina was going to deck him for that comment. “Having to use a magnifying glass to even find what you seem so proud of must be awfully degrading,” he sniped, trying to make the other Wolf lose his cool. And that was what all the posturing really was about. Wolves were vicious and rarely backed down, and to challenge a Wolf protecting his mate—suicidal!

Mina watched with wide eyes and then pressed her lips to Katherine’s ears. “Sweetie, I need you to put your fingers in your ears and then start to hum or sing for me. I want to hear a song, all right?” She didn’t want the little girl to hear what was going to happen next. It was the only thing she could think of to have the girl save herself.

Katherine knew what Mina was doing but didn’t complain, argue, or fuss. Little boney fingers plugged her ears and she began to sing a song that she didn’t know the words or name to. She made up the words of the popular song of today, filling in the blanks as she squeezed her eyes closed tightly.

The man, however, charged Janos, a roar from his throat and hands in the form of claws. He rushed Janos, his claws taking swipes at the middle of his body.

Waiting until the last second, Janos only moved when he had to and, contrary to what most would do, he went to the inside on a spin. Catching the Wolf’s wrist in his hand, he twisted to turn the claws out and continued around to slam his elbow into the man’s nose, hard. The sickening sound of bone crunching followed by the sucking sound of flesh giving way told Janos he’d hit him just as planned.

Continuing through the motion, he wrenched the wrist at the last second, snapping the bone and then, twisting back, slammed the heel of his hand to the man’s elbow, snapping it at that point, too. Then he moved out of range and stood still, his eyes on his foe because a wounded Wolf was a fucking deadly, dangerous Wolf. He might be hurt, but he was nowhere near finished, although his watering eyes would be a hindrance, plus he only had one arm still working.

“I am going to kill the fucking bitch and make you watch.” It was the only warning that Janos had before the Wolf twisted quickly. Smashing the window to the truck, he reached in and wrapped clawed hands around Mina’s throat, squeezing and laughing as he did so.