Charmed Wolf

the sun and nuclear fission. Natalie’s ringtone. A reminder of responsibilities that didn’t allow me to empathize with a half-fae invader.
“I have to answer this,” I muttered, pushing past Rune’s kneeling form so I could attain the safety of my own two feet.

Chapter 9
“Tara.”
My name on my friend’s tongue eased me the same way settling into my comfy chair had....for exactly one second. Then I realized my friend would inevitably ask about her children. Kale I’d seen this morning—he was healthy, if not happy. The baby...well, I’d managed to forget about that grubby, pudgy face.
“Natalie.” I forced a smile so my friend would hear the curve of my lips even as I yanked open the door and snapped my fingers at Rune. No matter what he’d promised, I couldn’t leave him alone in the heart of pack territory.
To my surprise, his usually expressionless mouth twitched into a far more honest smile than the one I was speaking through. His long strides caught up with mine in three quick steps.
“How’s your mom?” I asked Natalie, buying time as I pushed through a cluster of three pack mates in the hall outside my office. Well, that wasn’t quite true. I started pushing through, one saw who was coming, then the trio scattered like sparrows before a hawk.
“Make way for the Alpha!” someone called over my head as I jogged down the stairs, heading for the nursery where both pack young and human children played during working hours. Shifters spun sideways to clear a path for me. Humans—who thought their boss being called “Alpha” was some sort of joke about my domineering personality—covered grins with glittery fingers. The air behind me sweetened as Rune pressed closer against my back.
“Is this an emergency?” he murmured.
Despite myself, I nodded. Mouthed, “The baby.” Because Natalie had already told me that her mother was no worse, a little better. In three, two, one, she’d ask:
“How are the kids?”
“Fine. Great.” The nursery was on the far side of the glitter-storage room, a vast, gaping expanse that we’d been filling with shipping crates while hunting buyers. The layout had seemed clever when I’d first designed the space. No need to deal with infants wailing every time I visited the more active portions of the factory. No loose-cannon toddlers close to the assembly line’s moving parts.
Now, though, the vast glitter-dusted distance between me and Natalie’s younger offspring felt like the miles between the earth and the moon.
Only...Rune didn’t have to keep his voice even so as not to scare Natalie. He could race past me, yank open the door to the nursery, and slip inside.
Inside, where all of our young were cloistered. Tender pups who had no understanding of the dangers posed by outsiders. Young humans who didn’t even know werewolves existed.
“Is Kale at school?” Natalie prodded. “He told you today’s a half-day, right?”
“Yes,” I lie, making a mental note to send a pack member to pick Kale up earlier than expected. Most of my attention, however, was focused on forcing my feet to move at an ordinary pace.
Rune had promised he wouldn’t harm any members of my pack. Surely, on clan land, the human children also came under that purview?
“And the baby?”
A joke seemed like a good stalling tactic. “I only dropped her on her head twice. The concussion is minor.”
Natalie snorted. “Obviously untrue since you’d have to pick her up before you could drop her.” Then her scientific mind caught on to what I was leaving out. “You haven’t seen Hazel at all today, have you? I should come home. My mom only had a mini-stroke. The doctors say she’ll be fine. A baby is too much for you to handle....”
I clenched the phone so hard the plastic creaked. “Natalie, you should stay there as long as you need to. Listen....”
But before I found a way to set her mind at ease, persimmons surrounded me. Persimmons and baby. Hazel’s sticky face smashed up against my cellphone. “Mommy, mommy, mommy!”
“Sweetie!” Every shred of worry in Natalie’s voice dissipated. “Silly Tara was only teasing, wasn’t she? She had you with her all along.”
“Absolutely,” I agreed, raising my voice so I wouldn’t have to press the smeared phone up to my head. My eyes, however, flew to Rune.
He was so close that if I shifted my weight from one foot to the other our hips would come in contact. Meanwhile, he held the baby with the comfort of familiarity, his muscles firm enough to make sure she didn’t plummet to the ground but loose enough so she could whack my cell phone as she babbled.
His gaze, though, wasn’t on the baby. Instead, intense eyes locked onto mine.
And...my chest seized up. I could barely speak when Natalie addressed me again rather than her daughter.
“Thank you so much,” she gushed. “It means a lot knowing the kids are safe and happy. I owe you one.”
“You owe me nothing.” Even though I was standing still, my voice caught as if I was out of breath.
And Natalie noticed. When she wasn’t terrified about a sick family member, she was an astute friend. “Is everything okay with you? Do you have another date tonight?”
Rune, to my total shock, growled. The baby contorted around so she could peer up into his face.
“Sorry,” I told Natalie. “Glitter emergency. I have to go. But call me if you need anything.”
“I’m not done....”
I braved the baby smear and ended the call.
“DO YOU HAVE A PROBLEM?” I demanded of the tall shifter who had no right to growl at my choices.
“The same one I came with an hour ago,” Rune answered evenly. As he spoke, he shifted the baby so her belly pressed up against his shoulder, the gesture so fluid I decided I’d misread his earlier reaction. “Can we discuss...?”
“No,” I cut him off, raising one finger and turning away so I could focus on the ping coming down the pack bond. As Alpha, I was the center of a vast web of mostly