“Hi,” Marlee said with a smile, though she stayed tucked against Sascha.
“Marlee!” It was Keenan, calling from his perch on top of the climbing frame.
Marlee skipped over to talk to the younger boy. Like all children who grew up in a pack, she was used to having friends across age lines. As she grew older, she’d be expected to babysit the pups or to help any elders who requested it, so that pack bonds would continue to form between young and old.
It was oddly similar to how Psy family groups functioned, at least in terms of the continuity between generations. According to Sascha’s education records, her maternal grandmother, Reina Duncan, had played a role in overseeing her development when Sascha was younger.
That oversight had been from a distance, in Reina’s position as head of the Duncan family. It had also stopped long before Reina’s death—when Nikita became the power behind the throne. In truth, Sascha wasn’t certain her mother hadn’t manipulated things right from the start, but Reina’s was the signature on her earliest school and conditioning records.
It wasn’t family as changelings knew it, but it was family nonetheless.
She was thinking about the other similarities that existed between the races when Vasic began to ’port in the Arrow children, including a girl and a boy around Marlee’s age. Except for the latter three, who—watched over by Judd—cautiously settled beside a tree to play psychic games Sascha knew were designed to heighten telepathic agility and skill, the children had all played together previously.
As a result, it took no time for them to join in the games already in progress.
The squad currently had no child as young as Naya, and her usual two-year-old pack playmate had a checkup with their healer today. But Sascha’s baby was never alone. The kids took turns pushing her, and a sweet three-year-old child Arrow with chubby red cheeks and light brown curls scrambled into a neighboring swing with Vasic’s help, then seemed to fall into an earnest conversation with Naya.
Sascha could feel her cub’s happiness. Naya soon tried to reach out to her new friend using her telepathic abilities, but Sascha gently reminded her to ask permission first, then showed her how. Even as she did that, she was monitoring the other children under their care for any signs of distress. Not just in terms of an accidental psychic hurt, but because she was an empath, she could no more stop watching out for their emotional well-being than she could for their physical health.
It was ten minutes later that she became aware of a kerfuffle in the football game in progress on the field next to the play equipment.
A cub in leopard form had apparently nipped the butt of an Arrow child, who must’ve struck out psychically, from the way that Arrow child suddenly stilled and looked pale-faced toward the young Arrow who must’ve contained the strike before it did any damage.
Abbot’s blue-eyed gaze met Sascha’s and Ashaya’s in turn. What do I do now? he seemed to ask.
“I’ve got this.” Ashaya strode over to the two miscreants and pointed to a spot under a tree.
Both children trudged over, heads down. Ashaya made them sit there, away from the games, with only each other for company, for fifteen minutes.
Then she made the cub say sorry for biting—after asking him to shift so the Arrow child could understand him.
“That’s okay,” the Arrow boy said with a generosity that immediately caused the DarkRiver cub to smile. “I should’ve thought before I acted. That’s what the teacher says to do. I could’ve hurt you.”
“I’m not supposed to bite,” the cub confided in a shamefaced whisper. “My teeth are really strong.”
The Arrow boy nodded, clearly seeing the parallel.
“Good boys.” Ashaya hugged them both before setting them free to join in the play—which they did together.
Meanwhile, Naya was having fun telepathing her vocal new friend, while Faith and Vasic pushed them on the swings. The teleporter, who’d lost his left arm after a failed biofusion experiment, appeared to be testing a new prosthetic. Its gleaming metal finish fascinated the children, with Vasic often hunkering down so they could touch small hands to the metal, patting at it curiously and asking him questions.
How many is that now? Sascha asked when he bent down for a curious cub, aware the brilliant engineer behind the prosthetic was obsessed with finding one that worked with Vasic’s damaged systems.
This one doesn’t count—it’s a piece Samuel uses to test different components, the teleporter told her as he rose back to his feet and continued to push Naya, who was nowhere near tired of the motion yet. This time, he’s checking a computronic mechanism that he hoped would fix a heat buildup issue.
Is it doing what it should?
A shake of Vasic’s head, his handsome face expressionless but not cold. I can already feel the heat levels rising at the point of the join. In fact, can you and the others handle shields while I leave to remove it?
Of course. With Judd, Faith, Ashaya, Sascha, and Abbot, they had plenty of psychic power at their command.
Vasic had only been gone about a minute, and Sascha was giving a thirsty child a cup of water from the supplies Faith had brought with her, when she caught sight of Roman about to fly off the top of a climbing frame.
“No.” She knew he was going to hit wrong, would probably break his arm . . . but he shifted midfall, landing in a roll that knocked the air out of his feline body but didn’t otherwise do any damage.
Heart thudding, Sascha stopped herself from rushing over. Leopard cubs needed independence, she reminded herself for the thousandth time. But she watched him until she was sure he truly hadn’t hurt himself—a fact that became obvious when he sauntered off, tail proudly up and a smug expression on his gorgeous little face.