Beaufort Creek Shifters (10 book series)
Daddy’s Innocent Mate Chapter 1

Elias

Kids screeched like banshees directly from the pages of a mythology book as I stood at the door with a bag clutched in one hand and my son's hand in the other. He glanced at me, glanced at the kids, then back at me with his brows knotted up like he had a bad case of gas. He even rubbed his stomach the way he always did after a bad taco night. "Dad, I don't know," he said in a low voice that didn't seem necessary given how loud the younger children were yelling. If he didn't want anybody to hear his uncertainty, he didn't have to whisper it with those ghouls howling up a storm.

He twisted his fingers into his curls. It was about time to start braiding his hair again. My fingers never forgot how to do it. Not like he'd been gone very long.

Even if it had felt like an eternity in hell.

I patted his shoulder while trying to mask the edge of disdain in my voice. "Let's go talk to your teacher."

My kid was more receptive than most, mostly because of his experience, and mostly because of the fact that we had spent so much time together. So, the ire in my voice? Yeah, he probably picked up on that right quick. As the only adult in the room, that was probably poor manners. Everything was about confidence these days, or whatever the hell my cousin went on about. He was the alpha. He knew best.

I gulped air and marched toward the desk at the far end of the room. Three grade-school-aged kids fluttered about, a tinier shifter trailing after them in a partially shifted form. She looked like maybe she was a wolf or something. Two older kids, maybe preteens, were chasing after the younger ones. Mixed-age classrooms were a lot like this in the morning, especially with a class this small.

With the teacher they had, I wasn't surprised in the least.

Speaking of the aggravating woman, we were fast approaching her where she sat with a high chair pulled up close to her desk and a spoon in her right hand. In her left hand was a crochet hook, and in front of her was a super organized desk calendar, all color coded and highlighted and marked up.

She had soil-brown skin with marigold undertones, the kind that could be found tilled in the field, rich with nutrients and soaked from the rain. Light sandy-brown hair hung in tight curls around her face, snipped into a symmetrical bob with the back pinned into two distinct buns above her ears. Almost like cat ears.

I thought she was a cat-by the scent of her, I would have guessed bobcat-but nobody had ever seen her shift. During the invasion, she had allegedly been bunkered down with the likes of that girl Isaiah had snagged, shoved together with a bunch of kids and older folks into a steel fortress to be protected. I supposed she had a lot of guts to be dealing with shifter kids, the reckless little creatures that they were.

The softness of her peachy eyes opposed the steel of her face, though they drilled into me like I was the devil incarnate walking toward her. Round frames sat on the bridge of her nose, enhancing the oval shape of her face. Vintage-inspired clothes decorated her body, those floral patterns on her blouse and pencil skirt giving her curves extra attention, drawing my gaze to the lower part of the desk where I knew her hips were hiding.

I didn't like her. But she was organized. That was the only reason I'd agreed to place my Archie here so soon after his return. Blake and Troy had insisted on the kid getting some stable environmental influence. I thought I was plenty stable for him most days. However much I did work on my bikes while he watched.

Squeals sliced through my right ear, stabbing right into the drum and making me rub my head.

I mean, it was stable enough here too, anyways.

"Hi," I said firmly over the noise. "Miss Elwyn, Blake should have called on my behalf. This is Archie."

Miss Stuck-Up and Wouldn't-Budge-An-Inch-About-Building-Issues glared at me like I was interrupting a personal chat with the president of the United States. While balancing the spoon and the book, she turned her soft eyes to my kid-and that steely gaze melted into a darling schoolteacher expression if I ever saw one.

There was no fooling me for a second. She had jutted her nose in the air and criticized everything I did with her precious stage for the school play a month or so ago. Whatever expertise I thought I had she'd attempted to thwart with something she read in a book. So my little nicknames for her were more than fitting. And, in this case, they could have been much filthier if I wanted them to be.

She was lucky I was in the presence of children or else I would have started up that bullshit all over again.

"Archibald, it's a pleasure to meet you," she said. "Will you do me the honor of helping me with Dante here? He's a messy eater."

Archie jumped into action without sparing me a glance. He grabbed a bib from the pile on her desk and went to clean up the baby-who couldn't have been more than six months old. Whose kid was that, anyways? Why was she babysitting this morning? I cleared my throat, agitation clogging up my vocal cords. "I thought the mixed-age stuff started at five."

"His parents were running into town with their oldest for a special appointment. I offered to watch him," Francine explained, the wiggle of her nose causing her rosy eyeglasses to twitch.

The round frames hosted the clearest lenses I had ever seen. If I hadn't known any better, I would have thought them to be fake. She must have scrubbed them plenty. Probably compulsive. And since she was a damn control freak about everything else, it didn't surprise me in the least to see them so clean.

"Right," I sighed. "Well, Archie isn't picky. He's helpful. But don't treat him like the other kids, you know? He's been through-"

Her face twisted with sympathy as she set her book down and touched Archie's shoulder. That venomous glare she always saved for me was gone in an instant. I didn't understand how the hell a woman like Francine Elwyn who was up my a*s all the time about my stage installations could possibly be so empathetic toward a child.

But I guess that was just the weird way of the world. Some loner folks were skilled at personal intimacy and communication while social butterflies tanked on every single date. I wasn't that way at all. I didn't strike out. I hit my goal when I aimed for it, and I aimed true every time.

People like Francine were stuck-up because they thought they were better than people like me. We were different breeds with different jams. We had nothing at all in common, and I hated the fact that I had to deal with her so freakin' much.

I could hear Isaiah teasing me in the back of my head while we were working on the auditorium setup for the school play. I just want to know why you care enough to hate her. Did he have to stick his troll nose in everything I did or didn't do? It wasn't like he was the one who had to deal with Miss Elwyn all the damn time.

"Archie is a natural," Francine praised. And I really looked at her then, wondering about the way her eyes twinkled with approval, how it might feel to feel that on me.

Why I would ever need that was beyond my comprehension.

"He's a good kid," I told her. "He's a bit wild. He needs to run around a lot."

She gestured back to the hellscape on the other side of the room. "He'll get plenty of wild time."

The kids weren't yelling anymore but they were definitely making a huge mess out of some foam blocks. Those suckers were huge. Kids these days just had way more cool crap than I ever did back when I was growing up.

"I like what you've done with the place," I said, but I wasn't exactly sure why I said it that way.

Nothing was special about her classroom. It was as standard as any, with gaping windows spilling light over a blue carpet. A massive cityscape rug that resembled streets took up most of the cafeteria-sized room. Lots of posters displayed the rules, and a string of alphabet letters ran the length of one wall. There was a dry-erase board, a television from the nineties, and a wall of DVDs, all educational I had to imagine.

Tons of books were piled on every shelf in the area and a handful of tables were scooted into the corners. There was an art corner, a puppet show corner, a nap corner. This particular corner where I stood was Francine's desk corner, I had to guess, and apparently the babysitting corner.

A door adjacent to the windows led to a lavish playground. I had to bet that Blake had spared no expense with that equipment. It looked to be top-notch-maybe even just recently built. Like most packs, this one valued its education and childcare. For Archie, that was a good sign.

If only the teacher was sufficient.

The young teacher nodded. "Blake has done well with our funding. Though we could use some updates."

"I'm sure we can find you a better television."

Her left brow shot up. "Pardon?"

I hiked my thumb toward the ancient relic sitting across the room. "That thing? Could probably smash a kid by accident if it fell."

"Are you dissatisfied with my classroom, Mr. Shaw? Because you were just praising it a moment ago, yet you seem less than thrilled now." "That's not what I said."

She humphed with a shrug and went back to feeding the baby, who was making shapes out of his green mush. "Could have fooled me." "But you don't fool me for a second," I spat. "You're just hiding behind your schoolteacher charm while you judge everybody around you." Her eyes rolled. "Not this again, Mr. Shaw. Are we really going to dig up that old argument in front of your child?"

Gods, this woman knew how to get under my skin. Not only did she have the nerve to judge my building technique, but she also seemed to have the nerve to judge my parenting. So what if Archie heard what we'd disagreed about? It was good for him to hear real things from the real world.

A barking laugh boomed through the room and commanded every set of eyes in the vicinity. When I turned around, I found Isaiah exclaiming excitedly with my kid-who had apparently run off while I was duking it out with Miss Prissy Pants. Isaiah scooped Archie into the air and attracted the attention of the smaller kids who also wanted to be scooped and zoomed about the room.

Francine stood slowly with a beaming smile. "It's lovely to see kids connect with their elders."

"Isaiah has been with us for a long time."

"I sense that Archie trusts him infallibly."

My heart melted at the sight of Isaiah and Archie connecting. Those two had been inseparable since Archie's appearance. When those three vans had pulled up on our property, I thought I had lost my mind. What I knew wasn't real anymore-and reality had shifted so drastically that I wasn't sure I was still awake.

It felt like I was stuck in that facility again with tubes coming out of my arms. Needles stung my skin. Voices crept into my ear, whispering awful things of the experiments to come...

"...Mr. Shaw, do you understand?"

I turned to Francine, who now had the baby propped on her hip. Dang, even while holding a baby she looked like the Wicked Witch of the West. All she was missing was a green nose and wide-brimmed black hat. A broom wouldn't hurt either.

An attempt at clearing the irritability from my throat brought on another one of her famous death glares. "No, I didn't hear you."

"You'll have to keep his uncle's visitations to a minimum, so as to not disrupt our schedule."

"Are you saying I can't visit my kid whenever I want?"

Her nose wrinkled up. "I'm saying to do so within reason, Mr. Shaw."

"Stop calling me that."

As the baby began to fuss, she adjusted him on her hip and gently cooed into his ear. From menace to mommy in seconds. It was astounding, and admittedly kind of impressive how she could just shift her emotions on a dime. Maybe that was why nobody had ever seen her shift into a bobcat, or whatever kind of cat she was.

She was an emotional chameleon. That was something to respect in an honorable shifter.

Her? Well, that had yet to be seen.

"Elias," she said in a calm voice, though I couldn't ignore the displeasure in her tone. "Make sure to pack Archie lunch next time. No nuts or soy. Is that clear?"

More irritation burst in my chest like an alien born from my ribcage. I was about to lose it on Miss Sassy when Isaiah waltzed up with Archie on his muscular shoulder. Isaiah patted my back and laughed loudly in his usual way.

"Miss Elwyn! You're a sight for sore eyes!" he boomed. "How's the tiger today?" He leaned forward to tickle the baby's chin. "Hello, little devil. Are your canines coming in yet?"

Francine chuckled like she was charmed. Hell, anybody would be charmed by the new and improved Isaiah. He was dad material.

"Not yet," she replied. "Dante is still munching on baby foods."

"I can't wait for him to start shifting. This one needs a wild playmate." He carefully set Archie on the ground. "Your uncle can only do so much before he has other things to do."

I smiled tightly at them both. "Well, this has been fun, but-"

"But we have to get back to construction!" Isaiah announced while slapping me on the back. I could have sworn he was trying to slap the disdain right out of me. "We've got plenty set up, and we need to make some furniture too." "Can I add something to the tab?" Francine requested.

Which shook me up more than it should have.

"Wait a second," I interjected. "Why didn't you just ask me?"

Francine looked at me like she was seeing me for the first time. "Oh, I didn't want to assume you were taking requests."

"We'll be happy to add a request," Isaiah stated jauntily. "Isn't that right, Elias?"

If he slapped me on the back one more time-

"Sure," I said with a nod. "Whatever you want, Miss Elwyn."

"Call me Francine," she insisted. "We'd love some new wood blocks to make prints for art time. Whatever spare time you have." She grinned with a judgmental glare at me. "Now if you'll both excuse me,"

Pterodactyl screeches stabbed my right eardrum. Archie wandered off with Francine and baby Dante. I hated that she asked anything of me-yet I couldn't help how drawn I was to fulfill her request. Especially with the way her hips swung as she walked away from me.