Shifter Nanny Agency

by Celeste Raye

  “Well, I had to.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they were going to hurt someone.”

  Dominic instantly got worried, thinking that it was Dana and asked if she was going to be okay or not.

  “It wasn't Dana. Dana is fine. I have her upstairs in one of the extra bedrooms.”

  “Then who was it? Who would be so important that you would kill one of those damn witches over it?”

  The way he said it made John think that he shouldn't be as honest as he was going to be in the beginning. Maybe his father didn't need to know his plans or what had happened.

  “It doesn't matter who it was. What matters is that they're coming down now. From what I hear, they have a spell that they are planning to use on us, all of us, and it is not going to be pleasant.”

  “How unpleasant are we talking?”

  “How about burning us alive? And I'm starting to think that maybe we should not be together. Maybe we should split up so that we won't just be one big ass target for them to take down.”

  Dominic did not like the idea of that at all. John could see it in his face when he first said it, and then his father started to immediately shake his head left to right.

  “The last thing we need to do is split up. That never ends well.”

  “Neither is it going to end well if they torch the whole village with one spell and kill us all off. Do you really think that it can't happen?”

  Dominic wanted to know why his son was so sure that it was going to happen that way.

  “How do you even know about the spell? I mean, who would have told you what the spell was going to be?”

  John pressed his lips together and shrugged his shoulders. “It doesn't matter, Dominic. What matters is that we keep the pack safe. There is not going to be an Alpha of anything if you let this go.”

  “You can say whatever you want to, son, but I know when you're lying. You've always made it sound so damn good, but eloquent or not, there is no truth coming out of your lips right now. You know a hell of a lot more than you're telling me. I am your leader.”

  “You haven’t been my leader for a long time, Father. I came here this morning because no matter how poorly you treated me in the past, I want to make sure you and the rest of the pack are safe.”

  “And you're sure that it has nothing to do with that little Baxter witch you brought in earlier?”

  “So you know?”

  “Of course, I do. Did you really think that you were going to bring her here and I wouldn’t find out? How could I not?”

  “As I said before, Dominic, it doesn't matter. What matters is we get ready for the witches.”

  “Is she the ace up the sleeve, that you were talking about earlier?”

  John hated that he had said anything about Laura. At the time, he’d thought he was calm in a situation that could’ve turned bad almost immediately. Everyone had been upset and riled up, and John had revealed that part of his plan only to calm down the masses. In retrospect, obviously it wasn't a very good idea.

  “She was, but she is no good to me now that way.”

  “If she is one of the Baxter witches, I would imagine that she is the best thing that we could have possession of. She must have some information that we can use.”

  “All of the information that I have gotten thus far has come from her voluntarily. I don't think that will change anytime soon.”

  “I'm just saying that she can't be trusted. And even if she could be trusted, son, what in the world do you plan to do with her? It's not like our families can ever form some kind of bond.”

  As much as John did not want to hear it, he certainly wasn't surprised. He had known how his father was for a long time, and it was most likely why John was so emotionally distant at times.

  “It doesn't matter what you have to say about it. I trust her. If you want her to leave, then I will leave with her. If you don't want me here, Father, I can go now. Tell me now, and I will go get them out of their beds.”

  “You're being dramatic about this, John. I just want to know why. And why can't we still use her?”

  “What would you have me do? You want me to use her as a bargaining chip against the witches? As much as that would make our lives easier, I'm sorry to tell you that it's not going to happen.”

  “How can you possibly know that?”

  “Because she helped me a little while ago. She watched me kill two of her family members and almost her sister. If she was going to do something against me, she would have done it then, Father. And I don't know how much of a bargaining chip she could be now, after going against her own family.”

  Dominic shut up for a moment and John basked in the silence. It had been a long time since John had shut him up, so he was just going to have to enjoy it. He knew that soon enough, it was going to be gone.

  He was right, of course, it lasted about a minute and a half before Dominic got his wind back.

  “So, you're telling me that you are with this girl?”

  By the way that he said it and the tone of voice used, John could tell that his father was not happy about the prospect of it at all.

  “Yes, Father, I am.”

  “You hardly know her.”

  “I know enough about her to have fallen in love with her. At this point in my life, I know what real is, and this is it. I'm not going to let anything jeopardize us.”

  “I don't think I've ever heard you talk about a woman like that before.”

  “Because I haven’t. I've never felt this way before, and all I want to do is protect her. And her family is crazy, and I wish the circumstances were better, but this is what it is. I have to keep her and Dana safe, and if what Laura says is right, we all need to scatter.”

  “How are we going to fight them if we all scattered?”

  “You get the women and children to a safe place, and then we need to attack. That is all I have been able to come up with so far. I'm sure that the details will come to me as they always have before, but for now, all I want to focus on is getting all the vulnerable people out of here. Laura has made it clear that her family wants to eradicate our bloodline. She says that they view us as animals.”

  “And what of your girlfriend?”

  “What of her?”

  “Does she know that she is carrying an animal’s baby?”

  “What are you talking about, Father?” John snapped a little bit.

  “I am talking about her carrying your baby. What does her witch family think about that?”

  “How would you know such a thing? It hasn’t even been…”

  John shook the idea out of his head.

  “I just know. I knew as soon as you guys got close to the village. That will be my grandchild and your legacy. How have you not felt it already?”

  “Well, to be blunt, we just had sex one night a few weeks ago before she took off. I haven't had time to think about it, you know, with the witches attacking us in the middle of the night, and now I am here. I certainly haven't had time to process anything.”

  “Well, you need to start. You have gotten a witch pregnant. You're not mated. And you're supposed to become Alpha. How do you expect our people to accept any of those things?”

  “At the moment, it doesn't matter what they expect from me or what I expect from them. All I'm worried about is keeping my family safe. You can worry about the politics of it later. You are always good at that.”

  Dominic was quiet for a moment, and then he finally agreed.

  “When this is all over, you're going to have to do it right, or she's going to have to leave.”

  “And you would accept her? A Baxter witch?”

  “I'm not going to say that I like it or that I didn't wish something else for you, but if you love her, that's all that matters. I have waited a long time for you to finally find someone. I am certainly not going to stand in the way of that. I am not going to encourage it, but if you're going to take over as Alpha, you need to do it right for your heir. You need
to do the ceremony. I have told you before that an Alpha always needs a mate. It will help keep you balanced.”

  John was shocked more than anything else. To hear his father talk like that was quite surprising. He usually had nothing good to say, and certainly he had never been so understanding before. It made John think that maybe his father was finally changing, though something did not add up. He wanted to ride the wave of positivity as long as possible, even though there was something nagging him in the back of his mind.

  John tried his best to keep a level head, but it was hard to do so in the face of everything. As much as he wanted to believe that his father was finally coming around, he knew that he had to be careful. He had been tricked before and did not want to let it happen again.

  “You can meet her tomorrow, Father. Then we can talk about what we're going to do next. For now, everybody needs to get ready to leave. I wish some people would start leaving now.”

  “I still don't know where you want everybody to go.”

  “I want everybody to pair up as families or just go single. The only way that we make it safer for everybody is to make sure that we are away from each other. We don't want to be one big target.”

  Dominic still wasn't sure if splitting up was the right thing to do, John could see it on his face, but he agreed. If nothing else, John hoped that his father understood that he was going to do everything to keep the pack safe. Dominic clearly couldn't bring himself to do what needed to be done.

  Laura waited for John to come back. He had promised that they would talk about what was between them, which was based on a lie, but Laura was far more worried about it with what was presently going on. She didn't want to talk about the past, even if it was only a few weeks back. It seemed like a lifetime ago. Laura was only concerned about the future now.

  When he finally came to the room, she was able to breathe a sigh of relief. For whatever reason, Laura always felt safer around John. With everything going on between them, she probably shouldn't feel that way, but she couldn't help herself. When she was next to him, everything seemed to drift away.

  She moved into his arms and kissed him almost immediately. As many times as they had tried to stop it in the past, Laura did not see the point anymore. The only point that she could see was that she was with him. Laura had given up her whole life for him, though she didn't regret it at all. How could she, when he was the first person to ever make her feel alive?

  “I am glad you are happy to see me. I didn't think that would be the case, Laura, especially considering that you took off after we shared that night together.”

  “I didn't like seeing what was in that folder. I thought that this was all happenstance, and it was rather surprising to find out that it wasn't. I was afraid you thought I was your enemy, even though I have never been like my family. I didn’t even know until a couple of days ago that your pack was going to be the one that was hit.”

  “I knew who you were, but I learned quickly that you weren’t like your family.”

  “Then what changed? How are we now here, like this?”

  “You know why it changed; I fell for you. That's all there is to it. I love you, and there's no way that I can use you, even if the danger is still here. We will just have to find another way. I won’t use you as leverage, Laura. I never should have even considered it.”

  “What about the rest of them? They must hate me.”

  “They don't hate you, Laura. They don't even know you. My father has already blessed the union, so the rest of the pack will fall in line when this is all over.”

  “What union?”

  “The one between you and me. He also seems to think that you are carrying my child.”

  John paused for a moment and waited for her to deny it. When she didn’t, he just kept going.

  “So, if that is the case, we need to be mated so that I can become the Alpha. It is time that we make this official, Laura. If you are carrying the Alpha’s heir, it needs to be done right between us.”

  Laura genuinely did not know what to say. It was happening so fast, even though it was the only trajectory that made sense.

  “What about my family?”

  “There is going to be a showdown, whether we like it or not, and I hope you can forgive me for what I'm going to have to do.”

  Laura bit her lip and tried to silence her doubts. They were running fast through her mind. All she could think about was what could happen and none of it ended well.

  “I don't want to watch my family die, John, no matter how crazy they can be. I know that we have to defend ourselves, but I don’t have to like it.”

  “I know you don’t want to do this. I wish we didn’t have to either, but I do it for all of us. You know what would happen if you went back.”

  Laura sighed and agreed. She knew there was no other way, but it wasn’t going the way she wanted it to. She wished that her family would back off, but Laura knew that they wouldn’t. It just wasn’t in their blood.

  “I worry about you all. My family can be very determined and resourceful.”

  “We aren’t going to lose, Laura.”

  As much as she wanted to believe him, she knew that nothing was guaranteed. Her family was strong even though they were a few down. They still had a lot of power and the deaths of her aunts just made the magic reabsorb into who was left, making them even more powerful than before.

  Laura had felt a surge of power go through her once her aunts had died. Their power was now a part of her as well. She was stronger than before, by quite a bit. Laura was still surprised that John had been able to take any of them out.

  “I hope you’re right, John. I don’t want to think of anyone getting hurt, but sometimes I think that it would be a mercy. Madeline would have never agreed to any of this if she would have ever thought that there was a way to do anything different.”

  “She chose to back them.”

  “No, she didn’t. Madeline moved away years ago, as soon as she could really, so that she wouldn’t be subject to all of their hate. They pulled her back in, told her it was to save the family, and she is going with it because she has to.”

  “You have to then as well, from what you’re saying.”

  Laura opened her mouth to say something and then closed it. She didn’t like that he was using sense on her. At the moment, it felt like she was the one that was being silly. He just didn’t understand.

  “I was the rebel, and I paid for it.”

  “But you still did it.”

  Laura liked to think that she wouldn’t have gone through with it, even if it wasn’t John and Dana, but she wasn’t sure. She wouldn’t have killed kids and innocent people, but would she have helped with the one that was guilty?

  Laura was afraid of the darkness, watching it ravage her family. She refused to be another casualty.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The plan was that everyone would leave in the morning. A few people had taken off for the night, but the remainder of the pack stayed around. That was the first in a series of mistakes that they made that night. John was awoken to the screams of the people around him. There was fire breaking out everywhere, and he was up almost immediately.

  Laura was lying next to him, and he went to get Dana, taking them both outside to hide in the woods.

  “You guys stay here, and I will be back soon.”

  She pulled him towards her and kissed him feverishly. Laura suddenly wondered if she was ever going to see him again. She could tell from the flames alone that it was her family doing it. There was a particular hue to it, purple, like most of the magic that came out of them. Her family had arrived, and their plan was in full effect. She looked around at all of the people that were running and screaming and crying. It was more than she could bear. To Laura, it felt like it was all her fault.

  She held Dana close to her for a moment and then sat her back against the tree.

  “I am going to stand up and make a barrier. It should keep us safe from the flames.
I just need you to stay right there, okay, Dana?”

  “Just don't leave me, Laura.”

  Laura promised that she wasn't going anywhere. “I am just going to make sure that everyone is safe from the flames.”

  The flames were getting larger by the second and Laura knew that if she didn't do it soon, if she could even do it at all, then the whole village would be engulfed. Laura didn't have to look around to know that there was a complete circle around the village. It was going to burn to the middle before it went out.

  That was how the spell worked, and Laura knew that nothing was going to stop the unnatural flames until it burned its way to the middle. Water, air, sand, nothing would help until the flames were left to do their part and fizzle out. From her vantage point, there was nothing that Laura could do to stop it. All she could try and do, was protect them instead.

  Laura had never been too enthused with magic, but she had learned quite a bit of defensive magic when she was younger. One of the first things that she discovered was a force field. Back then, of course, it was just for her. Now it had to be for everyone.

  Speaking louder and louder with each rendition of the incantation, Laura could see the beginning of it starting in the middle of the sky. She had to speak faster and louder, trying to get it to come to the ground and finish so that they wouldn’t burn up. Laura tried to save them all from certain death.

  While she was trying to hold the magic together, it would have been easier for her to do if she would have kept up with her studies and practiced. But the sheer need of it all ensured that it was going to stay up. It was not her magic that was going to keep the forcefield up, but sheer will at this point.

  The fire burned itself towards the center of the circle. It seemed to last forever, but maybe it was only a couple of moments. As the fire started to recede, people were beginning to realize what was happening. They were moving towards her, and Laura noticed Dana’s grandfather coming. She asked him to take Dana so that she could help John.