I reach for the fluttering brown sparrow darting through the room, but my fingers close on empty air as Pip zips toward the ceiling.
"Damn. You were so close," Maddox says.
"Yeah, damn," Finn echoes.
Lily sighs. "You're not supposed to use bad words."
anwhile, I'm waving my hands frantically as I shout, "Pip, please co down!"
The tiny bird chirps manically, wings beating frantically in hunger-induced chaos. She's been shifting nonstop for twenty minutes—from bunny to kitten to fish (a terrifying thirty seconds of flopping), and now this. My heart hamrs against my ribs even as I wonder how a toddler who can barely walk a straight line has already figured out flying.
"She's losing it," Maddox says beside , craning his neck upward. "The pizza's taking too long."
Finn nods grimly. "Sugar crash. Plus she's still growing."
He sounds so wise, but I don't think her growth has anything to do with her current state of mania.
I watch helplessly as the little brown bird dives toward a particularly threatening-looking piece of wall. "Can't you guys do sothing?"
Lily crosses her arms, shaking her head. "She's too fast. Last ti she went bird, Rowan had to use a net."
"And Lily can't figure out how to fly, so she's useless," Finn adds.
"Shut up, Finn!"
The sparrow swoops directly over our heads, chirping what sounds suspiciously like swear words. Except she's a toddler, and I'm pretty sure she only knows about fifteen actual words.
Maddox sighs, sounding so resigned, you'd think he was asked to work overti. "I'll get her."
His transformation happens in a blink—one second he's a gangly preteen boy with ssy hair and eyes too old for his face, the next he's a young gorilla, his fur glossy black.
My jaw drops.
"Told you," Lily says with a shrug. "Maddox can turn into anything. Well, with a heart."
Gorilla Maddox makes his way up the cave wall with surprising Violet, powerful hands finding invisible holds in the rock. Sparrow Pip flutters in panicked circles as he approaches, her tiny heart probably racing twice as fast as mine.
"Be careful!" I call out uselessly, my hands pressed against my lips.
Pip finally perches on a ledge, her beak open as she trembles. Do birds pant? Because it looks like she's panting.
With surprising gentleness, Gorilla Maddox's massive hand cups around the tiny bird. She pecks at his fingers, but he doesn't flinch, just cradles her close to his chest and begins the descent.
"Thank god," I breathe as Maddox reaches the ground, carefully extending his palm toward . The sparrow glares at out of the side of her beady little eyes.
Lily appears out of nowhere, a bright red apple in her hand. "Look, Bird Pip! Food! Want the yummy apple? A is for apple! Ah ah apple!"
The transformation is instant—feathers disappear into chubby little arms. Maddox barely has ti to set her down before she's fully Toddler Pip again, grabby hands reaching for the fruit.
Lily thrusts it into Pip's tiny palms. "Here, eat this before you transform into a freaking pterodactyl!" Her voice is cajoling and upbeat, but the words don't match her tone.
Pip takes one giant bite of the apple, juice dribbling down her chin, her eyes wide with montary satisfaction—before her face scrunches up in disgust. She hurls the apple to the ground with unexpected force.
"NOOOOO!" Her scream bounces off every surface, amplified by the cave's acoustics into sothing almost supernatural. "PAH! PAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"
I swoop down to collect her before she can shift again, lifting her squirming body against my chest. Her back arches in my arms like sothing possessed, her spine bending at angles which can't be natural. Her tiny hands fist in my hair, yanking hard enough to bring tears to my eyes.
"Ow—Pip, stop it!" I struggle to contain her flailing limbs as she twists, doing her baby damnedest to pull my hair out of my head. "The pizza's coming!"
Lily backs away rapidly, hands to her mouth and eyes wide with horror. "Oh my Goddess, Pip, stop! The Lycan King's gonna eat us!"
I freeze, Pip still writhing in my arms like a banshee baby. "What?"
Tiny toddler teeth attack my forearm, and I bite back a yelp.
"Oh, no," Lily moans, her eyes fluttering to the ceiling. "We're dood. Maddox, can you turn into a horse? We need to run!"
"But the pizza—" Finn starts.
"Stop overreacting." Maddox's back from gorilla mode. He and Pip are both dressed, not naked; their shifts don't seem to affect their clothing. Handy, but… odd.
"Pip's hurting the Queen," Lily hisses, like I'm not right here.
He rolls his eyes. "Don't be so dramatic, Lily. She's not the Queen."
"Yes, she is!" Lily insists, backing further away from and the terrifying, feral Pip.
I'm still trying to process the mont when Finn jumps in, rounding on Maddox. "Dude, don't you pay any attention? The King wiped out an entire pack just because her ex-boyfriend was in it. They said the bodies lined for miles."
Pip's sohow ended up curled around my head, chewing on my hair. I try my best to intervene in the escalating, inaccurate facts being thrown about, but every ti I open my mouth, another kid's shouting even louder.
"They say he killed like a hundred wolves because one of them looked at her wrong!"
"That's not true," I protest, fighting to be heard over Pip's continued screaming. "Asher didn't—I an, he did kill so of my pack, but not because of my ex. That's ridiculous."
They all stare at with varying degrees of horror and fascination.
Finn turns to Maddox. "See? Told you."
"She said so," Maddox defends.
I groan.
Lily's eyes go impossibly wider. "See? He kills anyone who hurts her! We're dead. We're so dead. Maddox, make Pip stop eating Violet before we're all dinner."
"Stop it," Maddox says firmly. "You're scaring Pip."
But Pip is past caring, her hunger tantrum reaching nuclear levels. She yanks my hair again with a wild, angry scream, and I sohow get her off my head and into my arms, facing out.
I'm genuinely bewildered and more than a little… lost. Between the feral toddler, the crazy rumors, and just—this place.
Am I supposed to be the adult managing this situation? Or should I just leave it be?
"When did you even hear about any of this?" I ask, baffled.
Finn shrugs. "Everyone knows."
Pip chooses that mont to slam her head backward, catching square in the chin. My eyes water.
"Damn it, Pip!" I gasp, tasting blood where I've bitten my tongue.
The toddler suddenly goes rigid in my arms, her eyes wide as dinner plates. Her entire body shudders, and for one horrifying mont, I think she's about to shift into sothing with claws while still in my arms.
Instead, she opens her mouth and lets out an ear-splitting wail.
"PAH!" she screams, pointing toward the cave entrance we can't see from this chamber.
"Pizza's here," Maddox translates.
Lily and Finn bolt for the entrance.
I stand alone, still holding the suddenly cooperative Pip, my mind spinning.
How the hell did I go from pack outcast to shifter royalty in the span of days? And more importantly—does Asher know these rumors are spreading like wildfire?
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