Page 3 of The Alpha and the Baker

“None of that now, Arietty. I need you to calm down and come with me, all right?”

I was doing my best not to escalate things, and I wasn’t really worried about my safety.

Sure, maybe she would nick me or give me a bruise or two, but I would heal within minutes.

Maybe she would bite me if things escalated really far, but I didn’t see Arietty reacting that strongly.

As far as I knew, she’d only just started puberty.

“Your daddy and mama are gonna be real thrilled to see you! You take after both of them, ya know? You can’t see yourself yet, but I can.”

Apparently, my comforting needed a little improvement, because instead of settling, Arietty lunged forward as if she was going to snap at me.

I’d been around the block a time or two, and although I didn’t like fighting if I didn’t have to, I’d brawled enough in my life to know when someone was bluffing, and my niece was most definitely doing just that.

So, I charged right back at her, arms wide to catch her in a hug.

I couldn’t do that with a full-grown wolf shifter, but she was essentially the size of a large husky.

Much to my chagrin, Arietty predicted my move and dodged to the side.

Clearly, she was still getting used to the strength in her legs, because she slammed into the oven.

The glass shattered and crashed to the floor.

Well, now I definitely couldn’t let her slurp up any of the stuff she spilled.

Taking advantage of her surprise and the time she took to shake off the glass, I rushed forward and picked her up. She let out quite an indignant sound and kicked, but I carried her out, all the while using my alpha voice to soothe her.

“Breathe, Arietty. Breathe and focus on my voice. You will stop this nonsense now.”

Alpha voice was a complex skill that was easy to abuse. It was a combination of the subharmonics that all us shifters could use and my influence as her leader. It was natural instinct for her to obey anything said in that voice, which was why I was so cautious about using it.

Some alphas weren’t, but I was resolved to never cause harm to anyone in my pack. There was too much blood and pain in our history, and while I could never erase that, I was resolved to make sure I made it a distant, distant memory.

Arietty relaxed within my grasp, and I brought her out onto the grass. Quite a crowd had gathered, but they wisely gave us space.

It was yet another reason why I was so grateful to my pack.

Yeah, we had our squabbles and drama like all large families and communities did, but we didn’t have any bad eggs.

No one malicious who would try to hurt others for entertainment, no Karens, no Bitter Bettys, and no Lecherous Lennys trying to break up relationships.

On the whole, we all just wanted to live and let live.

Now, I wasn’t so na?ve to think it would always stay that way—after all, life liked to happen, but I definitely appreciated it in the moment.

“There you are,” I murmured as I put her down on the grass and scratched behind her ears.

“I know it’s a big, scary world right now, and no one was expecting this, but you’re safe.

No one’s mad at you. In fact, we’re all very happy for you.

We just weren’t expecting it to happen so soon, that’s all. Not even you.”

She whined and pressed her head harder into my hands.

Poor girl. Her human mind was probably only just beginning to catch up now that there was no food to distract her.

Unfortunately, since she was new to having her wolf form, she likely didn’t know how to turn back yet, and it would take her a while to figure it all out.

“There you go. That’s my girl. Just settle for a moment and let yourself breathe . You’ve made us all so proud. Look at you, so healthy and strong!”

“Arietty?” a familiar voice called. A moment later, the crowd parted, and Chris and Bethany came rushing toward us. “ Arietty! ”

I gave them space to hug their daughter, who was now letting out excited little yips.

It didn’t surprise me when her mother shifted almost immediately, licking and pawing at her daughter as they no doubt communicated in shifter-speak.

The girl still had a long way to go before she could speak back, but at least she would be able to understand it.

“Everything’s fine,” I assured my best friend. “Just made a bit of a mess, that’s all.”

Was that an understatement? Yes. But it wasn’t anything that we couldn’t repair. Besides, that was what the pack fund was for: fixing all the hiccups that came with human and shifter life.

“Thank you,” Chris said, looking up at me with those intense eyes of his. There was a depth of emotion in them I wasn’t sure I’d ever felt, and my heart squeezed at it. After everything Chris had done for me in all our years of being friends, I was finally paying it back a little.

“I’m gonna check on everyone inside. Be right back,” I said, tilting my head. Now that Arietty was with her parents, it was safe to leave her.

When I opened the door to Letitia’s house, smoke billowed out. Had a fire broken out? That was about the last thing I needed.

“How did she turn the broiler on?” Melodie shouted in frustration. She was pretty even-keeled—as much as a teenager could be—so concern lanced through me. I hurried to open a window while Auntie Letitia turned on the ventilation hood.

“It must have been when she crashed into it,” the older woman said with a heavy sigh. “This isn’t the first time a wolf has gone wild in my home, but I will say this has probably been the most damage one managed to do.”

“I can’t believe she shifted before me!” Saoirse said from where she was still pressed up against the wall. She was covered in flour, which made her bright red curls stand out more. “I’m a year and a half older than her!”

“Sometimes it works like that,” I murmured, grabbing a sheet pan and using it to wave more smoke out the window. “Do I even want to know what was in the oven?”

“No,” Melodie said miserably as she pulled one of the pans out.

My stomach dropped when I realized the smoking, cracked, mostly cinder of a lump was none other than the very cake I’d been talking to Chris about.

“Please tell me the other cakes are cooling somewhere,” I murmured as tears welled in Melodie’s eyes.

I felt so incredibly bad for her, and I hoped she wouldn’t hold it against Arietty.

Melodie hadn’t gone through her first shift either, and was on the cusp of being a late bloomer, so she didn’t quite understand the compulsions and confusion that came with being a wolf for the first time.

“No. All the layers for all three cakes were in there,” she said, wiping her eyes bitterly. “I know she couldn’t help it, but I’m so mad!”

“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” I said as she burst into tears. Being a teenager was hard enough, but being one in a wolf pack came with so many extra hurdles. “It’s perfectly understandable to be upset, even angry. Do you want some comfort right now or space to process?”

“Hug!” she blurted, and I wrapped my arms around her, squeezing just hard enough to be comforting. I let my inner wolf rumble through my chest, figuring the young woman could use the extra soothing.

“It’s okay, Melodie. You’re all right. Let yourself feel whatever you gotta feel, and then we’ll figure out what to do.”

“Can we start from scratch?” Saoirse asked. She looked less upset than Melodie, but she wasn’t exactly happy.

“There’s not enough time for that, especially not with all the layers needing cooling,” Auntie Letitia said matter-of-factly. “But that’s all right. There won’t be any less bounty, and we can just make twice as many cakes next time!”

“Okay…” Saoirse said in a thick, high-pitched voice that told me it was absolutely not okay.

It was a trivial matter, but I couldn’t help but think of how awful Arietty would feel once she was human again and understood what happened. Was it just cake? Sure. Would we live without it? Yes. But it felt a bit like a rain cloud over what was supposed to be a very sunny day for us.

I chewed on my lip a little as I contemplated what to do. Maybe we couldn’t have the delicious, light, and fluffy cakes everyone admired Aunt Letitia for, but surely that didn’t mean we couldn’t get any cake anywhere , right?

“Letitia, did you already make the rhubarb jam and the cream?”

“Sure did. The jars are in the fridge. I was just about to pull the jam out to get it to room temp.”

“All right, I’m gonna need those.” Once Melodie was done hugging me, that was. I wasn’t planning on ending the embrace until she was ready.

“What for?”

“I’m gonna go find us some cake.”