“Brother?” Jacand looked at me over his shoulder. “He is too a dog.”
“I mean, yeah, he is, but he’s not a dog-dog.”
“What’s that even mean?” Jacand laughed.
“He’s my shifter,” I said, my brain scrunching he’s my mate and he’s a shifter into one sentence.
“What’s that slang for? Are you old people inventing new words again?”
“No, we leave that to the kittens,” I said. “Jacand, this is my mate, Vatten. Vatten, this is Jacand. He’s not my youngest sibling, but he is the one you’ll see most often.”
“Why are you making him stay in dog form?” Jacand turned to face me, his brows knitted together in confusion.
Vatten smelled more than a little amused.
“I’m not making him do anything,” I said. “Now, go down the hall and pee.”
Vatten let out a bark that sounded a bit like a laugh. He called me bossy.
“Sheesh!” he turned back to Vatten sitting on the bed. “Bark three times if he’s delusional and holding you hostage.”
Vatten just wagged his tail, and I ushered my baby brother from the room.
“So, if he’s really your mate, does that mean I really can’t have the extra bedroom? I figured I could live here when there wasn’t any school,” Jacand said as I walked him to the bathroom to ensure he didn’t make any other detours. I stayed by the door until I heard him lift the toilet seat and then sprinted back down the hall to apologize to Vatten. My mate was back in human form pulling his pants over that glorious ass I was groping only minutes before.
“Sorry about that,” I said. “He’ll be gone in a few minutes.”
“Don’t kick him out on my account.”
“If I don’t kick him out, he’ll move in,” I laughed, leaning against the doorway.
“He’s young. I think it’s sweet that he wants to hang out with you instead of his friends.”
I almost said what friends, but that wasn’t quite true. Jacand had some friends even if they didn’t seem that close. It was hard to fit in as a domestic shifter in a city full of dragons and large mammal shifters.
The toilet flushed and the sink turned on.
“At least he’s washing his hands,”my cat chimed in, licking his paw inside his inner sanctum.
“Really, let him visit for a bit and then he’ll probably leave on his own,” Vatten said. “I don’t want my first real contact with your family to be you kicking out a kitten because of me. That—That makes me seem like an ass.”
“I’m the ass. They know I’m the ass,” I said.
“We do,” Jacand said, coming out of the bathroom. “But like Dad says, you’re our ass.”
Vatten pulled his shirt back on and I fought off the urge to swear under my breath. Everything inside me yelled to pick up Jacand and set him outside in the apartment’s hallway. He’d be fine. He knew his way home.
“Is there anything to eat?” Jacand asked.
“Isn’t that a question for Nashen and Bernard?” I teased him.
“You think I’d take food from a stressed out pregnant man who thought his sister tried to kill a bunch of cuddlers?” he asked, walking to the kitchen.
Vatten followed him and that meant I did too. Jacand opened the fridge and grinned at finding the box of danishes left behind.
“Want one?” he held out the box to Vatten who took one.
“Did they find Melbie?” I asked.
