Page 3 of The Human’s Heart

I could hear his chuckle in my head—the reaction I always got when I used that silly nickname. It was the reason I said it. I liked hearing him laugh. He had a really great laugh, and knowing I was the one who’d made him happy always made my chest feel warm with affection for him.

“Alright. I think we need maybe ten more sandwiches, and we should be good to take everything outside,” Sebastian said, bringing my attention back to the task at hand.

I stared at the humongous pile of sandwiches on the biggest serving platter I’d ever seen and raised a brow at Zay’s grandfather. “You really think we need ten more?”

He nodded without hesitation. “Most of the men on that crew are shifters or some other supe. Have you ever seen how much a shifter eats? You saw Kian’s appetite when he stayed here, didn’t you?”

“Wow, I’m really bad at recognizing supes. I thought all of them were humans,” I muttered under my breath.

Of course, Sebastian heard me because he was also a supe, and he chuckled. “You’ll get better at it.”

“You really think so?”

“I know so. When I first found out magic was real, I couldn’t tell what anyone was unless they shifted or did magic right in front of me.”

“Humans really didn’t know about supes and magic back then?”

He snorted. “Back then. You make me sound ancient.”

I couldn’t help but grin. “Well… you were in my history books, so…”

He barked out a laugh, shaking his head. “That’s still so weird to me. I never would’ve imagined I’d be in someone’s history book. Wild.” When I glanced at him, I noticed his cheeks were red.

I said, “I remember learning about you and Ailin. You guys were invaluable in, um… that one war… what’s it called?” I pursed my lips in thought. “Oh! The Berserker War, right?”

“Yep, that was us. Still wild I’m in those books.” His cheeks were even redder now, and if it wouldn’t be super weird to call Zay’s grandfather, of all people, cute, I’d think he was cute. But he was Zay’s grandfather. Ew. Weird. I was being weird.

To cover that… weirdness, I said, “You know, in high school, we had to write a book report on a famous person who helped our country or something like that—I can’t really remember the exact prompt. But the teacher gave us a list of people to choose from. You and Ailin were both on it.”

“Oh really? Who’d you pick?”

Now I felt my own cheeks heating. “Um… honestly? I, uh, picked Ailin.”

That made him bark out a loud laugh again. “Oh god, he’s gonna love that.”

“To be fair, you were in my book report too since you guys did a lot of things together, but yeah, I definitely did a multi-page report on Ailin.”

“That’s hilarious. Did you tell Zay about this?”

I snorted. “No. It’s way too embarrassing.”

He grinned at me. “It’s not embarrassing at all. I think it’s awesome. Do you remember why you picked him? Or was it just random?”

I shrugged. “Truthfully, I ended up picking Ailin because I read about him taking in and adopting all the kids in his coven after, well, you know after what, obviously. But yeah, I thought it sounded… really amazing to have a family like that. So I wanted to learn about the man who cared that much about kids, some of whom he wasn’t even related to.”

I didn’t realize I’d stopped what I was doing and was staring off into space until Sebastian’s arm came around my shoulders as he pulled me into a gentle hug. I so wasn’t used to things like this—this simple affection from a parent-like figure—but I found myself leaning into him and accepting the embrace gratefully.

He hugged me for a few seconds, then surprised me further by kissing my forehead before he released me and whispered, “You have a family now, Hugo. No matter what, I promise you, you have a family now. I know it’s hard to believe this, but even without your connection to Zaos, we would want you as a part of our family.”

My eyes filled with tears that I quickly wiped away with my wrists as I sucked in a deep breath. Instead of fighting it, instead of dismissing what he said as him simply being kind in the moment, I decided to go with my gut instinct, with my heart, and believe him. Everything inside of me was telling me he meant every word.

So I sent him a shaky smile and whispered, “Thank you.”

“Anytime, sweetie.” He smiled softly at me. “You’re an Ellwood now, so you better get used to hugs.”

I let out a laugh, grateful that he’d cut the tension. “I’m trying. Might take me a minute.”

“Yeah, I get that. It took me a while too. I grew up in an orphanage, so I never had a family. Not until Ailin came along and turned my world upside down… in the best possible way.”