Total pages in book: 123
Estimated words: 113332 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 567(@200wpm)___ 453(@250wpm)___ 378(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 113332 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 567(@200wpm)___ 453(@250wpm)___ 378(@300wpm)
“Do you have any brandy? We just need to make sure not to give him too much,” Laurent tried, at his wit’s end.
Nao opened her eyes wide. “Are you insane?”
At this point, panic had a tight hold on Laurent’s throat, and he raised his arms, on the verge of crying. “I don’t know! It would help him sleep!”
Nao grabbed at her fluffy blonde hair. “Oh my God, Laurent! Have you not heard of fetal alcohol syndrome? Liquor is really bad for babies.”
“Milk of the poppy?”
This time Nao laughed out loud but she sounded like she was on the verge of hysteria herself. “I know someone who can help.” She pulled out her phone and her thumb worked with the speed of a cockroach running from sunshine.
Laurent wanted to crawl under the sofa and have his existence forgotten when Knight came into the room and managed to calm down Xavier within the span of three minutes. Where Laurent and Nao had been afraid to take him out of the crib, Knight picked the baby up and rocked him in his arms, pacing around the room as if he’d done this a thousand times. The crying first dwindled, only to completely stop as Xavier’s eyes shut, and he fell into a slumber, cradled against Knight’s cut.
“There we go…” Knight said with a smile, looking up at Laurent and Nao.
“How did you know what to do?” Laurent uttered.
Knight shook his head. “I have lots of younger siblings. And many nephews and nieces. Kids are easy to handle.”
“Are they really?” Laurent washed his hands again and again, because he needed to do something with them. “What if I am not suited for it? I don’t want to send my child away.”
Nao frowned. “What are you talking about? What’s the point of going through all this to give it up for adoption?”
Laurent rubbed his eyes. “I meant a place where he would grow up so that he can come back when he is an appropriate age. But I don’t want that. It’s not the modern way, and it’s not the way I want to do things.”
Knight patted Laurent’s shoulder as he passed again from one corner of the room to the other. “You’ll be fine. Sure, there’s stuff you need to learn, but didn’t you always say you’re a fast learner?”
Nao sat next to the empty crib and propped her feet on the coffee table. “Now I need brandy. We should have looked for it, Laurent.”
Knight laughed and nudged Laurent’s shin with the tip of his boot. “All new parents go through this. There’s plenty of people you can ask for advice, and I could get you some kind of tutorial with the basics of baby care. Maybe we should start now? Polish that shell with some baby oil?”
Laurent took one more deep breath and stood up from the armchair, but then reality hit him so hard his lungs collapsed, his knees went soft and he sat right back up in the chair.
“Oh no,” he said in the tiniest voice. “Oh no. No, no, no, no, no! I left him. I left him at work! I am already the worst father to be!”
The happy expression dropping from Knight’s face told him all about what Knight thought of him now. “I’ll stay with Xavier. Beast is in the basement. You know where. Just be careful when you go there.”
Laurent forced his legs to move, but he wasn’t able to find his voice to answer Knight, so he ran out of the room without a word. All day long he’d wanted to find out what Beast was up to, but never like this.
Chapter 18 - Beast
“When’s Knight coming back? It’s his turn to get the bagged cement,” Fox said behind Beast’s back.
Jake rolled his eyes. “He said it was an emergency, didn’t he? I’ll go,” he said and left the underground chamber that was way too small to comfortably accommodate them all. Its low and dark walls of irregular brick were oppressive to the point of producing a sense of entrapment—as if this wasn’t the cellar of their own clubhouse but some ancient tomb with walls that could move and squash intruders to a pulp.
But Beast had too many mundane problems at hand to let the irrational discomfort occupy him. He nodded, annoyed by the pettiness of some of his brothers. He didn’t have to intervene and remind them why they were doing this in the first place, but understood how the heat of the large standing lamps and the lack of space got everyone on edge.
Two days back, Shadow had approached him with a tip on the energy flow within the building. Beast had always believed the sigil carving in the cellar to be the focus of all paranormal activity, but Shadow claimed that it wasn’t where all the energy generated by the activities going on above accumulated. It drained through the sigil, even farther underground, but where to? That was the question they needed answered. This had to be the ‘crack in the ground’ that Theodore had spoken of.