Heart's Desire

Chapter 19 - Monty

Kit and the Outcast woman embrace, their faces bright and tear-streaked with surprise and joy, and babble happily at one another in a strange, shorthand language I can barely understand.

Finally, I tap Kit's shoulder and bring his attention back to me.

"Seems you two know each other. Won't you introduce me?"

Kit clasps the woman's hand, and a weird feeling rises in my heart. It takes me a moment to find a name for it, as it's something I haven't experienced before: jealousy. 

Which is ridiculous, given the woman's mate is standing a few feet away, holding her baby. Kit's next words only reinforce this opinion.

"This is my cousin, Ophelia," he says, smiling. "And Ophie, this is my Ma— I mean, my Monty."

Kit blushes scarlet for some reason, and Ophelia laughs. "Your 'Monty?' What's a Monty?"

"That'd be me, Ma'am," I say, stepping forward and extending my hand. "Monty Hunter. Pleased to meet you."

She smiles warmly. "Likewise." Then she turns back to Kit. "But, Kitty, what are doing here? Did they finally let you go?"

Kit shakes his head, making his honey-gold curls bounce, and his bright flush fades back to his natural, cool olive tone. "No. I... I escaped. But what about you, Ophie?" he asks, his coffee-black eyes going wide again. "They told me... They told me you were dead."

She nods, her expression darkening, and leaves Kit's side, taking the baby back from the gaunt, black-haired man. "Let's go somewhere more comfortable, and I'll tell you. The trailer's too small for everyone, but there's a picnic spot by the river, if you don't mind a little walk."

No one objects, and so after gathering a few things from inside their house, the couple leads us all past the edge of the park and down a wide path of packed dirt to a level area close to the river. The water is slow and deep here, and it looks like a nice place to swim. A row of picnic tables line the bank, and Ophelia takes us to one of these, beneath the spreading bows of an old cottonwood tree.

Again, I feel a twinge of irrational jealousy as Kit sits beside his cousin. Her mate sits on her other side, and Jake, Dane, and Freya sit opposite. My feeling is doubly irrational, as there's no room for me at the table, anyway. Dane barely fits, straddling the end, and it's not made with people my size in mind. I stand a little off to the side, leaning against a large boulder, and feeling conspicuously out of place, like an ogre at a tea party.

"So, dead, huh?" Ophelia laughs, once everyone is settled. Her baby had started to fuss in its father's arms, so she'd taken it, pulled down the front of her shirt, and offered it her breast. That she'd done so in front of three strange men spoke of her comfort with her natural body and her motherhood, and the fact her mate hadn't batted an eye said something, too. He respected her, and was perhaps the less dominant of the pair—though, I realize belatedly, I hadn't smelled Wolf on him at all.

"That's what Uncle Oba told us," Kit confirms, reaching over to stroke the baby's downy hair, then pausing uncertainly. "Can I?"

His cousin smiles. "'Course you can, Kitty. This is little Kitra by the way. I named her after you, as you're the reason she's alive, though it means 'crowned one,' and not 'fox.'"

Kit blushes again and gently touches the baby's head. "Kitra," he repeats softly.

Dane clears his throat, nodding at the man seated at her side. "And, um, your husband?"

"Oh! Silly me—head in the cloud, as usual. I'm sorry, honey." She pats her husband's arm. "This is Ed, my Chosen, my Mate, the love of my life, and the reason my family likes to pretend I'm dead, apparently. My ex-family, I should say."