Grace of a Wolf (by Lenaleia) novel Chapter 260

Chapter 260: Grace: Saved? (2)

There’s a soft, shuffling sort of sound, and I turn my head to the cat.

It stands over my phone, back arching in a long, luxurious stretch, spine curving impossibly high—and then it keeps going. Its fur ripples, somehow darker than black. The body elongates, limbs both thickening and shortening at the same time, so strangely distorted I have to blink the visual away.

It’s like the cat can’t decide what it wants to be. For a horrible, fluid second, it’s neither cat nor anything else, just a shifting mass of shadow and suggestion.

Then a face emerges from the mass.

Bun’s face.

Round cheeks. Enormous dark eyes. Her little Cupid’s bow mouth.

I jerk upright, my hands almost numb with sudden cold.

But then her sweet face flickers and shifts, and Sara’s sharp freckled features replace Bun’s for a heartbeat. Then Jer’s. Even Ron’s. Faster and faster, a carousel of children’s faces spinning through like someone flipping channels—

It settles on Bun.

The form solidifies into a toddler-sized human, bare feet, round belly, and all. Bun but not Bun, and I’m suddenly so angry I can hardly breathe.

How dare—?

How dare this thing take the form of my kids.

I push myself back onto my heels, forcing myself to stand, even as I sway. "What the hell are you?" I demand.

The Bun-shaped thing tilts its head. Its lower lip pushes out into a pout so perfect, so devastatingly toddler-accurate, that my gut clenches with recognition even as every instinct screams wrong wrong wrong.

"What, you forgot me already?" The voice comes out in Bun’s register—soft, high, candy-sweet—but wrong. She speaks like an adult, not like the baby she is. "Strange. I usually have more of an effect on people."

Ellie’s frozen. I’m still in this weird parallel world place—

Wait.

Weird otherworld? I’ve been in one before.

My eyes narrow. "Chaos...?"

"Ding-ding, bingo, yahtzee, uno," Chaos-Bun sings out, holding up both arms with a bright grin. "You’ve become brighter. Did you take something to raise your IQ, little anchor?"

Deciding not to focus on the backhanded insult disguised as a compliment, I suck in another breath, trying to settle my still-revolting stomach. The pain might be gone, but I still want to vomit.

"Why are you here?"

"Ah. Well. Hm." Chaos-Bun immediately gets a little shifty, no longer meeting my eyes. "I heard there was a strange phenomenon in this area and decided to take a look."

Funny; I’m not feeling anything insidious or dangerous coming from him, but at the same time, he doesn’t feel like an ally or a friend.

Already unnerved by the fact he’s stolen Bun’s face, I’m even more off-balance with the way he’s hiding truths.

"Did you do this? Bring us here?"

"No," he says swiftly, but his eyes go left, right, then up to the sky before he amends, "Well, I suppose you could blame it on me. But I wouldn’t."

My head’s hurting already, but I have no interest in following his blame game. "Then get us out."

"Her, too?" Chaos-Bun tilts his head as he stares at me with eyes too keenly intelligent and mature for her face. "Are you sure?"

Honestly, I couldn’t care even an iota less if Ellie stays here to rot. "Just me, then."

His little eyebrows fly up. "Really? That callous?" Then he turns to Ellie, clicking his tongue. "Bet you saw it coming, though, didn’t you? Alas, lady, I cannot do you this favor."

My hands clench at my sides. Chaos is true to his name; giving him easy reactions is not going to help me. He acts as if he’s toying with me; if I remember right—not that my memories are particularly clear—he was like that before, too.

So I take a deep breath and try to emanate the calm and poise of Lyre, hoping I even manage ten percent of her aura. "Then why are you here?"

Again, his eyes dart around. Then he sighs, shoulders slumping. "Fine. Fine! I’ll play along."

With who? But I don’t ask, only raising one brow as slowly as possible.

Nix that; both of them go up, markedly unconcerned with how cool I wanted to look by only raising one.

"Well, perhaps calamity is a strong word," he hedges, looking remarkably like a chastised Bun as he puts both hands behind his back. "Maybe situation is a better word."

Seriously, I need some sort of translator to understand the point. "I see." But I don’t. Not exactly.

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