Read Online Impulse: Southern Arcana, Book 5 by Moira Rogers - Free Book Online Page A

“She brought him around to Dixie John’s a couple weeks ago. He knows how to melt every adult woman in a ten-mile radius already. The servers were fighting over who got to give him milkshakes and cookies.”
    Jackson groaned. “Lord help us.”
    “He’s your kid all right,” Sera pointed out, trying not to laugh. “Do you think I’ll get to see him before Julio picks me up?”
    He checked his watch. “They should be here in a few minutes.”
    Sera picked up a pen and hesitated with the tip hovering over the top form. “Can I ask you something kind of personal? It’s okay if you don’t want to answer.”
    “Shoot.”
    She tried to think of a way to ask the question that wouldn’t make her own inner turmoil painfully transparent, but Jackson wasn’t just a detective with a keen understanding of human nature. He was the man who’d had to heal her face after Josh had smashed it in. He was the man married to a woman who’d fought her own battle against the coming death of her species.
    He’d know. But she didn’t think he’d tell anyone else. “Is it hard? Raising a wolf when you’re…not one?”
    “Yes,” he answered seriously. “But I don’t know that it would be easier if I were a wolf. Being a parent is supposed to be hard, isn’t it?”
    “Yeah.” She filled out her name in carefully formed letters. Seraphina Agatha Irene Sinclaire. Her mother had named her for three different saints, and had raged when none of them proved worthy protection. “I guess for some of us, it’s worrying about the line between hard and tragic.”
    “I think that line is unique to individuals, darlin’, and not always something you can see coming.”
    “You’re probably right.” Sera made herself smile. “Hey, maybe the line’s not as thin as it used to be. Things are looking up around here, right?”
    “They are,” he agreed. “Lots of changes, and plenty more on the way.”
    Sera caught a whisper of Mackenzie’s voice at the edge of her hearing, still muffled by the wall but familiar enough to be recognizable. She capped the pen and swept all of her papers into a neat stack topped by a bright pink Post-it. “I think I hear Mac.”
    Jackson didn’t quite jump out of his chair, but he did push it back and rise as the door opened with a jingle. Cody walked in first, his features schooled in a mask of concentration. “Ask me another one.”
    “All right, smart guy.” Mackenzie grinned at Sera over Cody’s head. “Six times eight.”
    “Forty-eight.” He didn’t wait for confirmation that he was correct, just whooped and stomped over to Jackson’s desk. “I’m practicing my times tables.”
    “So I hear.” He ruffled Cody’s hair. “Good job.”
    “Thanks.” The boy leaned on the desk for a moment before easing past Jackson to crawl into his desk chair. “Hey, Sera.”
    “Hey, Cody.” He had dark hair and serious eyes, along with a tough little alpha shell that made her wonder what Julio had been like as a boy. “I think you’re better at math than I am already.”
    His nose wrinkled. “But you’re a grown-up.”
    Maybe this was too early for a stay-in-school lecture. Sera wrinkled her nose back at him. “Some grown-ups aren’t good at math. My favorite subjects were science and history.”
    “I like P.E. I’m the fastest runner in the class—” He bit off the words with an apprehensive look at Mackenzie. “But I don’t run too fast, I promise.”
    “I know you don’t, honey.” Mackenzie perched on the edge of the desk and smoothed a strand of Cody’s hair back before smiling at Sera. “How’re you doing, Sera? I heard you had some trouble the other night.”
    Mackenzie’s concern pressed in on her, different than the dominant power that flowed from the wolves but every bit as real. “I’m fine,” she said, trying to put a little push behind the words. “Everyone’s got it under control.”
    For a few seconds the older woman studied her, and the concern tipped over