Grace of a Wolf by Lenaleia

Chapter 178: Grace: Strange Notification

Caine’s calm demeanor is impressive as he tells Andrew to close the door behind him.

He does as ordered, awkwardly standing in the hall as the Lycan King orders children around like an expert

babysitter. Or maybe he’s just indiscriminately used to ordering people around.

"Sara, stop screaming and get a towel to clean the floor. Jer, put her cup in the sink to be washed. Ron, take Bun

and feed her ssnacks to calm her down. Fenris, keep the damn dog quiet."

From chaos to order in only fifteen seconds.

It isn’t hard to figure out what happened. Bun must have opened her cup, probably all over the cat. It explains

the demon-yowl.

"Shouldn't we dry off the cat?" Sara asks, plopping a towel over the water puddle.

"No. It might scratch you if you try." Caine hands Bun off to her older brother and motions forto ccloser.

A little confused, | stand obediently in front of him as he narrows his eyes at my face. "Your eyes are red."

| frown. "A polite person wouldn't mention it."

He seems startled, jerking his head back a little. "You think I'm polite?"

"No, because if you were, you wouldn't have mentioned it."

"Ah." He seems a little disappointed, and Fenris huffs from where he’s laying on top of Sadie, pinning her to the

floor.

The golden retriever’s eyes are wide enough to see the whites around them, and Jer looks like he’s itching to

save her from the predicament.

Sadie whines, and Fenris’s lip lifts in a soft snarl.

The whining ceases.

Caine lifts his hand to my face, brushing hair out of my eyes. The faintest touch of his fingers against my skin

sends another surge of energy his way. "You should rest more. You look exhausted."

"Actually—" Andrew interrupts, awkwardly sidling into the conversation, "have you looked at the weather?"

Caine scowls at Andrew, but his eyes seem more focused on the mere five inches between my shoulder and his

than the interruption.

He grabs my hand and yanksto his side. At least this tit doesn’t cause my brain or body to dive headfirst

into panic mode.

"What about the weather?" he demands.

The contact with his skin leaveslight-headed, my energy draining in a now-familiar way. | guess | haven't

recuperated enough arcana to make up for what we drained.

| yank my hand out of his, breathing out a soft sigh as my dizziness fades almost immediately. How long will it

take before | can handle these casual touches? A week? A month? Never?

The thought of permanently flinching away from him makes my stomach twist, but | remind myself we're

working on it. I'll just have to practice.

Andrew meets Caine’s gaze with an impassive face, and | wonder how he manages to be so calm in the midst of

all the insanity to hit us. He's just taking it all in like this is normal.

"There's a massive storm system moving in. They're saying it will hit later tonight—record rainfall, flash flooding,

the works. Temperature’s supposed to drop like twenty degrees and put us back at a normal fall chill.

"It's all over the news. They're calling it a ‘weather emergency’ and telling people to prepare for power outages."

Andrew rubs the back of his neck, then shrugs. "The weird thing is it cout of nowhere. No one knows how

it’s happening."

| blink, trying to process what he’s saying. A storm system that big doesn’t just appear. There's satellite imaging,

predictive models—

But then, we just had a strange storm coming straight out of clear skies without warning.

So | guess it can.

Caine rubs along his jaw, looking thoughtful as he stares over Andrew’s head.

"We need to find shelter," he says finally. "When is it supposed to hit?"

"Around seven tonight. Maybe eight."

"Then we have a few hours to drive. Grace, look about one hundred twenty miles out, find a place for us to stay

with a structure that can withstand tornados. Another large parking lot should do; we can run the children into

the store if it comes down to it."

"Tornados?" Sara squeaks.

Jer scoffs. "Andrew didn’t say anything about tornados!"

"We need to prepare for this storm to be as strange as the last one. Both of you, use the bathroom. We aren't

stopping this time, even if you burst."

n +

Andrew nods. "The first storm made

national news. Bunch of motorists

stranded when their venjcles did all

atopcelpéwer outages... Weather

service is getting hammered for the

lack of warning, but they say there

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was none to give. The content is on

novelenglish.net! Read the latest

chapter there!

| glance toward the window. The sky outside is clear blue, not a cloud in sight. But we know it means nothing.

I" :

Okay, kids. Get ready to go.

Everything off the floor, ULYYIE PUPS

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done." The content is on

novelenglish.net! Read the latest

chapter there!

"What about the cat?" Sara asks, hurriedly swiping up the last bits of water off the floor. "How are we going to

take it with us?"

"Oh—I don’t know if we're..."

"I'm sure it will be fine until we can buy one," Caine says calmly. "Don’t worry about other things. Just get

everything ready for us to leave again."

"Got it," they all chorus, and Jer’s the first one to run for the bathroom.

"I'm first!"

"No fair! | was going to be first!"

"Just shut up and go," Ron snaps. "Didn't you hear him? We're in a hurry."

| also have a job to do, so | escape

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from Caine’s side to sit on the couch.

One hundred and fwerty miles have

|

np igealtfat the next town is, much

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less what's coming in two hours of

driving. But my phone has everything

| need to find out. The content is on

novelenglish.net! Read the latest

chapter there!

The screen lights up, and | open my map, about to search for a potential overnight spot when a notification

banner slides down from the top of my screen.

[Divinity Connect: You have been added to the side chat, "Lyrielle’s Fan Club".]

| freeze, my thumb hovering over the screen. What the actual hell is this?