My One and Only (Bewitched and Bewildered #10)(38)

Aiden eyed her closely. "What are you going to do?"

"Google it," she replied.

"No Facebook," he warned.

"No Facebook," she agreed.

"I'm spending the day with Kari and uncle," Beth said quickly.

"Vivi and I will be in the lab," Rheia added.

Anne turned to Ellie. "We'll be busy on Level Six with the children."

"I'll be in meetings with Stefan all morning," Eva added.

Serenity watched as the women effectively called 'not it' in response to Meryn's sudden thirst for learning.

Micah turned to her and raised a brow. She nodded. Someone had to watch over the odd human and if she were completely honest with herself, she was dying to see what she said next.

"My one and only and I can keep the midget company today," Micah offered magnanimously.

Around the table the men exhaled in relief. Serenity could tell that each of them envisioned fielding questions from Meryn all morning about different lifestyles choices.

"I'm not a midget," Meryn protested sounding distracted. She tilted her head sideways to look at her laptop.

Aiden looked over at them. "You have my thanks."

Serenity turned to Ryuu. "Can you watch over her later, so I can do rounds up at the hospital."

Ryuu nodded. "Of course. Let me know whenever you need to leave, looking after Meryn is no hardship." Serenity had a feeling there wasn't much Ryuu would consider a hardship.

Serenity turned to Vivi. "Did you make any headway with Aiden's blood yesterday?"

Vivi nodded. "Thanks to Kendrick we can see the virus now to run different tests. We found out that whoever created this thing based it on Hepatitis C, which is why the warriors were immune, they all received the vaccine for it. I'm trying to backward engineer a cure based on that, but it's going to take a while."

Colton frowned. "Can't you just give them the vaccine?"

Ellie shook her head. "A vaccine is a preventative measure not a medicine," she said sounding sad.

"We are a step closer than we were yesterday," Adriel reminded them.

Vivi brightened. "You're absolutely right. We're light years ahead of where we were even earlier this week."

Kari held up her iPad. "Do not forget we have the meeting with the Founding Family and Noble Heads this afternoon to update everyone concerning Warrick's elevation in rank and to let them know Magnus is cured."

Around the table groans went up. Kari ignored them. "Personally, I am looking forward to it. These changes are a long time coming," she said, grinning evilly.

Magnus sat back. "I find that I am looking forward to it as well," he admitted.

Meryn picked up her laptop and rotated it ninety degrees. Magnus frowned. "Meryn, what is the matter?"

"Do you think naked men look weird? I mean, the gods or whoever were on the right track creating man. Chest muscles, forearms, chiseled eight pack and then. Bam! Penis, kinda stuck on like an afterthought." She turned her laptop again. "Looks detachable."

Aiden's head snapped around. "What are you looking at!" He grabbed her laptop, shut it and handed it to Ryuu.

"I'm studying art!" Meryn protested.

"Naked art?" Aiden asked. "How did you go from leather daddies to naked art?"

Meryn blinked. "I don't know. I just kept clicking links and before I knew it..."

Rheia gave Meryn a sympathetic looked. "I've done something like that before. I Googled homeschooling curriculums for Penny, which led me to this site about homesteading, then canning, then disaster prepping. I logged off when I realized I had spent an hour reading about cult suicides."

Aiden paled. "The Google is dangerous?"

"That happens to me all the time, it's how I learn," Meryn said. "But usually it's about blood splatter, serial killers and corpse farms."

Declan leaned forward. "What on earth is a corpse farm?"

Meryn's face lit up. "It's where research facilities put out a whole bunch of dead bodies in like a field with cages around them, so scavengers can't get to them and they study stuff like rate of decomposition and how long it takes for bugs to get in the body, and maggot growth, stuff like that."

Aiden spit out his waffles and covered his mouth with his hand. Serenity heard dry heaves and saw that Colton was hanging on by a thread. Laelia popped up out of her seat and placed a hand on his back. Serenity sent soothing magic around the table to settle the more delicate tummies.

Sebastian sighed. "Now that breakfast is over, I will bring in extra coffee, lattes and espressos to fortify everyone for their day."

Ryuu patted Meryn on the head and looked around the room. "Isn't she adorable?"

Colton looked up at Aiden a bit wild eyed. "Thank the gods Keelan wasn't here for that." Aiden nodded.

Meryn squirted ketchup all over her scrambled eggs. Colton and surprisingly Rex bolted from the room. Meryn chuckled and kept eating. Laelia shook her head and sat back down. Radclyffe rubbed her back. "You tried, dearest."

"Adorable," Ryuu repeated.

Kendrick chuckled. "That she is."

"Thank god the twins weren't here," Rheia said leaning back in her chair as Hal started picking up plates.