My daycare had settled into a fragile ecosystem. It was like balancing a house of cards in a wind tunnel.
Jasper built fortresses out of blocks and judged everyone silently. Vali tried to smash said fortresses. Clover hid behind my legs and offered Vali carrots as tribute to not be eaten.
It was chaotic. It was loud. But it was manageable.
Until the door didn't just open or bang... it vibrated.
"LEFT! RIGHT! LEFT! RIGHT! HUT! TWO! THREE! FOUR!"
A small blur of gold and black shot into the shop. It didn't walk. It didn't run. It did a parkour roll over a chair, vaulted off my counter, and landed in a superhero pose in the center of the rug.
"PERIMETER SECURED!" the blur shouted.
It was a boy, about seven years old—older than the others. He had messy, vibrant gold hair with distinct black streaks running through it, looking like tiger stripes. His eyes were a piercing, energetic jungle green. And he was vibrating with so much energy I felt tired just looking at him.
This was Arjun Khanda. The Hyperactive Cub.
Following him was a man who looked like he hadn't slept since the previous war.
General Rajah Khanda.
If Cassian was cold beauty and Rurik was rugged intensity, Rajah was just hot. He was a wall of muscle, towering and broad-shouldered in the same dark-blue uniform as Rurik, but with the heavy gold epaulets of a General. He had the same golden hair and green eyes as his son, but his face was etched with the deep, weary lines of a single dad who was actively losing the battle against his son's stamina.
He looked at me, then at the shop.
"Lord Jaeger said you were a miracle worker," he said, his voice deep and rough. "Please tell me he wasn't lying. I haven't sat down in four years."
"REPORTING FOR DUTY!" Arjun yelled, running laps around his father's legs. "Dad! Dad! Is this the mess hall? Is it? The Wolf-Lord said there were cookies! I don't see cookies! I see a snake! And a wolf! And a snack—I mean, a bunny! Can I do pushups now?"
He dropped to the floor and started doing pushups at mach speed. "ONE! TWO! THREE!"
Jasper stared at him from his block fortress with a look of pure, reptilian horror. "Why is he so... much?"
"He's a Tiger," Vali said, watching the pushups with interest. "They don't have off buttons."
I looked at the General. "Does he... ever stop?"
"Only when he passes out," Rajah sighed, rubbing his face. "He burns energy faster than I can feed him. He eats, gets a burst of chaos, crashes, gets cranky, eats again... it's a cycle of destruction."
My brain clicked. Hyper-metabolism.
He wasn't just hyperactive; he was hangry on a cellular level. His body was a furnace. He was burning through simple sugars too fast, causing energy spikes and crashes. He didn't need a meal; he needed dense, slow-release fuel.
"General," I said, "take a seat. Seriously. You look like you're about to keel over."
I walked over to Arjun, who was now on pushup number forty-two.
"Soldier!" I barked, using my best head-chef voice.
Arjun leaped to his feet, saluting so hard he almost hit himself in the face. "MA'AM YES MA'AM!"
"Mission briefing," I said, holding out a tray.
On it were small, dense, round balls coated in oats and nuts. High-Protein Energy Spheres. Packed with nut butters, Sun-Root powder (complex carbs), and dried meats. It was basically a gourmet, fantasy-world military ration designed to keep a soldier full for hours.
"Consume rations," I ordered.
Arjun didn't argue. He grabbed two and popped them into his mouth. He chewed. He swallowed.
He opened his mouth to yell... and paused.
The frantic vibration in his limbs slowed down. His eyes, which had been darting around the room like trapped birds, focused. The dense protein hit his stomach, anchoring him.
"Whoa," he whispered. "I feel... full? But... strong?"
"It's slow-burn fuel, Arjun," I explained. "It stops the jitters."
General Khanda, who had collapsed into a chair, watched his son actually stand still for ten consecutive seconds. His green eyes widened.
"By the ancestors," he breathed. "Is it magic?"
"It's macros," I said with a wink. "Protein, fats, and fiber."
"Can I...?" Rajah pointed weakly at the tray.
"Be my guest."
The massive General took one of the tiny energy balls and ate it. A look of pure bliss crossed his handsome, exhausted face.
"Lady Primrose," he said, looking at me with the intensity of a man who has just found water in a desert. "Rurik was right. You are a dangerous woman."
"I'm just a chef with a daycare, General."
"Dad!" Arjun yelled, but it was a normal yell, not a sonic boom. "Look! The Wolf is building a rock! I'm going to build a tank!"
He ran over to the block corner—not destroying anything, just running—and sat down next to Vali.
"Hey," Arjun said to Vali. "Your rock is pathetic. My tank will crush it."
"Try it, stripes!" Vali growled.
"Quiet, both of you," Jasper hissed from his fortress. "You're vibrating my walls."
I looked at the three problem cubs—the Wolf, the Snake, and the Tiger—all sitting in one corner. They weren't fighting (yet). They were interacting.
Rajah stood up, looking like a new man. He reached into his uniform and pulled out a heavy purse of gold.
"Enroll him," he said. "And tell me... do you offer catering for the Crimson Fang Legion? Because if you can fuel him, you can fuel an army."
I smiled, taking the gold.
Three down. Two to go.
The Little Whiskers Daycare was becoming the most powerful room in the empire. Now... I just had the Panther and the Merman left. And the Merman... that was going to be the hardest dish of all.
If I thought cooking for a panel of stone-faced Michelin judges was stressful, I had clearly never tried to manage three apex predator cubs in a confined space.
My daycare had become a war zone. A cute, fluffy, very loud war zone.
"LEFT FLANK SECURED!" Arjun shrieked, vaulting over the reading nook. "ENEMY SPOTTED AT TWELVE O'CLOCK!"
The enemy was Vali, who was currently trying to eat the leg of my favorite chair.
"I'm not an enemy!" Vali garbled, wood chips falling from his mouth. "I'm a destroyer!"
"You're a termite," Jasper drawled from his corner. The Snake-kin had constructed a Fortress of Solitude out of every cushion in the shop and was currently glaring at the noisy mammals through a slit in the pillows.
"Quiet," Jasper hissed. "I am meditating on my vengeance."
And in the center of it all was Clover, the little bunny, who was calmly drawing a picture of a carrot with crayons, seemingly oblivious to the fact that she was surrounded by things that could eat her.
I rubbed my temples. Okay. Chef logic. Mise en place. Everything in its place.
Currently, nothing was in its place.
"Arjun!" I barked. "Stop vibrating! You're shaking the shelves!"
"CAN'T STOP, MA'AM!" the Tiger cub yelled, doing jumping jacks at a speed that blurred his stripes. "GENERAL FATHER SAYS IDLENESS IS THE ENEMY OF GLORY!"
"Well, General Father isn't here," I sighed. "Vali! Stop eating the furniture! That is mahogany, not venison!"
Vali looked at me, rebellious pink eyes flashing. "It's crunchy."
"I made you jerky for a reason!" I grabbed a strip of my homemade, tough-as-leather Venison Chew-Strips and swapped it for the chair leg. Vali snatched it, growling happily as he gnawed on something that actually fought back.