“Which room will be the nursery? This one or the other one. We need wallpaper and a crib and onesies.” Alicia was on a roll. But as he twirled around, he froze and almost fell face-first on the floor. “But what if you can’t stay in Bruin Ridge?” He curled up beside Clarissa and sobbed into our omega’s neck.Clarissa patted his back, saying, “It’ll be okay.” And despite the bed being small, I crawled on the other side and the three of us lay there with our own thoughts.“No matter what happens, you are our mate, forever and ever.” Alicia wasn’t hiding his distress and I handed him a tissue to mop up his tears.This wasn’t right. We should be celebrating new life, not wallowing in self-pity. I got up. “If we make our bed, will you come back into the main bedroom?” I couldn’t bear having Clarissa sleep elsewhere when… when… he may have to leave. Sorrow squeezed around my heart, making it difficult to breathe.“Sure.” Clarissa grabbed a handful of ginger candy.Alicia raced ahead to get t
Clarissa stepped back and twirled around. “These are paternity and they fit me the way they are supposed to fit me.”“And you’re pregnant,” I reminded him. “And you aren’t a human. These books were written for humans. If you were getting bigger than you should be, Healer would’ve told you by now. He doesn’t mince words.”Just as with our former healer, our current one told it like it was—but only to the patient because of human rules or something. I guess human rules around his whole doctor license thing-a-ma-bob had him being less informative to nonpatients than our retired healer had been.“I know. I just—why am I so big?” His bottom lip curled out in the most adorable little pout. I wanted to lean in and nibble on it. Clarissa wasn’t in the mood for that. He wanted assurance and love, both of which I could give.“Because.” I closed the distance between us and kissed his cheek. “You’re growing our young.”The door clicked open and in walked Dante. “Sorry I’m late. I was helping Samu
“Betas.” Julian’s voice came in through our open front window. “Betas, are you home?”I put down the instructions for the surprise I was building for Clarissa. “Hey, Julian. What’s going on?” He was a nice kid and had started to take on an active role in the den, particularly when it came to our rentals.“Beta Dante, Alpha asked me to get you two for a tour.” He put his hands in his front pockets. “So I’m to fetch you.” His head tilted slightly, a habit from his younger years, one many of us still fell into on occasion.“A tour? Why?” We did varied tasks as Betas, but tours generally weren’t one of them.“Alpha said you’d want to do this one.”“I’ll get Alicia and meet you down at the rentals.”“The Alpha house.” Julian looked down. “And I’m to bring you.”Nothing about this was how we typically did things around here, but I chalked that up to Alpha probably being busy. As Alicia and I got closer to Alpha’s, we scented it was more than that.“Alicia,” I said and then inhaled again, ju
I reached for Alicia’s hand. Forget being all formal. He was my mate and wasn’t that a big part of the reason we had this visitor in the first place? Being traditional wasn’t going to do any of us any good.We went through the rest of the den, Waylon asking questions about our agreement with the university and how we got our renters and even about the way we managed the plumbing so far out from what he considered a “city.” He seemed genuinely interested in all of it and more than once, he and Grant got off topic and started to talk history. Nothing about this visit made sense, and yet in a way, it all did.The tour ended where everything began, the rental Clarissa had first booked. Waylon had glanced at our hands multiple times since we joined them, but now he stared at them.“Now these rentals… how far out are they booked?” Waylon directed his question to no one in particular.Aspen answered, and instead of asking a follow up question, Waylon fixed his attention on us.“You love each
“What do you think?” Aspen asked. “Because you are den, vow or no.”“I think we need to add to the plan.” Our omega leaned back in his chair. “Even if we have a bear, this education will be beneficial since they could one day be the parent of a snow leopard if the recessive genes hit just right.”The next hour was spent making a tentative plan, Waylon agreeing to come on a pack run and stay for a few days while we worked out the details. The issue needed to be approved by the council at large, but the way Waylon spoke, this was all but a done deal.TWENTY-THREECLARISSA“Need some help.”Both my mates tore into the bedroom and kneeled on either side of the bed. I’d taken to sleeping some nights in the third bedroom, as the second had been converted to the baby’s nursery. Much as I liked sleeping with my mates, getting me out from the middle of that huge, custom-built bed took a while and with our young sitting on my bladder, I didn’t always have the time.They manhandled me to a sitti
I ate my breakfast slowly, my mates studying each mouthful, and I suspected their minds were churning as to what the scan would reveal and how long it’d take for me to eat my eggs and toast.When I was finally ready to leave, Dante picked up the keys to my car but I protested I didn’t need a ride. “Fresh air is good for me.” I was throwing my mates’ words back at them because for weeks, they’d pestered me to go outside while I’d wanted to stay in bed with my laptop, saying I had to get ahead with work before the baby arrived. And while that was true, eating candy and catching up with my favorite telenovela was another reason.They shared a glance, but they knew they were beaten; I could see it in their eyes.“Fine. We’ll all walk to Healer’s.”I was huffing when we were halfway there, but as I was leaning on Alicia and catching my breath, Grant turned up in my car. “Thought you might like a lift to Healer’s.”I caught Dante’s eye and he shrugged. This was his doing. My mates were look
Even Healer was chuckling. “The T word?” That set everyone laughing even more.“They’re a good weight so we’re done, unless you have any questions.”He handed me paper towels to wipe the gel from my belly but my mates took over and cleaned me up. And when we finally got outside, we linked arms and walked to the car. It had been a good day. I’d gotten over my fears and Healer had confirmed I had three babies inside me.TWENTY-FOURDANTE“I feel bad leaving him.” I set my folded clothing onto the boulder. “What if he needs us?”Our mate was pregnant—very pregnant. Like even the paternity clothing no longer fit him pregnant. But that was the way of things when you were carrying triplets. There was just a whole lotta baby growing inside our mate.Babes.Ours.Home.Now.My bear was being a butt. Or maybe he was just echoing how I felt. In either case, he was right. We should be there with him.But then again, I’d been saying that every perimeter run for the past four weeks. It wasn’t a ne
“No. Smalls will do.” Alicia opened his wallet. He was ready to pay and not even pretending to play the which is a better value game. Of course bulk made more sense financially. That didn’t make it better for our mate’s happiness.The teen tallied the bill, Alicia paid, and we stepped to the next window waiting for our order to be ready.“I guess babies do make you want ice cream,” a different teen than the one who waited on us noted. “I thought that was a myth.” He placed our dishes of ice cream on the ledge.“Not a myth.” I chuckled, grabbing as many of them as I could hold. “Better get plastic spoons. They taste different.”At least, according to our mate, they did.Alicia took the remaining ice cream and the spoons and followed me to the truck where we put them into the cooler.“You know he didn’t mean our mate, right? The babies wanting ice cream comment.” Alicia held out his shirt that had Papa Bear scrolled across it. Once Clarissa found a place that had them for non- sleepwear