IsobelleAlex sighed, Lucas stared at the ground, Mason's hands stilled on my shoulders, and even Grayson averted his eyes away.I exhaled a forceful huff. “Are you joking? I feel fine!”“We can't, sweetheart.” Alex's tone softened. “Not yet.”“Please, you rarely even kiss me anymore,” I complained, pouting with a saddened face."That’s not true," Alex responded, his voice regretful. “You know the reason we can’t let things escalate. You’re in enough discomfort as it is.”Mason let go of my shoulders and I shuddered, losing the warmth of his touch. I was a woman surrounded by men who worshiped her, yet I was the most sexually frustrated girl in the world.How was I expected to last another night, let alone another few weeks? Or at least until Dr. Rayne granted me the green light to have sex again. I wasn’t convinced if it would be the same for shifters as it was for humans. Generally, women were supposed to wait at least six weeks before their sexual activities could resume.Not a blo
IsobelleWhat a wonderful way to kick-start Christmas, with acid reflux, and a spine-crippling backache. Merry Christmas, Isobelle. Just one more week until the babies are born. Then I could kiss goodbye to the next eighteen years. No more peaceful lie-ins. Adios freedom. Au revoir relaxation. My life will belong to the pups.“Hey, did Santa steal one of my toothbrush heads or is this the Tooth Fairy's idea of sabotage?” Alex uttered, sounding as sarcastic as ever.After blanching with horror, I pretended not to hear him and continued to peel vegetables at the sink.“Isobelle?” he pressed, dragging out my name in a mocking tone.Act casually. He can't possibly know what I’ve done because I discarded the evidence.I could feel his intense stare burning holes in the back of my head.“How should I know?” I mumbled, pretending to be clueless.“So, the mystery continues,” he mused, drumming a finger against his chin. “The battery was completely drained, and I know for certain I charged it
MasonI had to hand it to Alex. You could set your watch to him by how punctual he was, getting us here just as the plane was landing.“Do you think we ought to tell Izzy about the newspaper article?” I mentioned it, one because it shocked the shit out of me, and two because we promised we wouldn’t keep stuff from her anymore.Alex slouched back in the driver’s seat, huffing a sigh. “Absolutely . . . but can’t we just let her enjoy Christmas with her parents? Can’t she just have one goddamned day when she doesn’t have to remember that night?”“I get it, you want to protect her, but she’s a lot stronger than she was when she first arrived here. She can handle it,” I spoke in her defense, talking Alex around.Not that Alex needed much convincing because he was mighty proud of her too.“Yeah . . .” Alex exhaled a sigh. “I just wish we could shield her from this, you know?”“You’re doing it again,” I pointed out his biggest pit-flaw. “You can’t control everything. Especially not the press
IsobelleI hurried out into the chilly air to greet my parents. I was nervous at first, but the moment I locked eyes with my father, I saw nothing but love staring back at me. Mum was tearful, hugging me, then held my face and told me she loved me.“Your tummy really has four babies in it,” Mum squealed, sounding amazed at how big I was. “I’ve missed you so much,” she uttered between planting kisses on my cheek. “You look good, doesn’t she, Arron? She’s glowing,” Mum beamed.“Come in and meet the Bennetts,” I insisted. “They’re wonderful people. You’ll like them.”My smile contorted into a pained grimace. I tried to recover it, but the flinch I saw in my mum’s eyes told me it hadn’t slipped past her.“You need to get back inside and sit down.” She guided me in through the door and gave Lynn a welcoming smile. “Hello,” Mum acknowledged. “You must be Lynn? I’m Fiona.”Alex took the suitcases into the freshly decorated guest bedroom. Mum and Dad seemed impressed by the cabin. Our home wa
IsobelleI swatted the air in dismissal. “He means my eyes are watering. Not that I’d sprung an actual leak. Carry on eating your dinner,” I chuckled.Dad cringed in a silent apology.“Sorry about that," he apologized for the misunderstanding. “So, how’s life in Whitehaven, and you know, with being a werewolf and what not?”“I love it here. It is a wonderful place to live. Other than that, I’m still adapting to the whole werewolf thing. It’s not as glamorous as it’s made out to be in films,” I assured. “People are always complaining about their kids coming home from school with fleas, and ever since I shifted, I’ve molted like a German Shepard. You should see the amount of hair I have to pull out of the drain each time I take a bath.”Lynn clapped her hands with a hearty chuckle as if she felt my pain. She dabbed the corners of her eyes with the pad of her finger.I didn’t want to mention the leg hair situation, and then the bushy underarms if I skipped shaving for a day. Dare I say i
Lucas“It’s going to be okay, baby, I’ve got you,” I murmured, holding her close to me as Alex drove us to the hospital.At least it had stopped snowing long enough for the roads to be cleared. I couldn’t tell which one of us was trembling more, Isobelle or me.Isobelle cried out with another agonizing contraction, clutching hold of her stomach as if it was going to explode.“Argh!” She buried her face against my chest, and I held her close.My brothers’ thoughts mirrored my own. All we could do was comfort her and watch helplessly from the sidelines.Our parents followed in the car behind us. Grayson must have been too dazed to think straight because he handed the keys to his beloved Porsche to Isobelle’s old man and told him he could take his car to the hospital.“That’s it, baby, keep breathing just like we learned in the Lamaze classes,” Grayson coached, mimicking the actions so that Izzy could copy them.Holy shit! I’m going to be a dad. We're all going to be fathers. It's really
Isobelle“Easy now . . . take it slow. Here, place this into your mouth and drag in two long deep breaths,” a familiar female voice instructed me.The strange-tasting gas left a nasty metallic tinge on my tongue, but it took the sharp edge off the pain. Not by much, but it was better than nothing at all. The agony ebbed away but was replaced with gut-wrenching nausea, causing me to gag. They thrust a kidney dish out before me and I retched into it, vomiting the remnants of my Christmas dinner.“That’s a side effect of the gas and air, I’m afraid. It can make you sick,” I recognized Dr. Rayne speaking beside me.My fingers clasped the plastic nozzle of the Entonox cylinder as if it were a vital lifeline.“Don’t take it away.” I clung to it. “I need it,” I growled, prepared to fight to the death for it.“Isobelle, I need you to relax for me, sweetheart,” Dr. Rayne instructed. She inserted two fingers of her gloved hand inside my vagina and had a good old poke around. “You’re fully dilat
IsobelleOne month later . . .Soft whimpers stirred me from my sleep — if you could even call it that. It only felt like minutes since I last got the girls settled.I cracked my eyes open; the air stung my corneas, and my head spun like I was suffering from a hangover. Exhaustion had kicked in, siphoning my energy and willpower. For the past few days, I had been running on the fumes of my sanity, thanks to a narrow window of four hourly feeds that never went according to plan. My God, those girls could eat.One feeding time rolled into the next, and before I knew it, hours had passed by. Owning one pair of tits instead of a set of udders was a tremendous disadvantage. It was a quadruplet mother’s pitfall. The only way that I could feed them all at once was to change into my wolf form, and even then, it was no easy feat. The girls could not shift and struggled to latch by themselves. It meant I had to express milk and rely on my husbands to help. Keeping up with the supply and demand