“Hey kiddo. How was your nap?” Eva smiled from the living room chair she sat in, as Penny came out of her room. “I needed that. It was informative.” Penny’s response had Eva perking up. What an odd thing for a child her age to say, but she’d play along. “Oh? What did it tell you?” “We’re in for some interesting times and lots of exciting changes.” Penny couldn’t know about the message sent out by Alpha Thomas about his mating to another Alpha. That would get some getting used to since it wasn’t everyday you met a female Alpha. “Hon, what are you talking about? Your father and I mating?” “Oh, that and a lot more. You’ll see. It’ll be exciting. I will finally meet Trevor.” “Who’s Trevor?” “My baby brother. He’s not born yet, but he’ll be here soon enough.” That had Eva a little disturbed. Did Penny know how pups were born? “Penny? Who’s Trevor’s mommy?” Penny looked at Eva as if she’d grown a secon
Emily was getting large now. She couldn’t believe it, this she’d lost hope of ever experiencing. Sometimes she’d wake up and think it was all a lie. Now she could assure herself that it wasn’t. Someone was moving inside her. It was frightening and thrilling. Going in for a checkup was still, and she secretly feared bad news at any moment. But there’d been none, just morning sickness, swollen ankles, weight gain, among other surprising things. James was a madman trying to get everything just right for their pups. Emily missed being able to shift and go for a run. It made her moody and frustrated more often than not. Now with the pups due any day, she stood in the nursery and realized, things must happen faster. James was right to panic. What would they do if there were no cribs after the pups arrived?James kept telling her that everything would work out. But she’d kept so many worries to herself that she wasn’t sure any longer what was a real problem and what wasn’t.
“Why do you need to have a ceremony to be mates?” Penny snuck up on Eva as she dried her hair with a towel. Eva now realized life as a mother was more than anyone ever told her. She silently congratulated herself for not expressing her surprise at the child’s sudden presence. Right about then, Eva registered Penny was expecting an answer. “Why do you need to be recognized to be in the pack if you’re daddy’s mate already? Oh boy, there was a huge writhing can of worms. “Maybe you should as your dad this?” “He laughed and told me to ask you. Will you tell me? Please.” Penny was now bouncing in place with impatience. “Okay, I guess I deserve this. A trail by fire of sorts.” “What does that mean?” “Oh, geez Penny, I’m new at this all right. I’m having problems. I can’t keep up with all your questions, so hold any further questions until later.” “Okay.” Penny gave her a big grin once she knew that she’d receive her answers. “A trail by fire
“Well, that talk went badly.” Haden entered the bedroom and put his phone to charge. His features reflected his stormy mood. “What? What? What? Sorry, I was trying to work on these numbers. Who were you talking to, and how did it go badly?” Janine lay on the sofa with her feet up and a laptop on her lap. She was frowning at the screen when Haden stomped in and made his announcement. “I did as you asked me to do. I called my daughter again and told her what was going to happen after I called my Beta to set up going there to hand the pack off to Micheal is it my fault? She didn’t mate with him, but with a human? She’s not stupid. She knows a human can’t run a pack. That’s like asking a house cat to lead a pack of wild dogs. It just wouldn’t work.” Haden came to stand near Janine’s shoulders and frowned at the screen as if his expression would intimidate the numbers into righting themselves. “Check the fourth column again. I think you’ll find the error there. I
Asia sat on the plane as it touched down on the tarmac a few miles from her territory. Thomas softly snored beside her. She marvelled at his ability to sleep while they travelled. That was something she didn’t have the luxury of. So, she sat there tired, wracking her brain for the words she’d tell her pack about the huge shake up that was coming everyone’s way. That wasn’t fully true. April would have spread the announcement before this. Asia would just have to explain why she was doing this. The old guard would worry about losing their distinct culture. A culture Asia no longer accepted. It was too radical and didn’t fit with the times. It formed from the need for female identity. In this day and age, it wasn’t needed. Women could stand on their own pretty much throughout the human world and the supernatural. Excluding men from the power structure only proved Asia’s point. That point was that when you limit a group of people from a particular role or job, you l
Eva couldn’t believe she was preparing for the night they’d mate. It was all going to be permanent, forever, until death. Penny was at a pup event for the night. She’d have fun and not miss them because there’d be so many others there. She was too young for the finer details of what was about to happen. They would make love and in the heat of their passion, as its pinnacle, they would bite each other. Forming the permanent bond. It was a marvel how their pheromones worked. The fae added them to ensure their army would always have fresh troops. The bite was part of the wild nature and ferociousness the fae wanted in their foot soldiers. If she’d been taught the truth, the fae used wolf shifters as little more than those who would be the incidental deaths of war. They were the troops to sacrifice for the sake of fighting for an imaginary slight to their ever shifting and complicated honour system. The fae didn’t die like a human or wolf shifter. They didn’t feel like t
It was a done deal. Right there, in the heat of the moment, he’d claimed her. Eva finally lay in bed with her mate. Her mate. She couldn’t stop reminding herself of that. The night hadn’t gone as she’d thought it would. Well, the order of it wasn’t what she planned. They ate their dinner cold rather than hot. But the lovemaking and mating made up for that. Damon dozed by her side. They couldn’t put off appearing at the pack gathering. They’d be celebrating their mating, and she had to show off the bite to prove there was a mating. Thomas would also officially introduce her to the pack and welcome her into it. It was all part of the tradition when the mate came from outside of the pack. The couple needed to decide on which pack they would stay with permanently. There were no belonging to multiple packs at the same time. So much was going on these past few weeks. Her head was still spinning. She was glad Penny wasn’t here until tomorrow. Eva needed th
“You seriously want all this pomp and spectacle for two ceremonies? And what’s this about a gathering to get to know one another? How much is the travel alone going to cost? Asia, had you really thought about this? How is the pack going to afford this? Thomas’ pack isn’t rolling in money, and you know it.” April dropped several binders and a tablet on the desk before Asia. It took her a better part of the morning to get her leader alone so she could confront her without an audience. “It’s okay April. I spoke with Thomas on this, and he agrees that two ceremonies would be better, and for the gathering after each ceremony. Well, if you look, you’ll see that we have different people meeting for the first time. These are the members of the two packs that will work together and make everything run smoothly. They deserve to get to know each other before we throw them into the deep end of the pool. Who knows? Maybe there will be more pairings coming from this?” “As
Happy EndingsJames and EmilyEmily and James have come so far from the stunted, messy, immature, and abusive relationship of their early years, overcome medical disaster, and so much more. Now, as parents and on the verge of a successful resort business, they deserve a little peace and quiet to enjoy their second chance. Their highlight success was with the rogue wolves that came to them. All but two survived the trip and the great adjustment into pack life. They had such success that eventually both twins had their own packs when they were old enough.Janine and HadenThey have both found a second chance with each other and a new lease on life managing the resort. Life won’t be quiet for them, but that’s the life they chose. So we leave off with the weapons, passing to the Largest Ontario Wolf Shifter Pack and the political power of the Wolf Shifters. Now they can settle into their twilight years together, chasing Duck Shifters from the front fountain, and keeping bear shif
The candle and a long stem lighter, so Gwenda chose to use the lighter without the candle and she heated the back of the paper. “Here goes nothing.” It took several minutes, but something appeared. “No one knows we used this trick. I had to have written it. There’s no other way this could have worked. Now what do we have? GPS coordinates, wait. There’s another set. Maybe I went back to get the coordinates?” As she move about the page, a set of seven coordinates appeared. She took the flame away, but gasped. “There’s something else here. Hold, let me reveal it too.” Everyone moved in closer and watched an eighth GPS location appear. “Either location? Where’s does that lead to?” This stumped her for a moment. “We need to plug these into a GPS system and see where they all lead to. The first one isn’t anywhere near the others.” “Of course not. The first one is in Orion’s Forest Territory. They probably scattered the others around here. I recognize the general numbers f
Finally, Asia’s plan came to fruition. Today, they would have their mating ceremony. Janine helped so much, with all the plans. She’d gone above and beyond when it came to their unique needs. But Asia now saw that it was safer for their packs to stay where they were. Penny now scared Asia with little comments, and her track record of being accurate with those comments was the reason.Asia watched the internet as information leaked out. Much of the speculation came from disbelievers and conspiracy theorists. The government and law enforcement had little to say, which only fuelled the debate more. Asia knew there was nothing to be done but to stay quiet and let the ruling council deal with it.Today was her mating ceremony, and it would be a good time in her life. It took long enough to get this far with Thomas and her pack. She wasn’t going to fool herself. There would always be someone commenting on the changes in a negative way.Those witnessing in person were minimal and all, but Ap
Karl greets the Alphas as they file into the room he’s using as a study currently. Once they’re settled with tablets, notepads, etcetera, James opened the meeting. “Alright, I think we can skip the intro to the reason for this meeting. We all know why and who we are. Okay Karl, tell us what you have found.”“Thank you, Alpha De Marre. Yes, uh, this is extremely complicated, so please bear with me as I need to explain there’s far too much back story. First, I have received some upsetting news. The latest attack by the Fae was investigated by my life partner’s enforcement team. The entire team is missing. I want to leave and go help, but I have been told not to stay here to continue working. Second, there’s supposed to be a Fianna weapons expert coming, and they are now late. Now, what I found while translating the journal. Hold on, I missed a few disturbing facts.” Karl held up a smaller book. “All original surviving copies of the translation book for the Fae language at in the univers
Karl now turned his attention to contacting his life mate, Pat. Everyone should be home. It was early there.He kept trying with no luck to connect with Pat. Karl didn’t like the feelings of isolation. Or that he didn’t know where Pat was.After some time, it forced him to decide to stop trying. He couldn’t reach anyone at home. It was as if the location was empty of life and that was far from normal. He took a break and found himself a drink and lunch. He could eat before stopping by the front desk to request that they explain how to find the room he was using to study the books in. When he identified the weapons, he did it under the view of the local arms master who ran James’ armoury. They worked together with attempting to understand what weapons killed which creatures. Some were pretty famous while others were far front known. He needed a person who understood lore and creatures from it. He knew languages used for writing magic spells and rituals. He wasn’t truly a specialist an
“Morning Karl, I have a response from the council. The Fianna will send a representative out to assist you. I’m surprised they moved this quickly. They have requested we send them via a mage driven portal rather than flighting out there. You should see them after lunch. Let the front desk know where they will find you. We’ve arranged for their stay. Now, how is the translation coming? Those weapons can’t be handed over without an understanding of what their purpose and function is.” Mages were well ahead of the everyday man. Humans finally got video calling, mages always had that. They called it scrying and Karl used it now to contact his mentor. Who was within the grand walls of the great library? Mages had to have a mentor while they studied and proved themselves. “Thank you, that’s great news. I have most of it translated. Currently, I’m attempting to build a detailed catalogue. With entries about each weapon mentioned within the journal. After that, I must identi
Asia met with Janine the next morning to organize her mating ceremony. Thomas and Haden couldn’t help with it since they needed them to help with the latest discovery. “So here we are. I think I have everything ready for you to look through. There’s even a checklist, so as we fill the binder, we know we haven’t missed anything. Now, so I can help direct you in the right direction. What did you have in mind?” Janine tried to give off a professional air. She ended her words and held her breath, waiting for Asia’s response. “Oh, well, I don’t want anything too complicated. Actually, Thomas and I have been talking about it and we realized that there’s no way we can get everyone we want here without going over the budget.” Asia peaked at Janine, unsure how she would react. Asia watched Janine’s face fall. “Oh, we still want a simple mating ceremony, but we want to live stream it to both territories. We’ll have two receptions later on. But it makes everything a hu
“Okay, now you have to tell me who pushed you to do that. I want to thank them. It was perfect.” Emily sat in the bath with James and a glass of wine. She couldn’t see her official mate as she sat between his thighs with her back leaning against his chest. “I’ll start getting offended if you won’t believe me. It was my idea and others just helped. I didn’t like how much you were doing with the pups, pack, resort, and trying to get the mating ceremony setup. It was too much for anyone. I wanted you to relax and enjoy this time.” “You really have changed. A year ago, you wouldn’t have cared if I collapsed from exhaustion.” Emily was a little beyond tipsy now after the refreshments at the reception and drinks at the spa. She’d been careful, but they added up. James, too, was nicely mellowed out. They handed their pups off with a pack caregiver on duty for the night. “Yes, I would have. I relied on you far too much. I think if things hadn’t gotten to the extreme, thi
You’d think mages would write everything down on paper and there would be hundreds if not thousands of people employed to look it up at the university. But that wasn’t the case. Computers hold their own kind of logical magic. People just accept that it’s a science. But Karl was aware of the rare instance when some sort of information made it into the hands and minds of those that needed to information to change the world.Here, Karl had the name of a mage, but no time period. They had an app for that. He sent the information about the approximate dates from the journal. Then he hoped for the best. If the name was in the database, he would receive that information soon enough. If it wasn’t, then he could proceed to a physical look up within the older written documents that had yet to be transferred into their version of a computer. Now he continued to translate the stories within the book. That’s what they were, stories. Each weapon had a story. No facts or statistics were t