Slater is definitely a problem.
KennedyI’ve just sat down and laid my head on the side of Christy’s bed when there is a commotion out in the waiting room. I step out of the room quickly to see Beta Kier, Terrance, and Randall walk in with David and Slater.“What are they doing here?” I snarl. As exhausted as I am, I do not want anyone who was associated with Arlo in this hospital.“Alpha wanted them to clean up the bathroom, Luna,” Kier says.“Take them around back. I don’t want them in my hospital.”Slater scoffs and begins to turn, however, I step forward.“Problem, Slater?” I snarl, letting Echo push forward. I push the full force of my Alpha aura on him and watch him fall to his knees as his neck lifts in submission. Shock registers on his face as I prowl toward him.“I’m guessing you knew what that sick brother of yours intended to do to that poor girl, didn’t you, Slater?”“I was in the cells, Luna. I didn’t have any part in it,” he chokes out, his throat fully exposed to me.“But you did know he wanted her, d
KennedyWhen I walk back into the room, I begin asking Lillian questions about how long she’s been in labor, if she’s had any pre-natal care, and if she’s lost any pups during pregnancy or delivery before.“This is our first pup, Luna. If you can’t save them both, please save my mate. I’ll give her another pup, but I don’t want to lose her," Terrance says.“My goal is to save them both,” I say, as I put the IV in Lillian's arm and get the drip started before turning to set up the ultrasound machine.“Alright, let’s see what we’ve got. Lillian, I know you’re in a lot of pain, but I need to try and see what’s going on.” Terrance holds her hand while she grits her teeth through the pain.As soon as I begin running the wand over her stomach, I know what the problem is.“Your baby is breech. You’ll never be able to deliver him in this position,” I say, running the wand around her stomach to make sure that he hasn’t ruptured the uterus. Everything looks to be intact, he’s just not in the rig
QuirinI didn’t want to leave the hospital and Kennedy this morning, but when I heard that Slater was missing, I woke Kier and we went hunting. I’m not sure how the fuck he got out but when I return to the hospital later and realize that Terrance is there with his wife who is struggling to deliver their baby, I wonder if he was distracted and didn’t lock the door properly at the end of his shift.David was no help, swearing that he didn’t see anything because he was asleep. I used my Alpha command to make sure that he was telling the truth and he was.Slater attacked the guards on duty, knocking them out before racing off. Kier and I tracked Slater to our border, then continued on, following his trail to see if he stopped anywhere. We tracked him for about an hour before deciding to return to the pack. I don’t like it that Slater is gone, but he must have known that I was going to kill him. He and Arlo were very close. There’s no way he wouldn’t have known or tried to help cover up wha
KennedyI wake up alone, in my bedroom. I listen, but don’t hear Quirin anywhere in our room. I notice that it’s dark outside and I must have slept through the afternoon into the evening. When I sit up, I see that I’m in Quirin’s t-shirt. As frustrated as I am with him, I can’t help but smile. He’s taking care of me, even though I’m angry and even though I’ve pushed him away. It’s the side of Quirin that no one else sees, the side that only I ever get to see. The soft side of Quirin.Damn, I can already feel my heart softening toward him.I look down and rub my stomach. We need to have a conversation very soon about this pup I’m carrying. I have no idea if that will make things worse between us, but Quirin has a right to know.I sigh, getting out of bed. I feel weak and nauseous, but I know I need to eat something. It’s been almost two days since I’ve eaten and now I know I’m eating for two. I brush my hair, putting it in a messy bun, brush my teeth, wash my face and get dressed. I don
ChristyI smell him before I open my eyes. My mate. The man who rejected me. Why is he here? Why now when I’m at my weakest?“Please open your eyes, Christy. Please. Deborah said that you aren’t under any anesthesia to keep you unconscious. You’ve been out for two days. Please open your eyes.”I open my eyes and see his red-rimmed eyes watching me closely. Relief washes over his face.“Oh, thank the goddess!” he says, pulling my hand to his lips and kissing it. “Thank the goddess. I was so worried about you.”“Why are you here?” I ask. My throat is still sore, and my voice is rough, reminding me of why I’M here. I feel the tears well in my eyes and I close them tightly. I don’t want Leo to see me cry again. He saw enough of my tears on the day he rejected me.I feel his finger gently rub against my cheek, wiping the wayward tear away.“I was worried about you, and I came to apologize.”“Apologize for what?” I ask, not looking at him.“For rejecting you. I was wrong. I see that now. And
Quirin'It starts at the top.’ That’s what Kennedy had said to the pack and she’d looked at me, basically letting me know that it’s not just our warriors that need to change, that I need to change as well.I’ve never really thought of the pack as a family. I mean, I spent enough years in Alpha Harold’s pack that I probably should have, I saw the love that the pack members had for Harold and for Henry, but since I didn’t have a pack at the time, I didn’t take much notice. I didn’t realize the value and importance of a pack being a family. Hell, I don’t even recognize the value of family at all, or at least I didn’t before Kennedy. Even my own mother chose to let herself wither away and die rather than be a mother to me, to be a family to me.Of course, Kennedy’s more than just family to me. She’s everything to me. If she wants this pack to become a family, then we will. I don’t know how to do that, but I’m sure that she does, and I’ll follow her lead.When Lane comes to ask about someon
JasperGetting this girl down the cliff was a lot harder than getting up there. I probably should have accounted for that a bit more, but I didn’t. Once Slater told me how to sneak onto the pack lands, I came right away, bringing some of my strongest warriors and I’d hit the jackpot. I hadn’t expected her to come to me. Slater said the patrols didn’t come out this way, so I had intended to climb into the pack lands and sneak to the hospital where she apparently spends most of her time. However, when opportunity knocks, I always open the door.After repelling down the cliff face, I stop to look at the girl. She was dead weight and repelling with over a hundred pounds slung over your shoulder isn’t easy. I’d slammed into the cliff several times when my body had begun to spin. When I look her over, I can see that she’s got some bumps and scratches on her head, back, and arms. She’s bleeding a lot from the head wounds, but she’s still breathing, and her heart is still beating, so she’ll li
KennedyWhen I wake up, my head is throbbing. I’m uncomfortable and when I try to open my eyes, blood drips into them. People are yelling around me and it’s making my head hurt even worse.‘Echo?’‘I’m here. I’m weak, but I’m here.’‘Do you know where we are?’‘By the smell of the two arguing over us, they’re Alphas, no one we know. I’m guessing this is one of their packs. One is Alpha Jasper, the Alpha who took us.’“Tell me that Quirin is dead. Tell me that you didn’t take his Luna and leave him alive,” one of the Alphas snarls.‘ECHO! Echo, we have to get out of here! We have to warn Quirin!’ A ball of fear knots in my gut. No matter how upset or angry I am at Quirin, I still love him. I won’t let anyone kill him.‘Echo, can you shift?’ I ask her.‘If it means saving our mate, I will.’ I know what she’s saying. She’s saying that she would exhaust herself, force herself into exhausted silence to save our mate.‘I have no intention of losing you either, Echo,’ I say fiercely.“Then le
Yorick‘Smell anything, Thad?’ I ask my wolf. I’m still in bed on this, my eighteenth birthday. I didn’t expect that my mate would be here, there’s nothing for me here in this pack, but I figured I’d better make sure.‘I would have smelled her last night if she was here,’ he says.That’s true. I guess she could be in Kennedy’s pack, but somehow, I doubt it. I’ve known for a while that my place wasn’t in either of my older siblings’ packs. I’m an Alpha wolf with an older brother who has taken over our pack. My father’s Beta and his mate have a son who has already taken over as my brother’s Beta and the same is true for our Gamma. There’s no place, no position for me in Connor’s pack.I could probably petition Quirin for is Gamma position. He’s been talking about needing to fill it and now that his life is full of pups, he needs the help, but it’s not what I want.‘We’ve made our decision,’ Thad says.We have, we just haven’t told anyone yet. I’m not sure how they will react and I’m not
QuirinTwo Years LaterI sigh with happiness, or actually, Raif sighs with happiness as we lay on the back patio with our four daughters. Just as Kennedy had hoped, there was one set of twins that looked like me and one that looked like her. We’d named them accordingly with the ones who looked like me being named Quinlee and Quilla and the twins who look like my beautiful mate named Kaylee and Kendra. What we didn’t know is how deceptive looks can be. The daughters who carry my looks are sweet and gentle like their mother. The ones who look like Kennedy have my little hellion personality.Currently, all four of them are surrounding Raif in one way or another. I’ve decided that Kendra, who was the one with the cord around her neck, was Kennedy’s little rib-kicker while she was in utero. She’s currently on Raif’s back, kicking him as hard as she can, telling him to giddy-up. Instead of getting up, he lifts his head and shakes, forcing her to hold on tight as she squeals in delight.“No,
KennedyRaif continues to purr as we walk to the hospital, and I lean my head on Quirin’s shoulder.“Are you scared?” I ask him quietly.“Terrified. As excited as I am to meet our daughters, I’ve only felt fear like this once before in my life and that’s when you were taken.”I chuckle, but the movement sends a jolt of pain through my stomach so I stop.Quirin presses a kiss to the side of my head as we walk into the hospital and straight to what he calls the ‘Kennedy Suite’. I will say, Mom is absolutely prepared for my babies to arrive. There are four bassinets, waiting to be filled, a larger than normal counter with multiple areas to bathe, measure, and weigh my little ones and all the equipment mom thinks we might need in case any of our pups or I go into distress during delivery.Quirin and I are very familiar with the procedure of me getting checked, so he hooks up the heart monitors over my stomach while mom prepares to check me. This might be my favorite part of the day, watchi
KennedyI watch as my mate sits on the edge of the bed, patiently smiling at me. He’s rubbing my belly that is huge with four pups. There’s so little space in my stomach that you can see their butts or heads or sometimes their feet when they kick out because there’s just not enough room in there.My little stomach-extenders obviously love their father more than they love me because they stop shifting around so he can touch them. Raif is purring loud enough to practically bring down the rafters in our bedroom and somehow my pups don’t seem to care that I’M the one who is just as uncomfortable as they are.Echo hasn’t gotten any stronger during my pregnancy and I’m not surprised. As soon as my Alpha pups started getting too jammed up in my stomach, they started kicking; kicking my bladder, kicking my kidneys, and kicking my ribs, sometimes hard enough to crack them. Obviously at least one of them has her father’s strength.‘What can we do to help you?’ Quirin asks in my mind so I can hea
QuirinAlpha Warren and I had walked the pack lands, testing the soil, finding the spots where there is the heaviest concentration of silver and the areas that are most important to clean up. He and I came up with a plan based on the most heavily trafficked areas in the pack, the places were pups were likely to be, and then the heaviest concentration of silver.He began working on it right away, and I’ve never been so happy to have Warren in my pack. With everything going on, I need to be focused on Kennedy and my pups, not worrying about Jasper’s silver contamination.However, Warren did tell me that he and Yara would like a house of their own. So we found a spot where the two of them wanted to build and added that the first part of clean up so we can break ground on their home. Until then, they are on our Gamma floor.I can’t say I’m getting used to the noise that constantly seems to come from that floor, but I will say that it feels like good practice for me.Today, however, Kennedy
Kennedy“Hi Henry,” I say, hearing Quirin growling low in his chest at Henry’s teasing.“Ah, shit. I’m not interrupting you two in bed, am I?” I hear him ask, although I'm pretty sure he snickered. He's obviously enjoying himself.“Do you really think I would have answered the fucking phone if I was in bed with my mate?”“You might have, if you were worried about me,” he says.“Did you call just to harass me?” Quirin asks.“Well, mostly yes, but I did call to check on Kennedy,” he says.“My mate is perfectly fine. Her mother is here to make sure that her pregnancy and delivery are going well and Echo made her reappearance again this morning,” he says, smiling down at me.“That’s awesome, Kennedy. I’m so glad to hear that. But really, I was calling to make sure you have a safe word.”“A safe word?” I ask and Quirin starts growling, louder this time.“Yeah, you know, in case Quirin keeps you locked to the bed because of his voracious need for you and you can’t get away even to use the ba
QuirinI meant what I said to Kennedy. I could live forever in her beautiful mind, surrounded by her love and light. Opening myself to her has made the tightness that has always constricted my heart snap. I feel free, light, and oh so happy. It’s an unfamiliar feeling, but one that I want to feel forever.Waking up with her warm, soft body tucked against mine, her sleepy consciousness in my head is the best way to wake up. That is, until Raif and I hear Echo’s weak voice. If I’d been standing up, I think Raif would have tossed me to the ground in his excitement to get to his mate. But as rough as he was with me, he’s nothing but gentle with her. In our shared mind space, he carefully walks to his mate and lays beside her, curling himself around her protectively. She licks his face briefly before laying her head back down. Raif begins purring at her and she sighs contentedly.“She’s back,” Kennedy whispers and I can hear the teary happiness in her voice.“Yes, she is. She’s a strong wol
KennedyAs Quirin carries me back to the packhouse, I open my mind to him and Raif, and also to Echo.‘Echo, if you can hear me, we love you. We know you’re taking care of our babies and being the excellent mother that you are. But Raif is here, Quirin is here. They will help protect our babies. You need to get strong, my wolf. I miss you,’ I tell her.Raif begins purring in both our mind and out loud. I can feel Echo fluttering in my mind, responding to the gentle call of her mate. This is what Mom told me to try. Echo will want to please her mate, to be with him again, so having Raif in my mind and helping Echo connect to him may help to strengthen her.‘I’m willing to take as much time as my mate needs to help her gain her strength again,’ Raif says. “I already knew she’d be the perfect mother to my pups, and she hasn’t disappointed me. But you need your strength, my love. I want to feel you in my mind too,' he says to her.I can almost feel Echo laying down in my mind, her own soft
QuirinI come awake feeling disoriented. Something is wrong, or ... not wrong, just off? Unexpected? What the fuck? I’m never this disoriented. And why is my bed so fucking hard? And where is my mate? I can smell her. She’s nearby.I force my eyes to open and immediately wince as the light above me shines in my eyes. Why is there a light above me? Where the fuck am I?“There he is.” I hear Luna Yara say and a moment later she’s beside me. I know this positioning. I’m in a hospital. Am I still recovering from the bear attack? No, that can’t be right. I didn’t just dream my life, did I?“Where’s Kennedy?” I ask, more harshly than is necessary.“Bathroom. She’ll be right back. How are you feeling?” she asks me.I feel fine, just disoriented.“Why am I in the hospital?” I ask, realizing that I don’t feel like I have any injuries, and I’m completely dressed except for my shoes.“What do you remember, Quirin?” she asks me in her gentle way.“Hey,” I hear my mate’s sweet voice. In a quick mot