by Ardy Kelly
The Slightly Supernatural Sheriff
An M/M Shifter Mpreg Romance
Ardy Kelly
How long does a man have to wait for his happy ending?
Sheriff Chet Thompson has seen the future. He’s even met his mate-to-be, built a dream house (with a nursery), and kept an eye on Lone Wolves Ranch for the man of his visions to return.
But it’s been two years. And all he’s gotten in that time is the nickname Chastity Chet.
Now that David is back in town, the sheriff is determined to get his man—and the babies he’s carrying.
David Morehouse-Packman hasn’t been to Lone Wolves Ranch since his sister’s wedding two years ago. Despite being the non-shifter in the family tree, the alpha forbade him from dating the sheriff. Returning for the birth of his nephew, avoiding Chet Thompson was not going to be as easy this time.
And finding out he was a pregnant omega would shock everyone but Chastity Chet.
The Slightly Supernatural Sheriff is the third book in the Lone Wolves Ranch series of M/M shifter Mpreg stories. It can be read as a stand-alone, though secondary characters’ lives continue from The Cub Club and The Shifter’s Shotgun Mating.
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Text copyright ©2020 Ardy Kelly
All Rights Reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
The Slightly Supernatural Sheriff is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Contents
A Brief History of the Morehouse Matriarchy
Chapter 1 - Two Years Ago
Chapter 2
Chapter 3 - The Present
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Epilogue
Afterword
Also by Ardy Kelly
A Brief History of the Morehouse Matriarchy
Sourced from The Who’s Who of Wolven
In shifter circles, the Morehouse legacy has received more than its share of gossip and speculation. Therefore, it is important to shed the light of truth upon the dynasty’s four generations before the reader gets to the good stuff.
In the early twentieth century, Leticia Marie Morehouse scandalized society by hyphenating her name. It would become a tradition passed down to her offspring.
Leticia’s reasons for retaining her maiden name (as it was referred to back then) had nothing to do with the suffragette movement blossoming in America. Leticia’s opinion was if those women had more spring colors in their wardrobe, they wouldn’t complain so much.
Her reason for refusing to surrender the Morehouse moniker had more to do with who—or rather, what—she was marrying.
“He’s a beast, Papa.”
Her father’s study smelled of pipe tobacco and whiskey, though at the moment Papa mostly smelled of the latter. “He’s a wealthy beast.”
She ripped the newspaper from his hands, forcing him to meet her eyes. “How can you be sure he won’t devour me on the first full moon?”
“He’s given me his word.”
“Pshaw. How can you trust the word of a wolf?” She crossed her arms and stamped a foot. “I won’t marry him.”
Unperturbed, Papa replied, “Very well, dear. I shall inquire about any housekeeping jobs in the vicinity. You can visit Mama and me in the poorhouse on your day off.”
Leticia threw herself onto the red velvet couch, weeping profusely. “I shall lose my humanity. I’ll be nothing but a brood mare.”
“And well rewarded for it,” her father replied, retreating behind his newspaper.
Fury replaced the tears in her eyes. “I will not take his name. I will not give him the satisfaction. I may lose my maidenhead but I shall never lose my maiden name.”
Her parents argued with her day and night. Finally, Leticia’s resolve weakened enough to agree to hyphenate the names, though she insisted it was a minus sign.
When the parents nervously broached the subject with her husband-to-be, Mr. Lupinman was unperturbed. He had come by his wealth through hard work rather than inheritance, so cared little for the legacy issue as long as Leticia was his wife.
“And our cub—children. What shall their names be?”
Leticia, still fuming he was not insulted enough to break off their engagement, pondered the question.
“Any child with a preponderance of your blood shall take your last name,” she declared. “Any child with pure blood shall take mine.”
“They shall take the hyphenation,” Mr. Lupinman stated in a tone that brooked no argument.
Leticia plodded through the days until the wedding, imagining the horrors that awaited her. She went so far as to send a sealed envelope to the family solicitor marked “To be opened upon my death.” If her demise appeared to be an animal attack, it instructed her lawyer to call upon Mr. Lupinman on an evening illuminated by the full moon.
Quickly, the joyless mating was upon her. The rehearsal dinner with Mr. Lupinman’s “family” was particularly grueling. She felt an immediate kinship to the lamb being served, convinced she was next to be sacrificed to the wolves.
After the ceremony, Leticia’s mother hugged her fiercely while stuffing an object into the bride’s traveling duster. “Take this and put it under your pillow tonight.”
“What is it?”
“A silver switchblade hidden inside a comb. If he turns into a wolf tonight, silver is the only way to kill the beast.” She whispered instructions on how to gut and slit the groom’s throat.
That evening, with the deadly hair comb hidden under her pillow, she prepared herself for a fate worse than death.
The next morning, Mr. Lupinman awoke unscathed, and Leticia rose with a new appreciation of her spouse. In fact, her attitude improved so markedly that she soon became quite diligent in her effort to produce an heir. The staff often gossiped just how diligent she was.
Old prejudices die hard, though. The young bride had a great distaste for men with hair on their backs (due to spying a workman without his shirt when she was young). To protect his wife’s delicate sensibilities, Mr. Lupinman always spent the full moon alone at his hunting lodge.
At last, their diligence paid off. Leticia gave birth to twins. A boy and a girl. Realizing that she might be creating a new race of humans, she decreed her descendants would be named alphabetically—an idea she read in Modern Livestock Breeding Magazine.
As adorable as Aaron and Abagail were, Leticia couldn’t shake the feeling that the sins of the father were carried in their blood. As babies, they would lick their mother’s face in greeting. A particularly nasty-tasting rouge promptly broke the twins of the habit, and Leticia took that as a sign of superior intelligence in her progeny.
It wasn’t the only supe
rior trait the children displayed. They exhibited enhanced sight and hearing as well. Others might not have noticed, but a mother always knows.
When the twins came of age, Aaron shifted and was promptly sent to stay with his father at the hunting lodge for a few days.
Over the next months, Leticia watched her daughter for similar activity, but Abagail never shifted. The fact confirmed Leticia’s theory that all men are beasts (though she no longer thought that was such a bad thing).
She realized Abagail was something quite unique: a human enhanced by supernatural blood, but able to walk in the light of a full moon unaffected by the monthly curse of full body hair.
As such, she was the first Morehouse female to be bestowed the title of special. She received the benefits of lythology without enduring the shame of an animal tearing out of her flesh. The girl was more than human, and more human than her shifter-brother, Aaron.
That sense of superiority, along with the Morehouse naming tradition, marriage contract, and wealth, was now bestowed on Abagail Marie Morehouse-Lupinman.
Leticia, being purely human, passed away in her sleep at the age of seventy. The rest of the Morehouse women would not suffer the curse of ordinary lifespans.
Abagail also married a shifter (because someone told her girls always marry their fathers) and became Abagail Marie Morehouse-Wolvenman. She had the destined alphabetical twins, Benedict and Beatrice. The boy shifted. The girl was crowned special.
When she became of age, Beatrice married a shifter for true love and produced the fated twins Cary and his sister Constance. There was quite a buzz in shifter circles when Constance was born. The tales of Morehouse women were legendary, and fighting was fierce for the young beauty.
Constance approved of the competition, often going out of her way to encourage it. There was nothing spiteful in her behavior. She needed to weed out the overly aggressive and those who would not be able to protect their family.
She flourished under the attention of her admirers, and was in no rush to decide. Beatrice lectured her daughter on producing children while she was young, but Constance would simply point at her ageless grandmama and say, “I’m going to be young for a very long time.”
Compared to the Morehouse women, the males had a much shorter life span. Mr. Lupinman died in WWI, proving silver was not the only way to kill shifters. Both Aaron and Abagail’s husband perished in WWII. Benedict and his father were shot by an unsuspecting neighbor during a full moon hunt.
Fifteen years after that, Constance’s brother was subject to a fraternity initiation involving a particularly noxious beverage discovered in a seventeenth century book of witchcraft.
The drink was meant to poison “atrocities whose nature is to bring devastation and misery upon the world.” Because it contained wolfsbane, the only atrocity it weeded out was Cary. (An unfortunate footnote is that the person who invented footwear with built-in toes survived the drink unscathed, further proving the complete uselessness of the recipe).
Constance took the loss of her brother hard, berating her mother for her uncaring attitude. “Darling,” Beatrice told her. “I lost my father and brother, and I’m going to tell you what my mother told me. Our men are wild things who will always be attracted to danger. You will not tame them. You cannot protect them. And fate will find them.”
As Constance stood at her brother’s graveside, the trajectory of her life revealed itself in the black widow’s weeds her mother and grandmama wore. She would marry. She would have twins. She would watch her daughter follow in her footsteps.
And in the end, she would be alone.
Later in life (Chapter Five, to be precise) she would ponder why she went gentle into that good night. Yet deep down, she always knew the reason for her lack of rebellion. Life had caught her off guard with her brother’s death. She vowed never to let that happen again.
Constance, like so many lost souls and broken hearts before her, let fear of the unknown drive her to embrace the cold comfort of unquestioned tradition.
Her first resolution was to drop all the men pursuing her. They were perfect companions for a frivolous flirt but Constance was no longer that girl. She was a Morehouse, and Morehouse women needed husbands who respected tradition.
Mr. Raff Packman won her hand the old-fashioned way. By ripping the neck from an over-ardent suitor.
The dead man, Porter, had been completely unsuitable but captivating in a bad-boy way. Unfortunately, he was a very bad boy and attempted to force himself on Constance when she broke up with him. Before she could extract the mace from her purse, Mr. Packman came to the rescue.
Once Porter was dispatched, Mr. Packman covered his mouth with a handkerchief to hide the blood dripping from his fangs. Constance appreciated the thoughtfulness of the simple gesture. Raff proved to be a perfect gentleman, and even apologized that “a lady had to see that.”
Though the frivolous Constance might have fallen head over heels in love with the handsome suitor, the older and wiser woman was above that. She could be caring, thoughtful, and affectionate, but she could never fall in love with someone who was destined to leave her.
Constance married Raff (despite the occasional annoyance of being called Ms. Packman for the rest of her life). Soon, the couple was blessed with twins—David and Diana. Constance was so sure of their fates, she started teaching Diana how special she was from the moment the girl was born, while encouraging David to spend more time with his father. Though she cared for her son, she thought it better not to become too attached. It would prevent the inevitable heartbreak that was sure to come.
Raff also held expectations for his son. He expected the two to develop a close bond, but over the years, the boy became a puzzle to him. David didn’t exhibit any interest in outdoor sports, but delighted in cooking the game Raff caught. He attempted toughing up the boy, refusing his hugs for the more masculine-appropriate handshake. The look of rejection in David’s eyes haunted Raff enough that he finally distanced himself from the child.
Raff resigned himself to the fact that there was no point in trying to shape a beta into an alpha wolf. He would let the child pursue his own interests, and step in only when the boy shifted.
As the tradition dictated, when the children came of age, David went with his father to the hunting lodge, and Diana stayed home with her mother.
That evening, there was a series of frantic phone calls, and the men hurried home the next day. David was traumatized from his father’s true nature, and Diana had clawed through every cushion in the house.
The Morehouse women were frantic. Abagail, Beatrice, and Constance met behind closed doors.
“You waited too long to get married,” Beatrice scolded. “Your eggs are old.”
“Maybe there’s just too much wolf blood in me after three generations,” Constance accused.
Abagail shook her head. “Our line is ended, and we only got to the Ds.”
“What about the boy?” Beatrice asked.
“David? What about him?”
“Did he shift?”
“Not yet.”
Beatrice nodded. “Maybe he won’t shift.”
Abagail rolled her eyes. “What does it matter? He can’t give birth.”
Beatrice raised an eyebrow at her mother before shrugging. “He might mate a wolf-girl and make a Morehouse daughter. This could all be a generational hiccup.”
Never let it be said that Morehouse women couldn’t adapt to change. Overnight, Diana’s title of “special” was stripped from her, and Constance vigilantly monitored David’s every move.
The twins adapted, too. They became closer as the invisible barrier Constance erected between them fell away.
Raff Packman adapted as well. Seeing the devastating effect the sudden fall from grace had on Diana, he reevaluated his marriage. He knew his wife was a practical woman, as it was a trait they shared. He also knew her limited capacity to express love. She could be affectionate—even passionate. Yet, the only person who ever
received her unfiltered devotion had been Diana.
Now, even that was gone.
Raff worked tirelessly to erase the shifter stereotypes Constance instilled in their daughter. He made great progress until the family dynamics changed again. After a year of close scrutiny, Constance decided David was special. She even went so far as having his name changed to David Edward Morehouse-Packman. He was the first male to carry the Morehouse name since Leticia’s father.
Reminded of the privilege she was no longer entitled to, Diana began acting out. Teenage rebellion coupled with predator instincts requires a pack to reign in the young adult. Raff knew the best way to help his daughter was to raise the family among shifters. His own pack had disowned him for marrying a human, as was the tradition with most wolves. Only a solitary Sierra community would take them in—Lone Wolves Ranch.
Constance refused to leave, or to subject her now special son to such an environment. In her mind, shifting was like masturbating: if you had to do it, do it where no one would see and never talk about it. Raff’s only option was breaking up the family and taking his daughter to the ranch.
Constance knew she would lose her husband someday, as her destiny was to be alone. She hadn’t expected him to still be alive when it happened.
For the next four years, until the twins went to college, the family would spend two weeks in the summer together and a few non-lunar holidays. Despite Raff’s constant invitations, Constance never set foot near Lone Wolves Ranch.
Like many teenagers, Diana’s deep resentment toward her mother didn’t prevent her from emulating Constance’s pre-marital behavior. She spent her college years as a constant flirt. The twins had inherited their mother’s delicate features and their father’s dark coloring. It made Diana beautiful and David prettier than usual for a boy.