The biggest grin she’d ever seen stretched across his face. He jumped out of the car and came around to her side. He tugged the door open and leaned in, pulling her carefully into his arms. “That’s the best news I’ve ever heard, with the exception of you agreeing to marry me.” He grabbed her hands and pulled her slowly out of the car until she stood in front of him.
She laid her head on his shoulder. “I take it you’re excited.”
He wrapped his arms around her, holding on tight. “Yes. Beyond excited. Words cannot express how excited.”
“Do you still have to go on the trip?”
“No. I’m going to call the guys. They’ll understand. One of them can go, or we can all go so that I’ll have some backup.”
“Thank you,” she said, finally feeling settled after so much upheaval. “I seem to have lost all rational thought as soon as I found out about this baby.”
“I’ve heard that happens to parents frequently.”
“That’s what we are now.” She smiled up at him. “Parents.”
He kissed her on the forehead and got back in the car, driving them back to his house. “I’m going to call the guys now. I’ll be able to get Brennan to go for sure. He’s usually the most eager to travel.”
He didn’t seem to be able to let go of her, holding her hand to get out of the car and opening the door of the house for her. He was always chivalrous, but today, he’d taken it to the next level.
“Can I move back in?” she asked.
“Of course,” he said. “You don’t have to ask. We’re married, and this is your home.”
“How can you just agree so easily? Most men, or heck, most people, would want to make me sweat it out a little.”
“Oh, damn,” he said. “You better sit down. There’s something else I need to explain.” He waved his arms. “It’s not bad. I don’t think so, anyway.”
“I’m listening,” she said.
“Dragon shifters mate for life. We don’t choose our mate. It just happens. Some shifters call it fate, and some call it magic. Some call it chemistry. The truth is, nobody really knows why or how it happens, but once it does happen, we mate for life.
“Am I your mate?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said.
“Is Clara Kellan’s mate?”
“Yes”
“What does that mean for us?”
“It means that you’re the only woman that I’ll ever love.”
“What if I die?”
He grimaced. “Please don’t say that. But it doesn’t matter what happens—you’re it for me. Having you as my mate also makes me not hold grudges against you, and I won’t stay angry with you.”
“That doesn’t seem fair.”
“My parents were mates, and they were happy. So to me, it’s a perfect system.”
“I’m not going to complain. Not if it means I can move back in right away.”
“I expect you here tonight. Actually, I’ll go get your stuff now.” He pointed at the couch. “You sit down. You need to rest after you went running around up and down the street.”
She laughed. “I’m not sick.”
He gave her a kiss on the cheek before walking out the door. “And you better stay that way.”
22
Quinn
It wasn’t hard to convince Brennan to go to Ireland for him. Of course, he wanted to know why Quinn couldn’t make it. Quinn told him the truth, which meant within fifteen minutes, all three of his brothers, Clara, and Declan showed up at his house.
“I hope you don’t mind an impromptu baby announcement,” Quinn said to Juliana.
Juliana got up and looked out the window. “You guys really do travel in packs,’’ she said.
“It’s in our DNA.”
She patted her stomach. “Clara mentioned this little girl or guy would be a shifter, too.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Does that make you nervous?”
“Not at all. Declan is a great kid. He’s going to be a fabulous role model, and you’re the best person I’ve ever met. I think I did a pretty good job choosing the baby’s DNA.”
Pride burst in his chest. His mate was pleased that their baby would be a shifter. He pulled her close and kissed her, but they were interrupted by banging on the door and celebratory shouts. All five of them burst into the house with bottles of champagne, balloons, and streamers. How they’d come up with that in fifteen minutes, he had no idea, but he didn’t question it.
“I’m getting a cousin,” Declan screamed and leaped over a chair.
“Brother, I will go to Ireland for you,” Brennan said. He punched me in the arm. “You stay here and take care of your mate and hatchling.”
After an hour of revelry, they finally left, and Quinn pulled Juliana into his arms. “There is something we need to talk about. I’m not going right now, but I will have to go again. The witches are a very real threat. Even if I never went there again, they could branch out and find us here.”
“How likely is that?” she asked.
“It’s very unlikely. But Clara and Declan were in Scotland, and they found them there. One of the reasons I have to go check on them is to keep them from gaining the kind of power where they’d be able to come here and come after you or our baby.”
“I understand. As you were getting into your car and driving off, all I could think was that if something happened to you, you’d never know you had a child. I would have deprived you of knowing you were a father.”
“I’m so glad you told me. I was already planning to be careful, but now I’ll be even more careful when I do go.”
“I’m so glad,” she said.
“You look tired.” He pulled her into the bathroom and turned on the hot water for the shower. “You need to relax. You can’t sit in a hot bath all night now that you’re pregnant, but you can take a steamy shower.”
“Are you going to join me?” she asked, shedding her clothes.
“Of course I am.” He still felt the need to pinch himself over the turn of events. Just twenty-four hours ago, he’d been alone in his house, preparing for a lonely trip across the ocean, and now he was getting into the shower with his pregnant mate. Life could not be any better. He stripped his clothes off as well. He picked up a bottle of lavender shampoo. “I’ll even wash your hair for you.”
She sighed as she stepped into the shower and the hot water hit her skin. Once she was wet, he lathered her hair, massaging her scalp.
“That feels amazing.” She let her shoulders sag. “I think I’ll call the realtor in the morning and put my house up for sale.”
Quinn kissed her neck. “That sounds like a great plan.” He hadn’t wanted to push her, but now that she was pregnant and they’d reconciled, he did not want her living alone. He wanted her back with him, where she belonged. “I love you, wife,” he said.
He put both of his hands over her stomach and bent his head down. “I love you, too, baby,” he said, speaking directly to her stomach. Dragon shifters had such sensitive hearing. He hoped the baby would know his voice when he or she was born.
She sighed with what sounded like contentment and tipped her head back to rest on his shoulder. “I love you, too, husband.”
Epilogue
The baby turned out to look exactly like Quinn. She didn’t have much hair, but what she had was blonde and wavy, and her eyes were blue. She was already strong, too, and tried to hold her head up on the day she was born.
Luckily, the pediatrician hadn’t noticed anything unusual.
“I am ready to see my cousin!” Declan’s shouts filled the hallways of the maternity center.
Quinn patted her shoulder. “Brace yourself. Here they come.”
Even without the supernatural hearing that Quinn was blessed with, Juliana could hear Quinn’s three brothers, Clara, and Declan coming down the hallway. They would be pretty hard to miss—they sounded like a freight train.
In their usual fashion, they burst into the hospital room, creating c
haos and very welcome mayhem. Clara held balloons, Brennan held a cake, Kellan held flowers, Liam held a giant card, and Declan held a wrapped gift.
“That’s my cousin!” He dropped the gift on the floor and took off running, launching himself right toward Isleen.
They’d chosen an Irish name for her. Quinn had tried to get Juliana to consider a Romanian name, but she wanted to keep the Irish tradition alive in their family, and there wasn’t a single one of her relatives that she’d leave a baby alone with. She’d much rather honor the strong family tradition that Quinn and his brothers had built.
Juliana instinctively curled her body over Isleen, but that wasn’t necessary because Liam had caught Declan in midair. “Careful, buddy, don’t smash Aunt Juliana.”
No mention was made of smashing Isleen. According to Quinn, if Declan jumped on her, as long as they pulled him off, she’d be just fine. They’d told her over and over that Isleen would be practically invulnerable to all the things that befell normal children. She wouldn’t break bones when she fell off a bike, and she wouldn’t get chickenpox or the croup.
As a new mother, she had to admit it was an appealing prospect. Although she wasn’t quite ready to put it to the test.
“Do you want to hold her?” Juliana asked Declan.
He threw his arms into the air. Clara leaned down by his ear. “Remember. She’s like you, but until she’s much older, we’re going to treat her like she’s a normal human and breakable, okay?”
Declan nodded, and Juliana met Clara’s eyes with a silent, “Thank you.” Clara was pregnant, also, with Declan’s younger sibling, and they’d soon have another little hatchling in the family.
Quinn settled Declan on the bed beside Juliana, and Juliana placed Isleen in his arms. Instead of flailing wildly, which was what Declan usually did, he sat perfectly still, transfixed by her small face. She blinked her blue eyes open and waved her tiny fist.
“She knows I’m her cousin,” Declan said.
Juliana just nodded because maybe she did know. Juliana was still learning about shifters herself. Declan lifted her, cuddling her close to his face. “She’s like me.” He closed his eyes and held her while all the adults in the room pretended not to cry.
Kellan wiped his eyes, and Juliana heard his whisper to Liam, “I never really thought about that he’s never met a dragon shifter hatchling before. He’s been the only one in the States.”
Liam clutched Kellan’s shoulder. “I know. I wasn’t expecting him to bond with her so quickly.”
Juliana wiped her own eyes just as Declan sat up straight and gave the baby a big kiss. He said, “She’s nice. I need to get up now.”
They all laughed heartily, and each adult took turns cuddling Isleen and cooing at her. Then they all left in a rush, just like they’d arrived.
When the room was quiet again, Quinn settled back in next to her. He kissed Isleen. “Welcome to our family, little lady. They’re crazy, but they’re ours.”
Juliana turned to him and kissed him on the cheek. “Yes, they are.”
She had married into a family of dragon shifters, she was raising a little dragon shifter girl, and she couldn’t be happier.
Thank you for reading DOCTOR DRAGON’S FAKE BRIDE I hope you enjoyed it! If you did, may I ask you to please write a review HERE!
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Firefighter Wolves Shifters
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She only knows me as a firefighter who saved her life.
My truth is much darker.
She might never forgive me once she finds out who I really am.
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Ben
Something dangerous is coming for his pack.
Ben Stokes, wolf shifter and Alpha of the Lenox pack can feel it deep in his bones.
His problems are only compounded when he meets a human woman, who he is drawn to despite knowing that tangling with a human would spell disaster.
And Ben cannot explain why his instincts want to turn him into her protector.
He knows that he shouldn’t get close to her… but he can’t stop himself.
As their passion grows, so does the danger to the love blossoming between them.
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Lana
Lana Deary has come to Lenox to start a new business and new life.
Only things don’t go according to plan when she arrives to find her business a smoldering mess and her attraction to Ben Stokes, the hot firefighter she meets on the scene is not part of her plan.
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1
Ben
Ben Stokes paced back and forth in the confines of his tiny office as if he was an animal in a cage, and raked his fingers through his hair. A restless energy had been pulsing through him all day. He could smell ozone in the air, and there was an electric feeling coursing through his muscles. It was like a storm was coming, but the clear sky outside told him that it wasn’t the weather that was driving him nuts. It was something else approaching.
“You’re going to wear a hole in the floor if you keep pacing like that.”
Ben looked sharply toward the door where his brother Josh leaned against the door frame. He stopped pacing and stood in the middle of the office as he tried to compose himself. Something was happening to him, something he’d never experienced, and he didn’t want his brother to know it.
“Was there something you wanted?” Ben hoped whatever it was, it could be dealt with quickly because he didn’t think he could hide his agitation for long from someone who knew him as well Josh did.
“I want to know what’s up with you?” Josh sat down in the seat across from Ben’s desk and put his feet up on the edge. “You seem a little broodier than usual.”
“According to you, I’m always a broody asshole, so I don’t see how this is any different.” He reached out and swept Josh’s feet off his desk, trying to act as normal as possible. This time was different and he knew it; he just didn’t want the pack to know it, too.
Josh sighed as his feet came to rest back on the floor. He gave Ben a penetrating stare which Ben returned. Their eyes locked for several moments before Josh’s eyes fell away.
“If you are afraid that whatever is bugging you will get back to the pack, it won’t.” Josh stood and closed the door to Ben’s office. “We’re behind a closed door, so anything you say now will be private.”
Josh wasn’t only his brother, but his second-in-command. And he wasn’t stupid; Ben had to tell him something. But how to explain the feeling that something was happening, something that would change the dynamic of the pack? Would change him? How could he explain it to Josh when he didn’t even know what it was himself?
He decided to tell Josh what he did know.
“I’m feeling the weight of being Alpha. Dad told me it would happen eventually, but I haven’t really felt it until now.”
“You’ve been Alpha for twelve years; you are bound to feel the weight of the responsibility at some point. It’s what makes you a good leader—the fact that you do feel responsible, that you want
what’s best for the pack. It doesn’t mean you have to go it alone. It’s not weak to open up.”
Ben nodded, but his brother’s words didn’t lessen his stress or calm his building anxiety. And while he knew that he could always use Josh as a sounding board and that nothing he said to him would go any further, he couldn’t bring himself to open up about something he didn’t yet understand.
“I need to run.” Maybe that was all he needed to make the restless feeling inside him go away.
Ben turned toward the door as Josh stood up.
“Are you sure that it all it is?” Concern pulled Josh’s brows together. His brother knew him better than anyone, and Ben knew that he wasn't fooled by his talk about the ‘weight of responsibility’. But that was all Ben could tell him for now.
“Yeah, that’s all it is. I need to get out of my head for a while.” He quickly schooled his features into an impassive mask and walked out of his office with Josh behind him.
The firefighters, all members of his pack, clustered inside the station turned and looked at him. Ben made sure he had his game face on. He didn’t want them to see something in his expression he wasn't ready for them to see yet. To do so might cause chaos and disorder within the ranks of the pack, and until Ben knew more about the cause of the feeling racing inside him, he wanted the pack to be calm.
“I’m fine. I just need a run.” The hardness in his tone made Josh’s eyes dart away, and Ben knew that there wouldn’t be any more questions from him, at least not tonight. “You’re in charge until I get back. Don’t let the town burn down.”
Doctor Dragon's Fake Bride (Irish Dragon Shifter Brothers Book 2) Page 13