by Celia Kyle
The Ovulators.
God save him from crazy women, though his life sure as hell would be boring without them.
The small lioness in his arms sniffled and rubbed her snout on his neck followed by a low purr. His baby girl’s furred body was a warm weight balanced on his forearm, and he tightened his hold a little more. He’d nearly lost her. One stumbled step, one hitch in her stride, and that tiger would have been on Harper.
Alex’s lion stirred, growling at the mere idea that they’d almost lost their cub. Harper was theirs.
Theirs and trembling and scared… The stench of her fear still burned his nose, still surrounded him and stoked the cat’s need for vengeance—even though they’d already done their job.
Alex padded down the hall, passing his sons’ rooms, both boys playing some mindless video game rather than thinking about Weston’s near miss. He still hadn’t figured out how the hell to help West. It was as if his control lessened with every day that passed, and he sure as hell didn’t want to track his own son when he truly lost his grip on humanity.
Cuddling Harper close, he nudged open the door to her bedroom, the explosion of pinks and purples searing his eyes for a moment. He blinked to clear his vision, the hot pink ceiling making his eyes water.
Harper hated pink clothes but loved the girly colors in her space. It made his kid—and his mate—happy, so he dealt with it.
He didn’t stop until he reached her tiny princess bed and carefully lowered himself to the soft surface. He repositioned his cat-shaped daughter, making sure she was braced on his thighs before he rubbed his cheek on the top of her head. He released a low, rumbling purr, telling the cat that all was safe. Harper was well and protected, and it could retreat now. His daughter simply whined and tried to get even closer, as if she could dig beneath his skin and being that close was her only safety.
Another purr with an added chuff. Encouragement from her Prime, not her father. Daddy kissed boo-boos. Primes—leader of the pride—kept the pride safe.
Just like he’d always keep Harper safe.
“Come on, sweetheart. Shift back for me.” He’d force her if he had to, but he really didn’t want to go that far. It’d make Harper’s shift painful and it’d piss off Maya. “Daddy needs to know what happened, huh?”
Alex rubbed his cheek atop her head again, his purr still gently rolling from his throat while he waited Harper out. His kids were all different—their personalities as individual as Maya’s favorite ice cream flavors. His Harper was slow to make choices. She weighed her decisions and carefully determined possible outcomes before taking action.
Which was what made her mad dash—and kidnapping of a hedgehog—so odd.
He remained in place, his hands gentle while he traced her spine, his purr soft while he nuzzled the top of her head. He wasn’t sure how long they sat there, father and daughter coming to a silent agreement to figure out what the hell happened.
And eventually, Harper gave in. It began with a single snap of bone, a jarring crack that was immediately followed by another and then another. Fur receded and was quickly replaced by skin. Paws returned to hands and feet while the heavy muscles of her lioness shrank to his little girl’s thin limbs. For all the cracks and breaks, the shift passed in a gentle roll, the transition smooth as silk and done within moments—which meant he now cradled a nude little girl. One that trembled and cried with huge tears escaping her eyes. But the tears didn’t have him wondering if there really was someone who could conjure the dead. It was the bruising—the purple that marred Harper’s forehead and the large swath of dark near black on her side.
“Sweetheart.” Harper shook and he grabbed a nearby blanket—one they kept on hand for moments like this. “Why didn’t you shift back sooner, huh?”
Alex kept his voice light, his movements gentle. She didn’t need to know the strength of his rage.
“Had to protect her, Daddy.” Harper sniffled.
“Yeah, but your mother has had her for a while now, huh?” He had to remain calm. “Your mom won’t let anything happen to her. You know she’s always wanted a hedgehog in the pride.”
He wasn’t lying. It’d been a joke for years. But that wasn’t why his mate would protect the little bit of nothing in the bathroom. He’d taken one look at that ball of slobber-covered quills and one glance at Maya’s eyes, and he knew the hedgehog was here to stay—even if she hadn’t acknowledged the choice at the time.
“We have to keep her safe, Dad. You and Uncle Brute and Uncle Grayson and Uncle Neal…” Harper rushed through the names of her mother’s guards and some of the other strongest males in the pride. “And East and West, Dad.”
East he could understand. Weston though… “Baby, you know how West can be…”
“He won’t hurt her.” Harper shook her head. “He won’t. He just…” She shrugged.
Yeah, Weston just…
“Doesn’t she have parents? Or a pack?” He still didn’t understand why groups of hedgehogs called themselves a pack, but he wasn’t gonna ask. “I bet someone’s missing her, huh?”
Harper just shook her head, another one of those heart-breaking tears escaping before she rubbed her nose on Alex’s chest. Another blob of snot on his shirt. Nice. He’d gotten used to never having clean clothes, but he’d been hoping that since Harper was getting older… Yeah, he mentally sighed. Wasn’t happening.
“He killed her mommy.” Harper squished her face onto his chest and whispered against his shirt. “I saw, Dad. I smelled a human, and so I went to see.”
They’d talk about her chasing after humans as a shifted lioness later.
“I followed the trail like you taught me.” If only he hadn’t taught her so well. “And I found them arguing by the clearing.”
Fuck but she’d gone far, and they’d have a serious talk about that later. As Maya often called them, it was time for a Come to Jesus Meeting. “What were they arguing about, sweetheart?”
“The mommy had a baby, but it wasn’t the tiger’s baby. It was supposed to be, but the Gaian Moon came. The baby took a long time to shift and she just did, and it was a hedgehog, not a tiger.” Alex and Maya hadn’t had the full talk about the Gaian Moon and the role it played in ensuring the continuance of their kind, but Harper had a broad picture understanding.
“Uh-huh.” He quietly encouraged her to continue.
“He said he was gonna kill the mommy and the baby.” She pulled away from him then, blue eyes so like her mother’s filled with pain and a desperate need to be believed. “I couldn’t let him, Dad. I couldn’t.” She shook her head, leave-strewn strands whipping back and forth. “I had to stop him.”
“You did good, sweetheart. We always help…”
“Those who can’t help themselves. Except Aunt Carly and Aunt Elly because they’re prey that can bite.” Harper grinned and snapped her teeth together, a glimmer of her true self peeking out.
“Exactly. So what did you do?”
“I sniffed for a different kind of shifter. The man smelled like Finn on two legs and she was human, and I know what pride smells like.”
Damn he was proud of her. Smart as hell and even stronger. It scared the shit out of him. But she knew a tiger’s scent from Finn—a transplant from the UK—and pride, no matter the species, shared a little something in their scents.
“He killed her while I was looking, and then I found the hedgehog and snatched her and came home.” Harper’s lower lip trembled. “But he heard me. I wasn’t quiet enough and you had to—“
“Protect the pride and my family. Like I always do and always will, huh?”
Harper nodded and sniffled, running her forearm across her nose. Better her own arm than his shirt again.
“Knock, knock,” Maya’s soft voice drifted to him through Harper’s open door and they both turned their attention to her.
To her and the blanket wrapped girl she held.
“Mommy?” Hope and heartache filled Harper’s tone and he rubbed his daughter
’s back, comforting her.
“Hey, guys, this,” Maya tugged on an edge of the blanket, revealing a mass of tangled dark hair. “Is Lark.”
One blue eye flicked to him and then Lark snapped it closed once more, small hands clinging even more tightly to Maya.
“Lark?” Harper sat up straight, that inquisitive, sharp mind going to work. “She’s a hedgehog.”
“Named Lark.” Maya’s lips twitched.
“A lark is a bird, mom.”
“Lark is also a hedgehog, Dazs.”
“Mom.” Harper narrowed her eyes. “I’m not wrong. You only get to call me Dazs when I’m wrong or in trouble, and I didn’t do anything wrong. Daddy said so.”
That earned him a raised eyebrow from his mate and he just shrugged. “He deserved what he got.”
Especially after what he’d done to the mother. Harper hadn’t given any details—yet—but he imagined she’d have a round of nightmares for a while. Tigers sometimes played with their food.
“Uh-huh.” Lark whined and Maya snapped into mom mode in an instant, gently rocking the girl while whispering a soft shhh to her. “Lark’s last name is Hawkins. Like her mother’s. She even smells a little bit like her human mommy.”
Alex frowned, mind flipping through the hedgehog families he knew. There was a bar between Ridgeville and Stratton—Honey’s—and the owner’s mate was the alpha of the local hedgehog pack. “Blake doesn’t have any Hawkins’. She’s not married to a local.” He flicked his attention to Harper and then back to his mate. “And from what I understand, the tiger wasn’t… And I don’t know of any with that name either or recognize him.”
And fuck he knew just about everyone. They both did. Between shifters going through Ridgeville and the time they spent keeping shifters safe from Freedom and HSE, they met a lot of shifters of every species.
“Think bigger picture, non-furry Hawkins.” Maya opened her eyes wide and gave him a serious look. One that said he needed to remember something. Well, what the fuck was he supposed to remember?
He stared at Maya.
Maya stared at him.
He still stared at Maya.
“Oh fuck no.” Alex shook his head. “You’re fucking joking.”
“Daddy.” Harper poked him. “Daddy…”
“One second, sweetheart.” He wrapped his hand around her tiny fist. “Daddy’s having a panic attack.”
“Dad, Primes don’t panic.” Harper tugged against his hold, but he wasn’t ready to let her go just yet.
He also wasn’t done panicking—whether they did or not. Hard not to when staring at the small child in his mate’s arms as if it was the devil incarnate. “And she’s related to…”
“Her grandfather.”
Shit, fuck, damn, and growl. She was the devil’s spawn once removed then.
That didn’t change the fact that she was innocent. Innocent and in need of protection, which Ridgeville would give her. Not just because Alex demanded it as the Prime, but because the pride knew what the HSE was capable of. And Lark’s grandfather—her whole family—was the HSE. The anti-shifter organization was built from the ground up by the Hawkins family.
Except, apparently, Lark’s mother, who’d fucked a shifter and given birth to a werehedgehog daughter. But who the hell was her father?
5
“Being a total badass means because I said so applies to every part of your life. It also means having a mate who can back up that I said so part of your world.” – Maya O’Connell, Prima of the Ridgeville pride and woman whose I said so is handled by Alex.
They strode into the living room side by side, secure in the knowledge that the twins were holed up in Easton’s room while Harper and little Lark were curled together in Harper’s bed. They slept the sleep of innocent children who didn’t have a care in the world while some of the older cubs, pups, and kits crowded the floor. The moment they’d been allowed in the room, the raucous menagerie of children overran the space.
Her ovaries had busted out some egg-making-shaking that made her want just one more kidlet. Maybe. That was when her uterus busted out with its version of I Will Always Love You. Except it told Maya it would always love carrying her babies.
No. No. She’d made her contribution to society in the form of at least one normal-ish child—Harper. Then again, Harper was an awful lot like her, and Alex always said she was…
Everyone tensed when they walked through the entry, over a dozen eyes intent on them. Half were filled with fury and the other half filled with a bloodlust she could understand. The Ovulators were a pretty bloodthirsty bunch.
She had no doubt they’d heard every word of Alex’s conversation with Harper and then the one she’d shared with her mate. They knew, and now it was time to plan.
Alex went to his normal seat, the plush chair comfortable and worn-in after all these years. The second he thumped down, he tugged on her arm, pulling her into his lap. Maya didn’t resist a bit when he pulled, her lioness needing his closeness after everything they’d endured. She laid her head on his shoulder, taking comfort in his touch and scent.
The Ovulators did the same, the female halves of every couple touching their mates in some way. She wasn’t sure where the idea that wolves were the only tactile shifter species came from, but it was dead wrong.
Fur, feathers, or scales, touch was important.
Maya breathed deeply, letting Alex’s scent soothe some of her ragged nerves, and then she pulled away, giving the room her attention.
But Alex spoke first, questioning their pride. “Ricker? Elise? News?”
Ricker shook his head. “The guys have nothing.”
The guys—a dark as hell shifter group that was legal… and yet not. But then again, that assumed the guys even existed. And it wasn’t as if Maya hadn’t asked. Of course, Ricker had just looked at her and given her that whole “if I told you I’d have to kill you” line.
Thing was, she didn’t think he was joking.
“I called Gavin.” Elise drew everyone’s attention, and Brute tightened his hold on his little fox mate. Elise’s brother, Gavin, was the master of all things electronic with the council and also mated to a lioness from Ridgeville. “He said there’s not even a record of Lark’s birth in any database. Council surveillance has remained constant on the mother—on the whole family—but if that’s the daughter of Victoria Hawkins, they have no idea where she came from. They don’t even know when Victoria would have come into contact with shifters.” Elise shook her head. “HSE takes prisoners,” she spat the word. “But Victoria has never been to an HSE compound or had an opportunity to come into contact with them.”
“Maybe she met someone the council sent in undercover?” Maya raised her eyebrows. “Someone the council…” she swallowed hard, not liking what could have happened to a fellow shifter, “lost?”
The fox shook her head again. “According to Gavin, the council has pulled out of ops and cut back to distance surveillance only.”
Alex’s growl vibrated through her body and Maya added her own to the mix. It wasn’t just shock that had her lioness reacting to the news, but bone-deep rage as well. Soon Brute and Harding joined in—Deuce, Wyatt, and Neal adding their own. The Ovulators wouldn’t be left out, either—each woman hating the council’s actions.
“Since when?” Alex snarled and a jolt rippled over his body. Fur tickled her skin and the hand clutching her thigh tightened, nails pricking her skin.
Maya had reasons for her rage—for her hatred at what HSE had done to so many—but Alex’s fury reached farther back, into the past when he’d lost friends to the organization.
The council had promised to keep tabs on every anti-shifter organization going forward. Every movement, every communication. If a leader sneezed, they’d know about it.
Elise shook her head. “I don’t know. Gavin doesn’t either. He found several conflicting reports but he didn’t go too deep. He will if we want him to, but that kind of data mining needs to be planned. Not
spur of the moment.”
Which Maya understood. Hated, but understood.
Had she mentioned hated?
Like any government organization—shifter or not—hacking was a tiny bit frowned upon. Digging through council records without authorization? Yeah, that could end… badly. Painfully.
Deadly?
She hoped not. Like, seriously.
“So where does that leave us?” Grayson spoke up, his amber eyes focused on Alex, not Maya. He was the second and reported to Alex. It made sense that he’d look to his Prime for guidance.
Maya’s guards knew better and looked to her. They’d chased her across state lines—more than once—after some truly awesomesauce ideas. They also knew of her penchant for rescuing whether rescue was needed or not.
In her mind, the whole rescue thing was just a matter of opinion, and if anyone had an opinion that didn’t match hers, she’d take a pin to their onion.
Which… didn’t really make sense in the traditional way, but it confused others just enough that she got her way before they could say no.
Score!
As for where it left them…
Right. The guards were looking to her for the answer. “We now have a new member of the Ridgeville pride. Her name is Lark O’Connell and she’s a distant relative of Alex’s. Her parents were tragically killed in a hunting accident—“
“At least one of her parents is a hedgehog,” Alex drawled, and she glared at her mate.
“What? Hedgehogs can’t be hunted in the wild? They exist only in pet shops and little kids’ bedrooms?” Because really, they had to be wild at some point. Something couldn’t become domesticated if it was never undomesticated. Whatever. Maya harrumphed and deepened her glare. “As I was say-ing…” She turned her attention to the group. “Lark O’Connell is an orphaned cousin. Elise?” The fox raised her eyebrows in question, but remained silent. “Can you have Gavin work that kind of magic? He can’t dig, but he can finagle here and there, can’t he? Do a little massaging?”