by Dizzy Hooper
I bask in this family we made.
I rest.
Chapter 13
It's a good thing I took the chance to rest while I had it.
Everyone says that you can kiss sleep goodbye once you have children. Turns out, having three is even worse.
The pups were born healthy but small, and even here, in their first few hours of life, they seem intent on catching up. As soon as one falls asleep, the next is making little mewling cries, ready to feed. It's an endless cycle. Even with my mates there to hold babies and otherwise pitch in, these three tiny mouths keep any of us from getting any real rest.
We're also—obviously—completely lacking in supplies.
Turns out, there's a reason to stay close to home when you're ready to give birth.
The rags Claire gave us to serve as diapers won't last long. My body is striving valiantly to keep up with my pups' insatiable appetites, but we're eventually bound to need formula. Proper swaddling blankets.
Car seats.
Hell, another car.
Only none of us is prepared to leave. The idea of being without any of my mates right now makes my chest tighten painfully, panic clawing at me.
It's not just the strain of caring for three newborns. The scents in the house have changed. I'm not sure if all Katarina's kin cleared out while I was giving birth or if I simply couldn't sense them because of the pain, but they're definitely here now. More of them than before, too.
My skin itches, my wolf rearing her head and baring her teeth.
The threat hanging over us is fuzzy and unknown, but it weaves a web of tension in the air.
All my instincts scream at me to take my babies someplace safe.
But I need to see my father.
I can't have come all this way to hardly so much as look at him.
So we linger, none of us sure of what to do.
Grady and Colt and Landen share a few looks. I suspect they're working on a plan of action, but they don't want to upset me. This is my family we're dealing with; they want to let me call the shots.
They're not going to leave anything to chance, though. Not when my safety is on the line. Not when these three precious pups could get caught in the crossfire.
Finally, darkness gives way to dawn which leads to a bright and golden morning. None of us has slept more than an hour. We're dead on our feet, but we can't delay any longer.
Which is probably how Katarina knows it's precisely her moment to strike.
Chapter 14
It's the scent of danger that reaches us first.
I'm still lying on the bed, propped up against the headboard with my two little girls in my arms. Grady already fetched our things from my room in the attic. Landen has Roman, and Colt is packing everything up.
All three of them freeze at once.
The stench of my father's mate and her goons burns the inside of my nose. The smaller of the girls, Stella, pulls off my breast to let out this shriek. I huddle her close, murmuring words of reassurance, but my own nerves are frayed to the point of snapping.
At least the bitch has the decency to knock.
She doesn't wait for an answer, though. The door bursts open. Katarina strides in, shoulders back and head high, gaze imperious.
With everything I have left in me, I school my expression. I'm half naked here, with one baby wailing and the other at my breast. I'm not sure how I could be more vulnerable or exposed.
Only my mates surround me.
Dropping everything except our son, they turn to face Katarina.
"Well, now that all that drama is done," Katarina says. Her smile is like icicles.
I fume. Drama? I just gave birth, for fuck's sake.
Suppressing my instinct to growl, I breathe through my nose. "Thank you for your hospitality."
Katarina shows her fangs. "You are not welcome."
A shiver runs through me.
And yet I almost welcome the open hostility. We're not going to be pussyfooting around here. Well, good.
Grady isn't so reassured. He takes a step forward, forming fists at his sides. "Hey—"
She holds up a hand. Ignoring him, she looks to me. "You have never been welcome. Last time you tried to enter our territory, you were told in no uncertain terms that you do not belong here. Whore."
She might as well have slapped me.
All three of my mates react just as harshly. Colt lets out a hurt sound, while Grady puffs up his chest more. Landen bares his teeth.
"You will not talk to her like that," Landen says.
"In my own damn house, I will talk to whomever I want however I want."
And that's the breaking point for me. "But it's not your house."
My voice comes out more forceful than I would have expected—especially when I feel so weak. But I can be strong.
For my mates. For our children.
I look past her. Almost like a shadow, my father slipped in behind his mate. He's pale, his eyes dull and his posture stooped.
All over again, I want to tear Katarina to pieces and crush her bones between my jaws.
I want to go back in time and find the scared, desperate girl who let this awful female and her goons run her off of her own lands.
Could I have saved my father then? Is there enough of him left to be saved now?
Our gazes meet across the room. Something sparks behind the fog in his eyes. He glances down at the babies in my arms, at his grandchildren, then back to me. Complicated emotions struggle toward the surface of his gaze, but they're still too deep, lost beneath the icy waves of his new mate's cruelty. I want to reach out to him, but I can almost see him pulling away.
Retreating behind the female who's stolen everything from me.
Whose evil eyes gleam an even deeper red as she stands over me right now.
"How dare you," she seethes. "This is my home now, you slut. You left." She gestures wildly at my father. "He was in mourning, and you deserted him."
I feel her words like a blow.
But my father encouraged me. He knew I loved this land, but he also knew it didn't sustain me. I needed other people, other shifters in my life. He sent me off to the city with his blessing.
I shake my head vigorously, my vision blurring with enraged tears. "That's not what happened."
"Who was here for him while he grieved? Who took care of him after you abandoned him? Me. I was here. I put him back together when you left him bleeding."
I glance to my father again. He's distant. Barely even here.
"You're hurting him."
"You're hurting him," she screams. "By coming back here. By showing him what he lost. Well, I won't let you do it."
My heart, already racing, kicks up another notch as a half dozen of her goons shove past my father and into the room. Half of them have already given in to their wolves. Their stench drenches the place, and my mates snarl.
It's too crowded in here, barely room to breathe. All three of the pups shiver and whine. I clutch the two in my arms closer. Landen flashes his teeth as he holds onto Roman, the muscles in his arms straining with barely contained fury.
We're a powder keg. Anyone so much as touches a match, and we're going to go up in flames.
So of course Katarina stalks another foot forward. "You're a disgrace to this family. We warned you to stay away. We told you not to bring your shame and filth into our home, and what do you do? You parade your entire harem of disgusting mongrels into my house. You flaunt what a whore you are, opening your legs for them. Getting yourself knocked up like some common bitch. Well, we won't have it. You won't raise Raymond's grandchildren in depravity."
It takes a full second for her meaning to pierce its way through to my brain. Terror lights in my heart.
And then she lunges for me.
Chaos breaks out in every direction.
In the back of my mind, I'm aware of Grady and Colt's wolves bursting free. Their clothing shreds to tatters, and the room fills with their snarls and growls.
Landen clutches Roman more tightly, restricted to his human form to keep hold of our precious son.
Grady leaps into Katarina's path, only to have two of those mutts launch themselves at him. Colt moves to block her, too. He howls as another wolf gets its teeth into his leg, hauling him back, and then Katarina is there, right in my face. Her canines protrude, her face warping as she lets her wolf show its claws.
"These are ours," she hisses, reaching for Maya.
"Never." Violence builds in my very bones. Every instinct in me screams at me to protect my young. I hold my pups in my arms, gnashing my own teeth. I kick out—
Only to have fresh rush of agony tear through me.
Fuck. The wounds of giving birth are too fresh. My abdomen pulses with pain, and the angry lines of pain between my legs shriek, but what else can I do?
This awful woman stole my father. She stole my home and my history and my mother's things.
I'll die before I let her steal my children.
I lunge forward, sinking my teeth into her arm. The bright coppery taste of blood floods my mouth. She rears back. I hold onto Maya and Stella as if my life depends on it, because it does.
But Katarina isn't alone.
One of her goons who's still in human form swoops in. He gets his hands on Stella, and I fight back the best I can. Another of them is fighting with Landen, who keeps Roman cradled through it all. Grady and Colt are a frenzy of fur and fangs as they fend off all possible attacks, but there are too many of them.
Katarina moves in again, her face even more distorted, and I can't keep both and her goon back.
She grabs at Maya, too hard. My tiny newborn pup shrieks, and suddenly, I'm like a woman possessed.
I lurch to stand, babies in my arms, my tender abdomen protesting loudly, but I don't care.
"Don't you touch them."
"You don't deserve them."
I kick and bite, fending off her attacks, as well as those of her thugs, but there are too many of them. Landen lets out a muffled sound of pain. Colt and Grady fight their way toward us and our children. Grady's maw is bloody and there's clearly something wrong with Colt's foreleg, but neither of them seems to care. Grady tears into another wolf, leaving him howling before flinging him aside. Colt downs two men by themselves.
But we can't carry on like this. We're exhausted and injured and outnumbered two to one. Even the ferocious energy of fighting for our children can't overcome these odds. Despair threatens to shiver my heart to pieces.
Except then there's the sound of crashing glass.
Through the window, three more wolves pour in, ears back and eyes full of rage. I recognize Tommy's chestnut fur, then Nikki's black and Claire's reddish gold. Relief floods me.
The sounds of wolves and humans together in battle fill the crowded space. There's no air, no room to so much as turn without getting a face full of teeth and claws, but Katarina doesn't back down.
Even though she's bleeding, she takes advantage of my moment of inattention to smack me hard across the face. Her half-morphed nails slash my cheek, drawing blood.
And that's when another blow comes from behind.
I drop to my knees, grace alone keeping me from dropping my baby girls. Seeing stars, I look up, dazed. Grady howls, and Landen shouts my name.
Katarina looms over me, my blood dripping from her claws.
"You have no rights on my territory. You inherit nothing. I'm going to take your children and raise them as my own, and then you'll have nothing. You hear me, whore? It's all mine. Your father, the land, his money. These mongrel babies you spat out. They're mine."
"Like hell they are."
Just like that, she disappears from my vision. My head spins as I struggle to follow the movement. Blood drips into my eyes, but I stare.
And before me I see a man I swear I haven't seen in a decade.
"Dad?"
In a flash, the whole room goes silent and still.
He's still pale and frail, but the clouds have suddenly parted from my father's eyes. Fire lights them instead as he holds his mate by her throat. He lifts her into the air. Her eyes bug out of her skull, her twisted face going red with anger and loss of breath.
He roars at her, "Get out."
"Raymond—"
"You want me? My money? My land? See if I care. But you touch one more hair on my daughter's head, and I will end you."
She shakes her head, gasping. "I—"
"You threaten a mother with taking her children away—hours after she gave birth?"
"They could be ours, Raymond. Don't you see? We can have a family—"
Rage curls the corners of his mouth. "I already have one. And it no longer includes you."
He tosses her to the ground.
She lands with a crash. She staggers to her feet, mouth agape. I hug my babies close, unable to believe what I'm seeing.
"You can't," she sputters. "We're mated."
"Not anymore."
Audible gasps fill the room.
Renouncing a mate is all but unheard of. Shifters mate for life; we wither or even die when our mates are lost. To cast Katarina out would be like cutting a hole in his chest. He already suffered the loss of my mother. To choose to reject his new mate will probably kill him.
Tears sting the corners of my eyes.
He looks to me, and my God. He looks like the father I remember. The one I know and love. "Jessie, sweetheart. I'm so, so sorry."
Then he lunges at his mate again. He carries her shrieking form from the room.
The silence left in their wake is deafening.
But we're the first to recover. Grady and Colt spring into action. Growling with menace, they chase Katarina's goons out of the room. My cousins fall in beside them.
Landen staggers to my side. "Jess—"
My head spins. I sag into him. The room is empty now except for us and our beautiful, perfect, safe, beloved pups. "What just happened?"
Winded, he shakes his head. "I'm pretty sure we won."
Chapter 15
Claire and Nikki return first. They find me and Landen sprawled out on the bed, our babies lying in the space between us. Exhausted, I look up at them.
They must have stopped back at their place. They've pulled on the simple kinds of dresses we always preferred back when I lived here—easy to get in and out of when you want to shift.
"Coast clear?" I ask.
"Just about," Claire confirms.
Nikki jerks a thumb in the direction of the road. "Tommy and Uncle Ray aren't taking any chances. They're seeing Katarina all the way to the highway."
"And her boys?" I ask.
Claire nods. "Them, too."
Clearly. The weight on her slim shoulders has visibly lifted.
I can feel the difference, too. The very air is clearer. It'll take a while for the smell of Katarina and her kin to dissipate completely, but already it's less intense.
For the first time since we turned onto the road leading up to my father's property, I relax.
I just have to know… "Grady and Colt?"
"Waiting for them at the gate." Nikki smirks fondly. "Being overprotective guard dogs."
I laugh. God, it feels good to be able to. I rub Roman's back and kiss the top of his head. "Well, they're missing all the fun back here."
Landen reaches out to caress my shoulder. Of all three of them, he's the most excitable. Usually the most eager for a fight. But he smiles softly, blue eyes warm. "Yeah. They are."
Claire and Nikki start cleaning up the mess left after the chaos, leaving Landen and I to coo over our babies in peace, exactly the way we should have been doing since the moment they arrived.
The absence of my other mates tugs at me, though. They take their time getting back, too.
Finally, the creaking of the front door alerts me to their presence. I lift my head as they stagger in.
They look so tired. Utterly worn out.
But the satisfaction and tranquility in their expressions are a
match for what I feel myself.
"They're gone," Grady says, coming to stand over me as I nurse Stella. He strokes a careful finger down our little girl's cheek, then presses a gentle kiss to my brow.
I catch him before he can turn away, placing my palm to the side of his face and pulling him back. We share a softer kiss, our lips lingering for a long moment. "Thank you."
"I would drive off a thousand wolves to protect you—and them."
I don't doubt it for a second. "And my father?"
"Is right here." His gruff voice comes from the hallway. "Right where I should have been all along."
I look up to find him standing in the door. His face is red from exertion, and it's worrisome, but not as alarming as the gray pallor he wore a couple of hours ago.
"Dad."
"Baby girl." He takes a step forward, then stops, and holy hell, I never want to see him so uncertain, so lost again in my life. He gestures toward me. "Can I?"
My eyes mist over. "Of course."
He approaches slowly. Grady and Colt each move a little closer, permitting this, but wariness pours off both of them. When my father reaches the bed, he sinks to sit on the very farthest edge of it. For a long moment, he regards my children. He regards me.
"They turned out so beautiful, Jessie." His throat bobs. "Almost as beautiful as their mother."
"Dad…"
His face crumples. "I'm so sorry. I don't know what I was thinking. Katarina—she—"
"It's okay…"
"No. It's not. She just—" He raises a hand to his eyes and swipes at them furiously. "She bewitched me. I don't know how else to explain it. I knew she was wrong about you. I regretted it. I missed you. But she kept telling me—"
"I know."
"She was lying. Of course she was."
"Dad, you don't have to explain."
"Let him," Colt says, quietly from my side.
I glance up at him. He's gazing at my father.
It would be so easy to hear Colt's words as vengeful, only they're…not. Empathy softens his expression.
My throat clicks as I swallow.
We don't need to hear his explanation. But he needs to give it.