by Camryn Rhys
“You know,” she said, pulling back from his kisses. “This baby is going to be human.”
He shook his head. “I’ve only been a wolf for five months. I have no idea how any of this works.”
“We had sex while you were still a human.” She stroked her stomach. “And since I’m a female wolf, I’ll only be able to have wolf babies with another wolf.”
“So, as two wolves, we’re going to have a human baby?”
She nodded, a sad look coming over her face. “If it’s a boy, we can turn him. But if it’s a girl, she’ll be human.”
“Just like my sister,” he said. He’d taken a lot of time to process what his new nature meant for him, for his family, but he’d never considered raising a human baby. When he thought about his future with Sylvie, it’d always been as wolves.
“I guess so, yes.” She took his hands and squeezed them. “I’m so sorry. If I had known you’d be here, I would’ve come back sooner. But Uncle Caleb—”
“Yes, I know about his orders. I wish there was something we could’ve done at the time.” Paul slid his arms around her. He loved the feel of her body, pressed against his, and their child between them. “But we’re going to make the best of it now. And this baby will be so loved, because she’s ours.”
“Or he.”
He rocked back and forth, holding the love of his life, unconcerned about what the future would bring, because Fate had brought him the one thing he couldn’t live without. Sylvie Proulx.
“It won’t matter,” Paul said into her hair. “We’ll love her, or him, and we’ll make more.”
“Oh, we will, will we?”
“We will. I’ve got it all planned out.”
“I love you. So much.” Her voice broke on the last word, and he gripped her tighter against him.
“I love you, too.” He kissed the top of her head. “Since the moment I first met you, Sylvie Proulx, and more every day.”
Paul looked out across the green hills, to the mountains, and the wild. They were home, now that they had each other. And nothing would ever tear them apart again.
Epilogue
Springfield, Wyoming
Four months later
Paul laid his hand on the double-paned glass of the nursery window and tears stung his eyes. His daughter was there, laying on a pink blanket, sleeping soundly. Sylvie was in her room, also asleep, and Paul was restlessly walking the halls of labor and delivery.
A year ago, he wouldn’t have thought he could be a father. Hell, four months ago, he hadn’t even known he would be one. But now, he couldn’t imagine his life without her.
Without Sylvie.
Without Katie.
Katie Jo, to be precise. He’d never dated a girl named Katie, Sylvie had never known a girl named Katie, and there were no Katies in either of their families. She would be a unique little child, his Katie Jo.
A human in a wolf world.
They still hadn’t explained that part to either of their packs. But the one person they wouldn’t keep it from was Katie Jo. She would know who she was, and who they were, and who her family was, and who loved her. There would be no secrets kept from Katie Jo.
None.
Her daddy would see to that.
“Paul!” a familiar voice called out. Paul turned to see Roman Gallagher, Caleb’s brother, approaching with a balloon bouquet. The beefy bartender seemed a little out of place holding pink foil baby socks as big as his head.
He and Paul had spent almost a month together, looking for Sylvie, in Mexico and parts elsewhere. They’d become friends. As the youngest of Caleb’s siblings, Roman was the closest to Paul’s age, but maybe more important, he had grown up with Paul’s mother. The mysterious Gabrielle.
There were no memories of his mother, not even buried in his psyche. He’d seen pictures. Roman showed him. But he didn’t remember her. The only mother he had ever known was Mattie Banfield. Even when he’d found out that he wasn’t her real son, in high school, when his sister did a science experiment on their DNA, he didn’t think of Mattie as not-his-mother. So Gabrielle Gallagher was confusing to him.
“Which one is she?” Roman asked, running his knuckle along the glass. “Besides the cutest one, obviously?”
Paul chuckled and pointed to the corner, nearest the door, where Katie Jo slept. “You wanna meet her?”
“Where’s your bride?” Roman pointed down the hallway, toward Sylvie’s room.
“She’s out like a light.”
“Nah. I can wait.” He passed the balloons to Paul. “On behalf of the whole pack, welcome to Katie Jo.”
The comment stung a little, if only because it made him hyper-aware that he had never been welcomed to the pack like this. His mother hadn’t wanted it. And Paul was still a little frustrated by that.
Sylvie had tried to explain to him that, even if they had known they were almost-cousins, growing up, they still would have been mates. When he saw her, now, he could see the hazy magick around her, that would have led him to her, anyway. But a part of him might be mad at Gabrielle Gallagher for a long time, for forcing his mother…Mattie…to raise him as a human, even when she was a witch herself.
He could have grown up with magick all around.
“Stop thinking whatever you’re thinking,” Roman said, poking him in the shoulder and pushing him toward a couple of seats against the wall. “No good will come of it, I can tell by looking at your gears turning.”
“Thanks, Roman.”
“Would you call me Uncle Roman, already, kid?”
Paul nodded, still a little weirded out by the constant requests for him to call everyone by family names that he hadn’t known they had.
“Not a kid,” he said, holding his hands up. “By the way.”
“Yeah, I guess that’s true. You can’t be a kid and have a kid. One of you has to be a grown up.”
Roman passed him a card that had been signed by everyone in the Gallagher pack. Some of them promised to come up and see the baby soon. Then, there was a signature from his mother, and from both Brady and Jamie. It made a pang of sadness creep through his heart.
He hadn’t talked to them much since he left Springfield. He wasn’t sure what to say to anyone except Jamie. On some level, Paul knew it didn’t make Brady and Mattie not his family, to become a wolf, but it still took some getting used to. There were things about his life they’d never understand again. And vice versa.
Roman had gone running with him, a lot, in Mexico. Taught him a lot about being a wolf. Made him feel like a real part of the pack.
“There are a couple of hot nurses in this place,” Roman said, leaning back against the wall and eyeing a blonde who passed them at a quick clip, dressed in purple hospital scrubs.
Paul rolled his eyes. He didn’t notice anyone but Sylvie. Pregnant, she had been glorious. Every day, she seemed to get more beautiful. He couldn’t wait for all their tomorrows.
The hallway suddenly filled with familiar faces. Caleb, Maggie, Kier, Sean, Brady, Jamie, Kyle, and his mother. The whole Springfield crew had showed up, piled with flowers and balloons and gifts.
Roman put up one brow. “I promised them I wouldn’t ruin the surprise.”
Sylvie Banfield woke to Paul’s lips on hers, his face hovering over hers, but she could hear a lot of voices. She listened through the din of talking, trying to find Katie’s little coos. Someone was holding her, across the room.
It seemed like she would never stop orienting herself to wherever her daughter was in the world. Life would never be the same again.
“Sorry,” Paul whispered, kissing her again. “They all came at once.”
“You couldn’t keep them away?” she asked with a smile.
He shook his head. “Our daughter is a novelty. The first gr—”
“Wait.” Sylvie sat straight up, heart pounding. “You told them?”
Paul’s eyes looked stricken. “I was going to say, the first grandchild in my family,” he whispered.
The voices around the room seemed to descend on them, asking what it was they didn’t know, and Sylvie swore inwardly. Stupid pregnancy brain. Or mommy brain.
Mommy.
In the end, it didn’t matter quite as much what they knew and didn’t know. She was a mother. She’d had Paul’s baby. They were a family.
Her ring cut into her hand as Paul squeezed it. She still wasn’t quite used to the wedding ring. She loved it. But it felt just as strange as all the rest of this.
Mattie Banfield cut off all the questions with a swipe of her hands and she came toward them, eyes narrowed on Paul. “What haven’t you told us?”
“What’s wrong?” Jamie Banfield, dark and wild and beautiful, held the little bundle that was the most important thing in Sylvie’s world now, and followed her mother over toward the bed.
Sylvie held Paul’s hand against her heart. “We were going to wait to tell you all this. Probably for a long time.”
“Katie Jo is a human, not a wolf.” His voice was much calmer than expected. Sylvie’s heart was running at a thousand. She didn’t know why she was so afraid, but it probably had something to do with the fact that she wasn’t holding her daughter, and her alpha was in the room. She tried to breathe through the fear.
“How’s that possible?” The deep voice from the back of the group belonged to the one person who had power over them all. Caleb Gallagher.
“We had sex when Paul was still a human,” Sylvie spit out. “So he was human, and I was a female wolf, so…she’ll be human.”
“But she’s still part of this pack,” Caleb said, resolutely.
A heavy sigh of relief seemed to come from the collective room. Everyone had been waiting for that. Paul and Sylvie especially, given the strangeness with Paul’s adoption.
“It’s just that easy?” She met Paul’s eyes, and saw the relief there.
“Why would you ever think you had to hide that from us?” asked the alpha.
“Because I spent my whole life outside the pack.” There was hurt under Paul’s words, and a twinge of sadness, and Sylvie squeezed his hand hard, trying to ground him. He was safe. She was his home now.
“That was different.” Caleb pushed through the crowd and came to stand in front of Paul, putting a big hand on her mate’s shoulder. “My sister had reasons for the choices she made. She thought that, being human, her kids wouldn’t fit in. But she was…” His voice cracked and broke off. Gretchen came quickly to hold his hand, to ground him. It was such a natural impulse, when you loved someone.
Sylvie understood that impulse and let her alpha compose himself without pressing for more.
“She was wrong,” he finally managed, emotion taking all the heft out of his voice. “Paul and Jamie are just as much a part of this pack as Sylvie and her mother, or her cousins, or my brother’s children, or anyone. Being human didn’t make them not mine.”
There was a gravity under those words that shook Sylvie to her core. Her uncle was a good man. She didn’t want him to suffer.
“Thank you,” she said quickly, reaching for her uncle. He bent down to kiss her cheek and gave Paul a man-hug, which was far less awkward than she had expected. She held out her hands for her baby and Jamie came forward, putting Katie Jo into her arms.
“I thought you hadn’t told them about the wedding yet,” Jamie said with relief in her words.
Everyone started clamoring again and Paul’s sister shrunk away. But Sylvie and Paul just smiled at each other and ignored all the noise. It was amazing how the crazy just filtered away when Paul was around. Like she could have hung on to him in a hurricane and known she was safe.
He smiled and kissed her and kissed their baby, and all the fear just melted away. She would never forget this moment. The crazy of their families swirling around them, and Paul being the center of the storm.
This was what she had been waiting for.
It was worth the wait.
Other Moonbound World Books
ENFORCER SERIES (Moonbound Series)
Book 1: The Werewolf Cowboy
Book 2: The Werewolf Bodyguard
Book 3: The Werewolf Ranger
Book 4: Chasing a Wolf
Book 5: Seducing a Wolf
Book 6: Saving a Wolf
Book 7: Broken Wolf
Book 8: Hunted Wolf
Box One (Enforcers, Books 1-4)
Box Two (Enforcers, Books 5-8)
VONBRANDT PACK SERIES
Book 1: To Save a Mate
Book 2: To Love a Mate
Book 3: To Win a Mate
Book 4: To Find a Mate
WITCHES OF WHITEWOOD
Book 1: Heart of Stone
Book 2: Heart of Fire
Book 3: Heart of a Hero
Book 4: Daunted Hearts (releasing June 2017)
THE COURTS OF DRAIOCHTA
New Epic Fantasy Paranormal Romance series coming in 2017 from Krystal Shannan and Camryn Rhys.
Book 1: Of Spells and Shadows
Book 2: Of Trial and Torment (releasing autumn 2017)
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About the Author
Author of hot historical romance with paranormal elements and co-author of the Moonbound world—a spinoff of the VonBrandt Werewolves from Somewhere, TX.
Loves Florentines and lightbulbs. Writes about cowboys who cook and demons who captain airships and werewolves who save the world. Once met Queen Elizabeth. Can swallow a sword. Eats ghost peppers by the handful. Former chef, turned writer. Currently living in Canada. Owns a falcon. Not all parts of this bio are equally true.
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Copyright ©2017 by Camryn Rhys. All Rights Reserved. Published by Moonbound Books.
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This is a work of fiction. Any similarity between the characters and situations within its pages and places or persons, living or dead, is unintentional and coincidental.
Edited by C.A. Szarek
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Cover Design by Najla Qamber Designs
Digital Format by Moonbound Books
Somewhere, TX town, concept, and characters created by Chick Tales, LLC and used with permission.