by Nalini Singh
Jon looked taken aback.
Abandoning his sandwich, he began to back away. The girls followed.
Shoulders shaking at the evidence that maybe it wouldn’t take long for the younger teens to adapt after all, Lucas nudged Hawke’s shoulder.
The wolf alpha was holding a pupcub but followed Lucas’s gaze. “Oh, for Christ’s sake,” he muttered. “Yo, Heather and Dani!”
Spinning around to look at their alpha, the two girls gulped and scuttled over. Jon took off into the trees the instant they were no longer holding him captive. Meanwhile, Lucas tried to keep a straight face while Hawke disciplined the two girls. “I seem to remember you wearing clothes when you left the den.”
“We are wearing clothes,” one of the girls protested.
“Oh?”
The single word was enough to make them turn bright red and duck their heads as they twisted their hands together. Neither pack was prudish in the least, but adults and children both were expected to dress suitably for formal events. It was about discipline and respect—and in this case about being age-appropriate.
No one would’ve batted an eye had an eighteen-year-old worn one of these dresses to go clubbing. But barely thirteen-year-olds, if Lucas was guessing their ages right, at a family celebration? It was a wonder they’d stayed under the radar this long.
“And what did I tell you about stalking DarkRiver boys?” Hawke asked the two chastened wolves.
“That cats are shy and we should be nice.”
Lucas almost choked, had to cover it with a fit of coughing. Shy? For cats? Hawke shot him a glare, as if to say, What the hell did you come up with? Lucas didn’t admit he’d told DarkRiver kids that the wolves were far shyer than cats and they had to take care.
“But Jon isn’t a cat,” one of the girls pointed out, looking up through her eyelashes. “He’s human.”
“And he’s soooooo pretty!” Her friend all but melted into the earth.
A single growl from Hawke and they froze, spines dead straight.
Holding their gazes, their alpha said, “Go change, then you’re in charge of making sure Ben doesn’t get into trouble.”
Two faces fell, their looks of despair so comical that Hawke’s lips twitched. “For an hour,” he amended. “After that, I’m sure someone else will need to be punished.” He reached out to hug the girls to him one-armed. “You can sashay all you want when you’re a little more grown. Right now, you’re still pups. Now go put on your proper clothes.”
Feet dragging, the two disappeared off into the trees, where they’d no doubt stashed the clothes with which they’d fooled their parents. Hawke looked down at the pupcub in his arms as the child grumbled in her sleep before her expression turned beatific. “Yep, you’re going to be trouble, too.”
“Of course she is.” Lucas tapped Belle on the nose. “We wouldn’t have our cubs or pups any other way.”
“No,” Hawke said with a smile as the two girls he’d sent off returned in skirts and pretty tops. The pair went straight to Ben—who was currently hanging upside down from a tree branch while trying to stuff cake into his mouth. It appeared to be a competition, with Roman hanging in the same position beside him.
It was pack. It was life. It was family.
• • •
WALKER Lauren stepped onto the dance floor with his partner. Who beamed up at him, the lightest touch of pink lip gloss on her mouth. He wasn’t ready for his baby girl to grow up, and at a few months past ten years of age, she wasn’t quite there yet, but she was close enough that things that hadn’t interested her at all a year earlier now intrigued and fascinated.
Such as lip gloss she’d told him tasted like strawberries.
“Come on, Daddy.” Marlee held out her arms in perfect position for a slow dance.
Walker bit back a smile, because at this instant, she was his baby again, that small warm bundle he’d cradled and rocked in the darkness of the night when no one could see how much he loved her. In the PsyNet under Silence, such things had been forbidden, a father’s love for his child verboten.
No more.
“Just a second.” Reaching down, he picked up her much shorter form and, holding her easily with one arm around her waist, engulfed her raised hand with his other, their arms at a ninety-degree angle. “Place your free hand on my shoulder.”
Marlee obeyed his quiet instruction, but her mind was on other matters. “Don’t wrinkle my dress.”
“I won’t.” That dress was one Marlee had bought on a shopping trip with Lara. A vibrant blue that brought out the light green shade of Marlee’s eyes, it had a sparkling neckline studded with what Marlee called “jewels” and no sleeves. The skirt went to her ankles, with tulle underneath. It was the dress of a little girl turning into a big girl. Marlee adored it.
As Walker adored her.
Pressing a kiss to her forehead, he said, “Your hair looks beautiful.”
An incandescent smile. “Lara did it!” Marlee lifted her hand off his shoulder to pat the updo into which Walker’s healer mate had combed Marlee’s strawberry blonde locks. “You really like it?”
“I love it.” As a teacher and a father, Walker had always tried to encourage any child in his care, but it was only after leaving the PsyNet that he’d finally had the freedom to say such sweet words to his little girl.
And to the bigger girl who danced in her mate’s arms not far away.
Sienna sparkled tonight, her ankle-length black dress made of some fabric that caught the light in a hundred different ways. Unlike Marlee’s dress, Sienna’s hugged her form, the long sleeves tight to her arms and the neckline jaggedly asymmetrical. The dark ruby red of her hair fell down her back, hiding it, but he’d seen the deep vee there.
“Uncle Walker,” she’d said with a scowl when he’d warned her she’d get cold. Then she’d thrown her arms around him. “I love you, too.”
That his dangerous niece could say that to him was a gift. That she wanted to say it to him was an even greater one. Sienna’s eyes caught his right then as Hawke spun her out, and her cardinal gaze was full of delight. Hawke spun her back into his chest a second later. Landing with her hands flat on her mate’s body, she tilted up her head just as the wolf alpha bent his.
Walker looked away from the kiss that said a thousand things without a word being spoken, and down into the glowing face of his daughter. One day, she, too, would have a mate to love, a mate who loved her in turn. When that time came, he’d let her go with his blessing to live a life extraordinary and beautiful and full of freedom, but until then, he’d watch over her.
Now, catching her wide-eyed interest in something Drew was doing to Indigo, he copied the move and dipped Marlee over his arm. She giggled in girlish delight, saying, “Again, Daddy!” when he lifted her up.
So he did it again.
Marlee was flushed and happy when the song ended.
“Come on Marlee-Barley, time to dance with me.” Toby held out his hand.
Walker’s nephew was in the awkward gangly phase, but he’d scrubbed up for today in black pants and a short-sleeved shirt in dark blue that had epaulets and visible stitching as detailing. His hair, as ruby red as Sienna’s and as striking, was neatly brushed but already falling forward. It was his eyes that made Toby though—cardinal starlight, they held a sweetness it was rare to see in a boy his age.
Walker worried about Toby, but sweet as he was, his nephew seemed to be holding his own, even in the midst of a wolf pack. According to Lara, he seemed to have the same effect on his packmates as a fledgling healer, engendering trust and making people feel better with his simple presence.
Perhaps it was because Toby had an empathic gift or maybe it was simply that Toby had been born with a deep gentleness of spirit. He’d have been crushed into line under Silence, but here, he was free to grow into his personality.
; Tonight, he took a delighted Marlee as his dance partner and they spun into a fast dance, both of them stamping their feet and moving their arms with the beat. When Ben, dressed in a tiny tuxedo Lara had pronounced “deathly adorable,” ran over to join them, they laughed and made a space for his small body.
“What’s my Benny going to do when Marlee matures before him?” Ava asked, having come to stand beside Walker at the edge of the temporary dance floor. Her glossy dark locks were streaked with metallic blue and glittering silver and swept up in a complicated braid. “It’s already happening.”
“He’s tough. He’ll handle it.” Ben and Marlee had long been firm best friends despite the age difference between them, some indefinable aspect of each speaking to the other. However, like Ava, Walker could see that relationship altering shape in front of his eyes. Their interests were diverging, would take them in different directions in the coming years.
“But,” Walker said as they watched their children dance, “whatever happens, I can’t see them ever drifting totally apart.” Their relationship was too strong, too rooted, and for all his childish antics, Ben was oddly astute. As if he saw people for exactly who they were.
A boy like that would grow up into an extraordinary man.
Ava sighed. “She’s still going to break my poor boy’s heart in a few years. No girl of fourteen is ever interested in a boy of ten.”
Wrapping his arm gently around Ava’s shoulders, Walker held her to his side with the affectionate skin privileges that had developed between them over the time Walker had been mated to Lara. The two women were best friends, Ava in and out of their home, as Lara was Ava’s. Walker also liked Ava’s mate, Spencer, a great deal and they often had dinner with the other couple, while Marlee loved spending time with both Ben and his baby sister, Elodie.
The toddler was currently laughing uproariously with Naya Hunter, both of them seated on an outdoor play mat.
Their baby laughter was making several nearby adults grin. Walker couldn’t resist his smile, either. “I don’t think a small thing like a broken heart would stop Ben from pursuing Marlee as soon as he’s old enough,” he said.
Ava chuckled. “You’re right. My boy has stubborn determination down to an art.” Rising on tiptoe, arm around his back, she tried to look out over the dancers. “Where’s Lara?”
“Chatting with Tamsyn about the pupcubs.”
Looking over to where the two healers stood, Walker saw them move apart after a quick hug. Lara turned to head toward him at the same instant that Ava said, “There’s my sweetheart. I’m going to haul him into a dance before he gets too caught up in photographing the event.”
Walker let Ava slip away and moved to meet his mate halfway. She’d tamed the corkscrew curls of her black hair into a fancy twist tonight and the red glints within shimmered when she passed under a cascade of tiny lights, but nothing shimmered as bright as her smile when she met his gaze. Her dress was ankle-length, the color a deep blood orange that looked exquisite against the natural dark tan of her skin.
It caressed her form as she moved, the simple lines of it graceful and elegant both.
“Are the children happy and busy?” she asked as she reached him.
“Yes.” It hadn’t always been easy for Walker to trust the bonds of pack, especially when it came to the children, but he was a true SnowDancer now, understood that in a healthy pack, a child need never look far for affection or assistance.
Biting down on her lower lip, Lara tugged on his hands. “Let’s sneak away for a bit.”
Walker had never played, not as a child, not as a young man. But he was mated to a wolf now, and to a wolf, play was as necessary a part of life as breathing. Releasing his mate’s hands, he slid one of his around to lie against her lower back. “This way.” His height made it easy for him to see through the mingled guests.
It still took them several minutes to navigate their way out, as packmates and friends wanted to say hello, but he finally got them to a spot in the shadow of a cabin. Far enough away from the party that they could speak in private, but close enough that they could still see the festivities. “Do you want to go into the forest?” Stroking his hands down her back, he rested them on the curve of her buttocks. “I want to.”
Lara looked at him through the thick fan of her lashes. “Bad man.” Her smile belied her words. “Leading me off the straight and narrow.”
Walker went to say that was his responsibility as her mate when something altered in the air between them . . . or perhaps something altered inside him. He didn’t know how to describe it, but he knew for certain that Lara’s body was no longer the same as it had been yesterday. Leaning down, he looked into her eyes.
“Walker?” Lara raised one hand to his cheek. “What’s the matter?”
Shaking his head, he tried to put a finger on what was bothering him . . . and oh. “Did you do a pregnancy test today?”
“No, I was going to wait till—” Lara’s eyes widened, one hand going to her abdomen. “Are you sure?”
He nodded. He couldn’t explain how, but he was sure. It was as if the mating bond had sent him a little pulse of knowledge, a warning that he’d have to take extra care of his mate in the months to come. “Yes, I’m sure.”
Tears filled her eyes. “Walker, oh. A baby.”
He gathered her in his arms, his own heart thudding so brutally inside his chest it almost hurt. “I love Marlee until it’s hard to breathe at times,” he told her. “But I never had the chance to experience all the stages of her development. I had to steal time with her.” The times she wasn’t in day care and her mother, Silent and without rebellion, wasn’t around to see how Walker treated his child—as if she was precious. As if she was his heartbeat.
“You won’t miss out on anything this time around.” She lifted her tear-wet face to his. “We’re going to go through this together, all of us. The whole family.” Her face glowed. “I can’t wait to tell the children.”
He loved her even more for loving Marlee and Toby as her own, for treating them like a mother would her babies. “Together,” he echoed, and holding her close, looked out at where Marlee was now sitting on the ground eating cake with a similarly occupied Ben next to her.
As he watched, Ben offered her what might’ve been a chocolate decoration from his piece. She accepted it, giving him something from hers in return. When Spencer moved into view to take a snapshot of the two, Walker knew he’d be asking for a copy.
“Do you think she remembers?” he asked Lara. “The times I had to be cold with her? The times I couldn’t pick her up when she cried?”
“Marlee is one of the most well-adjusted children I know.” Lara brushed his jaw with her fingers. “Whatever she might’ve missed out on in her childhood, she always knew that you loved her.”
Emotion rising in a tide inside him, Walker spread his hand over her hip. “When shall we tell the family?”
“After I do the test, double confirm.” Lara’s voice was shaky. “I feel like I’m made of champagne, bubbles of happiness fizzing up my brain.”
Walker could’ve never come up with that description, but it was exactly right. “Me, too,” he admitted, bending until their breaths kissed and he could drink in her sheer joy. “Me, too.”
Chapter 55
JUDD DIDN’T KNOW quite how he’d ended up with an armful of baby, but someone had handed the child to him, and so he now found himself looking into big brown eyes that looked back at him with just as much curiosity. She wasn’t one of the newborn pupcubs. He was fairly sure this child belonged to a leopard soldier named Emmett and his human mate, Ria.
Baby stealing was rampant at the party, the children passed around to be adored and kissed and spoiled. The pups and cubs and pupcubs seemed to take it in their stride, pack creatures that they were. But since no one seemed to realize that Judd had a baby, he stepped a little farther awa
y from the main lights so he could spend more time with this tiny brown-eyed creature.
“Hello,” he said, though he knew the baby was too young for verbal communication.
She waved a fist at him.
Cradling her in one arm, he took the offered fist in his free hand. Her skin was so fragile, her bones so soft, and her grip delicate but determined when she tugged at his finger. He found himself smiling, fascinated by her small movements, the way she clearly wanted to bite down on his finger though she had only the merest suggestion of her first two teeth.
“Gorgeous man, you just melted my heart into a puddle.”
He’d known Brenna was coming nearer. He could feel her always. When she stopped at the other side of the baby and sighed, he glanced over to meet the extraordinary beauty of her gaze. “Why are you melted?”
“Seriously hot, seriously dangerous man with a tiny, adorable baby in his arms, both of them fascinated with one another?” Uncaring of her stunning ankle-length gown in poppy red, Brenna fell dramatically onto the ground, arms flung out. “Dead.” Pushing up onto her elbows, she said, “Especially since it’s my hot man holding a baby.”
He helped her up using his telekinesis. “You want to hold her?” he asked, strangely reluctant to pass over the soft, warm weight.
“No, it’s okay. You keep holding her.” Brenna smiled, obviously able to read his emotions. “Her name is Mialin Corrina.” Kissing the baby’s cheek, Brenna whispered, “Pretty, just like this tiny kitten.”
That kitten smiled and made happy sounds that did things inside Judd.
“Did you ever hold Marlee or Sienna?” Brenna asked.
“Marlee.” Not often, only when he’d been able to slip the leash of his trainers, and then only when his brother was alone except for the baby. “She used to do this, too.” Grip at his finger and later, at his hair. “I always found it so peaceful to hold her.” Feel the beat of her heart, the warm puff of her breath. “I never had the chance with Sienna.”