by Amber Lynn
“Now you’ve done it, Vik. I told you the waddle was something that should never be brought up.”
Paul was sitting in an Adirondack chair ten feet away from us. The girls were running around our massive yard as they chased butterflies. We had twenty acres of land, plenty of room for our growing family to roam.
Every once in a while I saw Paul look at me with those sad eyes of acceptance, but overall we’d figured out a way to raise our family. It was nice having him close by when Vik and I decided to travel to other packs to try to teach them a better way of life.
I wasn’t ready to introduce the girls to more violent situations. There were often fights that didn’t always end up well for the other party, and they didn’t need to see those kinds of things.
“I still claim I didn’t waddle at all, and if you two were smart, you’d start using a code word. The very idea that the queen of the werewolves would waddle is preposterous.”
“I agree, but it’s hard to change the facts. Is there something I can get that will make my wife and son happy? How about another steak? He seems to relish pure protein.”
Niklaus agreed with his father, but I was tired of the red meat diet. The girls had let me decide things on my own without constant input. Of course I hadn’t been able to read their minds, so maybe they had been trying to direct my movements.
I’d become an expert in all the little things that made Vik and I special. Reading minds wasn’t as difficult as it seemed, but one of the first things I learned to do was shut it all out. There was a time and place for it.
Along with understanding how to use the ability, I learned how Vik really felt about me. It was weird to feel devotion and a connection from someone you hardly knew. It made the barely existing relationship we had advance faster than a normal one, which in a way was kind of boring.
I told him I loved him a week after we’d settled into a daily routine at the mansion. I was pregnant with Niklaus by the time we’d moved to our new home. There were no surprises during the courtship, as we remained totally open with each other.
In a way I liked that it was completely different from what I’d had with Paul. At the same time, I hated that I had absolutely no control over it.
“He can wait a little while for his dinner.” I wanted to get off the subject of food as quickly as possible. “How mad were they that we had to cancel the trip? I know Terrance was looking forward to a visit.”
We’d been working with a pack in Florida. It was the third pack we’d met with, and the most resistant to changing their ways. It reminded me a lot of my old pack, but there were a few in the group who wanted us to drive home how good things could be.
“He understands. The last time he saw you, you happened to be almost as big as you are now. He knew there’d come a time when travel was difficult.”
“It shouldn’t have been difficult this early. I have a feeling your son isn’t going to last nine months inside of me.”
“No, he’s not, but one of his sisters technically didn’t either. Don’t worry so much about the other packs. We have plenty of time to fulfill your grandmother’s dream.”
No one liked saying all the greats, so we’d simplified Ece’s familial tie to just grandmother. I knew he was right, and we weren’t the only ones trying to change the way people thought. Jack and Harry had taken it upon themselves to see if they could do things without us there to show our magic tricks.
With Jack also moving on, the city we’d once lived in was missing their best detectives. I hadn’t checked in on how the crime rates were doing, but I assumed they’d gone up. In the middle of nowhere, five states away, those kinds of statistics didn’t confront me.
“You’re not a super hero, Nikki, even if you act like one. People understand that you have a normal life.”
Paul’s idea of a normal life didn’t coincide with mine. I was used to the way things were, but I didn’t consider living with a husband and an ex-husband, who had turned into best friends could be considered normal.
“We need to see about finding you a girlfriend. I know you didn’t hit it off with the last one, but if your brain is still telling you this is normal, you need to spend a little time away from the house each day.”
It was difficult being over an hour away from the nearest pack. We didn’t even have any real ties to the pack, but it had been the first one, after the one I grew up with, that we worked with to get the wolves living lives that intersected with humans instead of keeping to the shadows.
After the divorce was official, and I married Vik, I’d wanted to find someone for Paul as quickly as possible. He wasn’t in the same kind of hurry. After a few dates, he basically came home and said he didn’t think he was ready to move on.
It made me feel horrible that I had. It was like I weakened what we’d really had together, even if I didn’t have a say in what happened with Vik. A part of me thought I should’ve waited, but Vik hadn’t been lying about facing challenges for me.
I didn’t understand the craziness of a male werewolf’s mind, no matter how much listening in I was allowed to do. While we were still living at the mansion, Vik had five challenges for me. Since we’d been married, there hadn’t been a single one.
“Why would I want to be anywhere but here?” Paul asked, bringing my mind away from relationship woes.
“She just worries about your happiness. With Niklaus coming any day now, she doesn’t want you to think you’re solely around for babysitting duties.”
I never thought I’d enjoy having someone else possessing the ability to say what was on my mind, so I didn’t have to.
“How many times do I have to tell you that as far as I’m concerned, my life is currently perfect? I get to spend my days with the three women I love most in the world and we finally don’t have any secrets between us.”
Surprisingly enough, especially after hearing him declare his love for me, Paul never challenged Vik for me. I wasn’t privy to all of their conversations on the subject, but I knew there wasn’t ever a secret battle they kept from me. It was hard to hide as many broken bones and bruises I saw on the other guys who hadn’t been anywhere near successful with their challenges.
“It’s nice to be able to share everything with you. I didn’t even have to come up with a way to explain the fact that I was pregnant, since you heard things going on in my body just like I did.”
I’d known immediately when it happened, and immediately dreaded how I was going to tell Paul. Everything had still been at the awkward stage for me as far as he went and I’d gone and created a child with another man without even blinking an eye.
“It was hard not to believe the possibility was right around the corner. You do know your room in the mansion wasn’t soundproofed, right? And I hate to say this with the girls around, but, you aren’t exactly quiet when it comes to bedroom activities.”
We’d had the conversation before, and every time I was equally mortified to hear him say those words, which is why he used them. He always had a smile on his face when he said them, and acted like it was a joke between us.
It was no wonder that I’d fallen in love with him. He knew me and was able to read me without a connection like the one I had with my mate. I couldn’t say I regretted not turning him and bonding, but there were times I wondered what it would’ve been like if I had.
My life was always meant to be with Vik. I understood that, even if it took me a little while, but I often considered the “what ifs” of life.
“I think we should probably turn the topic to something else. You two get weird when you stay on the relationship topic too long.”
Vik moved his hands around on my stomach as he played with Niklaus. They were basically giving each other high fives, which was evidently their thing to do. The mom in the equation wasn’t amused by the game, but she liked that they were bonding.
“You seriously think we haven’t stepped beyond the point of weird already?”
We’d gotten to where we w
ere talking about the fact that Paul heard things he shouldn’t. That usually didn’t happen until at least thirty minutes into the conversation.
“Well, yes,” he said as he leaned down and kissed my neck. “But, we can turn that around. Why don’t we talk a little more about what the plans are for the girls’ birthday party? Since you can’t fly, the location is obviously changing, but I don’t think the guest list is changing any. Are you ready for that many people to descend upon our home?”
The honest answer to that was no. I feared what would happen when three packs showed up for the party. We’d originally planned to go back home and welcome visitors from other packs to celebrate the girls turning three.
When Niklaus decided he wanted to stay close to home, plans got changed and roughly four hundred people had let us know that they’d show up to celebrate the party anyway. The only thing I had to look forward to was the fact that Paul’s parents had decided they couldn’t make it. Thank god for small miracles.
They didn’t know anything about werewolves, but they’d figured out the truth about Selina’s father, and had basically disowned Paul for his acceptance of our new family life. It had hurt him for a little while that they couldn’t understand.
Like with everything else, he seemed to get over it rather quickly, which was great news for me. I wanted to keep only positive people in the girls’ lives, and the Stevenses didn’t qualify.
“Maybe we should move before they get here.”
My suggestion fell a little flat since the very reason they were coming was because I couldn’t move. That hadn’t stopped me from seriously thinking about giving out the wrong address.
“You’ll be fine, and it will be nice to see everyone. It’s been a while since Elisa made it this way, and I haven’t seen my sister in ages.”
Vik’s whole family was coming in, and it was going to be the first time I met them. They weren’t an extremely tight-knit group, as Vik had set out on his own, much like me, when he turned eighteen. Instead of running off to live with humans, he’d started his own pack.
He hadn’t lost touch with his family, but as we worked to settle things down in our own lives, our paths hadn’t crossed with them. Since those paths were about to cross, I was a little afraid that I wouldn’t match up to their vision of his mate.
His knee nudged the back of my leg as he listened to my thoughts. I knew they were silly. For one, there was absolutely nothing they could do about it if they didn’t approve, and I’d be able to tell whether they did, so it wasn’t like they could pretend.
In the grand scheme of things, it really didn’t matter as I watched Selina and Sierra run towards us. The girls had gotten taller, but their attitudes hadn’t changed one bit. Sierra was the first to reach us and wrapped her arms around my right leg. Not wanting to be outdone, Selina grabbed onto the left one.
Life very rarely works out the way you think it will. My lesson for how true that is was learned during a single day, when I feared losing everything I thought I loved. It turned out that I had no idea how much love my heart was capable of, and in reality, I had no idea who I really was.
Things would never be as normal as Paul claimed they were, but I was finally able to accept that fact. A wise woman, who very well could be a figment of my imagination, once told me that I cannot outrun what I am. Instead of denying part of what I am, all future stories start for me by saying, my name is Nicole Ward, and I’m a werewolf.
THE END
Other books by Amber Lynn:
Argonauts’ Adventures
The Witch’s Web
The Dragon’s Fire
Daughter of Gaia Series
Daughter of Gaia
Queen of Aquima
Nightwalker Saga
The Nightwalker Knocks
The Nightwalker Teaches
Unlucky in Love series
Calypso in Love
Nani in Love
Rhea in Love
Hermia in Love
Desma in Love
Nyx Slaughter series
Night Calls
Night Marks
Night Bites
Night Howls
Night Lurks
Night Finds
Night Rises
Nyx Slaughter: Books 1-7
Avery Clavens series
Not in My Job Description
Just Another Day at the Office
Working Through the Weekend
Another Day, Another Dollar
The Harder I Work, the Luckier I Get
All in a Day’s Work
More Books
Searching for Home
Between Blood