by Maia Dylan
“This is not something that I can control,” Parris said shakily as she used a hand that shook to sweep the loose strands of her silky black from her face.
Jase felt his heart turn over at the vulnerable move.
“One of these things could rupture at any time. Do you get that? It’s like a fucking time bomb in my head, slowly ticking down to zero.” The sad look in her face disappeared and was immediately replaced with frustration. “God! I was fine before I met you two. I was happy with my lot in life. I was determined to just get here, work with Melaina to get Pepper out from under Aristos and all his crazy fucked-up-ness and then die. I knew I was dying. It was fairly fucking obvious. And you know what? I was okay with that.”
Jase watched as his mate lose control for the first time. Physically, she was stronger than any woman he had ever met, but emotionally, she had struggled to express herself to the point she is able to release all that emotion that he knew was roiling within her.
“But now,” Parris continued as she began to pace between Chris’s chair and his desk, “you two have made me…damn it, you’ve made me feel! I feel things for you both, and it is all encompassing and I have no idea what I am doing. What in the hell were the Fates thinking when they chose me for you? I mean, really? Me? And now I have to do what’s right. But even though I know it’s the right thing to do, the thought of leaving the two of you is tearing me up inside.”
He tensed every muscle in his body as he fought the urge to jump up and go to her. He wanted to pull her into his arms and never let her go. He wanted to tell her that he loved her and would be there to help her through this. He wanted to shake her, bend her over his knee and spank her ass.
“What the hell do we do, Jase?” Rhys’s voice, coming down their familial link, was threaded with a frustration and concern that mirrored his.
“We show her we aren’t going anywhere, and neither is she,” Jase said on a growl of frustration. He pushed up from the couch, and Rhys was right on his heels. As Jase approached her, he could see the flash of anger in her eyes that signaled she had caught the signs that indicated that he and Rhys had been talking telepathically, and she was pissed about that. By Jase didn’t really give a fuck.
“The thought of leaving us is tearing you apart? Why the hell do you think that is, Parris?” Jase moved into Parris space, and he forced himself to ignore the flash of sexual awareness that flickered across her face. “It’s because you belong here. You belong to Rhys and me as much as we belong to you.”
Rhys moved up to stand behind Parris just as she went to step back from him. “As much as I hate to say it, darlin’, my brother is right. And think about this. If you were to leave us, what the hell do you think that will do to us?”
Jase watched as Parris glanced sideways, guilt written on her face. He sighed as his anger started to ebb. “You know exactly what that would do to us because you know that we love you as much as you love us.”
Parris’s gaze flew to his, and he watched her beautiful green on green eyes widen and her mouth fall gently open.
“Yeah, you heard that right. We love you as much as you love us. Hell, Parris, you were it for us from the moment we met, but I fell in love with you so damn fast that it was almost embarrassing.”
“Me, too, my love,” Rhys said gently from behind her.
As if it were a planned move, and maybe because of the bond they shared as brothers it was, Rhys stepped in and reached up to grip her face as Rhys pressed against Parris’s back.
Jase stared into her rapidly filling eyes and gently swept his thumbs across her high cheekbones. “You know, the trouble with you, Parris, is that you are always trying to think about what is best for everyone else. For once, will you think about what it is that you want? Just tell us, sweetness, what it is that you want?”
Jase froze as Parris’s chin began to quiver. Oh, shit! If she started to cry, Jase had no idea what he would do. Parris swallowed a couple of times and valiantly kept from crying.
“I want…you. I still want you and Rhys, and I want to stay here. I love you both, too, so much.”
Jase’s heart swelled with emotion, knowing that one of the hardest hurdles to the future he wanted had just been cleared. Parris had made the decision to stay in Grey River and make a future with him and Rhys. He leaned down and was so close to claiming her lips in a kiss that he could actually taste it when he heard the sound of someone clearing their throat in the room. He turned his head toward the sound, noting that Parris and Rhys mirrored the move.
Chris, who had turned his chair so he could face the three of them, sat with his arms crossed and a shit-eating grin on his face. “Sorry to interrupt,” Chris said in a tone that told them that he was not sorry at all, “but I was afraid that you might get so caught up in the moment that you would forget I was even here!”
Jase couldn’t stop the growl that emanated from his chest. “Well, there’s the door. Don’t let it hit you on the ass on the way out.” He turned back to his mate to claim the kiss he had been planning on before he was cockblocked by his own pack mate and loved the gleam of mirth in her eye.
Chris laughed, and Jase contemplated what the repercussions would be if he simply threw Chris out the window. He figured that Ty, Trent, and, hell, even Chris’s brother, Noah, would understand. After all, this was a big fucking moment in a shifter’s life. This was the moment when he had admitted his feelings to his mate and she reciprocated them. That deserved a kiss damn it!
“As much as I would love to simply walk out the door, lock it, and let you guys celebrate your love,” Chris said with a grin and an exaggerated eyebrow waggle, “I have one more thought I’d like to share. Are you going to claim your mate?”
Jase was a little taken aback, not because of the question—hell he and Rhys had already talked about the fact that they wanted to claim Parris as theirs in all ways that would bind her to them for all to see—but because Chris had asked.
“What does that mean, ‘claim your mate’?” Parris asked before he could answer.
Figuring it would be better to be comfortable when having this conversation, he clasped Parris’s hand in his and led her to the couch. “It means to bind you to us through the connections of a mating bond.”
Parris frowned as she sat down, glancing between him and Rhys. “Bond in what way? Like in a marriage or something?”
Rhys reached out and gripped her left hand, running his thumb over the knuckles of her hand, consciously pausing on her ring finger. “There is nothing more that Jase and I want than to call you our wife.”
Rhys lifted her hand to his lips, and Jase felt a wave of emotion sweep down the link he shared with him.
“But this is more of a shifter ritual than a human one. You are our fated mate. The one woman meant to be ours above all others. You triggered the Quickening within us, and that started the mating bond forming within us. Jase and I share a familial bond, and as Grey River Pack members, we share a communal link with our alphas. Jase and I would both claim you through what we call a mating bite. That would cause the mating bond to strengthen between us.”
Parris nibbled her bottom lip in that sexy as hell way she had. Jase felt his dick start to swell, and he shifted subtlety to ease the pressure against his zipper, pointedly ignoring the muffled sounds of mirth coming from the other side of the coffee table.
“Once the bond is in place,” Jase said, “you will be able to communicate with us down that bond, just as we can communicate with each other.”
Parris, her beautiful green eyes shifting between him and Rhys, shone with a vulnerability that had his heart aching. “And is that something that you both want? With me?”
Jase reached out, turned her face gently toward him and pressed a kiss to her lips. Inhaling deeply he took the scent of cinnamon, orange, and vanilla deep into his lungs, making his heart rate increase and his dick thicken even further. “Sweetness, that is something I want more than anything else in the world.”
Jase gently turned her head in Rhys’s direction, and his brother pressed a kiss to their mate as well, both of them striving to reassure her.
“We both do. Hell, darlin’,” Rhys said with a grin, “I already feel like you’re mine on every single level, and that won’t change. But I would love to claim you so that everyone in the whole damn world knew that you were mine.”
Parris sat quietly for a moment, obviously taking in everything that they had been talking about. After a couple of minutes, Jase watched as she gave them the sweetest smile he had ever seen in his life. “I think that sounds like something I would very much like to be a part of.”
Before Jase could act on the euphoria that slammed through him at his mate basically giving them the claiming go ahead, Chris, the interrupting bastard, did it again.
“That’s fantastic to hear!”
All three on the couch turned to the doctor who seemed to be enjoying this moment just as much.
“Not only because it’s great to see y’all come together, and being here to witness it will drive the mate of our alphas insane, which is a side benefit, but also because of the medicinal advantages of being mated.”
Jase felt Parris tense beside him, and he gave the hand he still held in his a reassuring squeeze. “What medicinal advantages are we talking about here?”
“The ones that will see those lesions healing completely.” Chris leaned forward in his chair as if to impress on the three of them the importance of what he was saying. “When a wolf shifter claims a human woman and binds her by bite and in blood, he gives his mate a few physiological enhancements she would not normally enjoy. Basically, Parris, once you are claimed by your men, you will be a faster and stronger than you were before, and you will heal a lot faster, too. And it is that little anomaly that I am betting will see those lesions healing for good. You know that old saying that love cures everything? Well, in your case, I’m certain it will definitely be the case.”
Jase turned to his mate. The look of hope, love, and longing on her face would have dropped him to his knees if he had been standing. He—
“Owie, owie, owie! Fuck!”
The sound of a woman screaming from outside in the hallway had all three of them looking at the door moments before it was opened. Well, it was more slammed open, and the doorknob was now embedded in the wall adjacent to them, but hey, open was open.
Standing in the door was his alpha, carrying his red-faced and obviously very much in labor wife in his arms. Ty’s eyes were wild, and his wolf was very much just below the surface. The room filled with the essence of their alpha, and his wolf dropped down and whined at the strength of it filling the room. Helpless to do anything else, he tilted his neck, bearing it to his alpha.
Ty growled low and continuously. “Chris, make her not hurt.” Ty’s words were clipped as Ty fought against his wolf and the need to protect his mate. “Do it now, or I will fucking end you.”
Faith lifted her head from Ty’s shoulder. Jase could tell she was in pain, but now she was also pissed off. She slammed her fist into Ty’s jaw. “Oh, shut up! This is all your fucking fault, yours and Trent’s. Chris had nothing to do with putting me in this fucking position where I currently have two extremely large and dominant male babies who I think just might have the world’s largest fucking heads, hell bent on evacuating my womb at the same fucking time! Don’t you dare threaten the man with access to the damn drugs that are going to get me through this.”
Jase helped Parris up and they followed Chris to the door, Rhys right on their heels.
“Okay, sweet mama,” Ty crooned at his mate. “I’m sorry. It’s just killing me seeing you in pain.”
Faith rolled her eyes at him as Chris placed his hands on her stomach and felt around a little. “I know that, you idiot. I’m not exactly turning cartwheels about it myself. I’m scared, too. I want this to go well, and I have to admit I don’t remember any of the books talking about it hurting this much.”
Chris looked up from his examination. “I’m pretty sure the books did say it would be painful.”
Faith scowled at him. “Yeah, they said painful. They said nothing about it feeling like someone shoved a fucking alien inside your stomach and that it would be convinced that the only way out is to claw its way through my stomach, shredding my uterus and stretching my hoo-hah to gigantic proportions! Oh, shit, here comes another one. I need my mates. Ty, where the fuck is Treenntt!”
Faith’s last word ended on a scream as obviously another contraction hit and the room erupted with action. Chris helped Ty maneuver Faith onto a stretcher that had appeared. “Well then, Faith, my dear, it looks like we’ll be meeting your little ones today.”
Faith continued to shout and cry through the contraction, and Jase saw the doors at the end of the corridor slam open and Trent sprint toward them. Faith calmed as soon as he and Ty placed a hand on her, and Jase figured they were shouldering some of the pain for her now that they were all together, just another little physiological advantage of mating with a shifter.
The three of them rushed away toward labor and delivery, and Jase turned and looked at his mate and his brother. Both wore replicas of the smile he knew he had. This was a great day. They had found out that there was a way to heal those damn lesions that had been hanging over them like a fucking death sentence. And now, a new generation of Grey River wolves would begin. The sons of their alphas would be born today, and they would be dominants who would one day lead the pack as their fathers did now.
“Come on,” Parris said excitedly as she practically pulled him and Rhys from the room.
“Where are we off to, sweetness?” Jase asked even though he would quite likely have followed her anywhere she wanted to go.
“We’re going to wait in the lounge for news of the birth.” Parris turned and grinned at them over her shoulder. “This is a red-letter day, and it needs to be celebrated. I have lived with the belief that I was dying for so long that it seems right that on the day I am given a second chance, we celebrate life.”
Chapter 10
“Is it always like that here?” Parris asked quietly. She was nestled in bed, lying in the arms of her men, reflecting upon the day they’d had, and was feeling more than just a little overwhelmed by it all. They had come to bed straight after dinner, and were lying in the muted darkness, the bedside light on low, content to just cuddle. At least for the moment.
Jase shuffled closer behind her and pressed against her. The arm he had wrapped around her middle tightened slightly. “What do you mean, sweetness?”
Rhys pressed a kiss to her forehead and leaned into her a little more as well. “Are you talking about the impromptu birthday party for the two newest members of the Grey River Pack?”
Parris couldn’t help but smile at the mention of twins born to the pack alphas and their mate that afternoon. The memory of Ty and Trent walking into the visitor’s reception area of the hospital, each holding a tiny blue-wrapped bundle of joy in his arms will live with her forever, not just because it was the first time she had ever seen Ty actually speechless in the short time she had known him but because of the fact that it seemed like every person in Grey River had turned up to support them.
The visitor’s reception area was standing room only, and the halls were lined with well-wishers. Never before had she been a part of a community. Hell, she had never really been a part of anything! Just three single woman, trying their damnedest to survive.
“Yeah,” Paris answered with a sigh. “Everyone came to celebrate with Ty, Trent, and Faith. Was it just because they are the alpha triad?”
Jase moved back and gently rolled her so that she was on her back and he could look into her face. “No, sweets. They came because they’re family. Ty and Trent are our alphas, and Faith, as their mate, commands a certain level of respect and fealty. But it is the love we have for our family that brought everyone who could come, to the hospital this afternoon. The new family will be left alone now to heal and bond as new famil
ies should for the first few days, but I predict that by the weekend, every member of the pack, and Grey River, would have stopped by to welcome the boys and to congratulate the new parents.”
And that was really the cause of the knot of apprehension that had been building with her all day. Parris didn’t know what it was like to have a family, and she was scared. How was she supposed to act? What would be expected of her? Just thinking about all those questions caused a wave of anxiety to wash over her.
Parris stared up into the liquid chocolate eyes of the men she loved. “I don’t know how to do that. How do you act like a family? What am I—”
Jase leaned forward and quickly pressed his lips to hers in a hard blood heating kiss. They were both slightly breathless when he pulled back enough that he could talk. “Stop. Whatever crazy shit is running through that beautiful head of yours, just stop it. Being a family is not an act. It’s something that you feel, and it lives within you for all time. Being a family is loving someone unconditionally, knowing that you would have their back just as they would have yours.”
“Darlin’, family is having someone understand you and knowing all your faults but loving you unconditionally in spite of them.” Rhys leaned forward and pressed a gentle kiss to her lips, a direct contrast to the hard and forceful kiss from his brother just a moment before, but no less shiver-inspiring. “You know that Jase and I love you with everything we are and that we would do anything for you. We would leave Grey River and go wherever you needed to go in order to feel safe. You know that, right?”
Parris reached up both hands and gently stroked their faces, loving that both of them turned slightly to nuzzle against her palm. “Yeah, I do know that. And it is for that exact same reason that I want to stay in Grey River and make a home here. I do feel safe here, and after seeing the love and support the people of this town have for each other, it just makes me want to stay here more than ever.”
She paused for a moment, letting her thoughts settle a little more, and both men remained silent. “Chris basically gave me hope for a new life today. Knowing that there is a chance that the ticking bomb inside my head was no longer counting down and that there might even be a way to defuse it? That’s really hard to digest.”