by Eva Chase
Not yet, darling, I thought at her. Your time’s coming soon enough.
I had enough time to settle down from aching to just very full, and then Nate’s attendants started clearing the tables. I stood up again, holding up my arm for the attention of the gathered shifters.
“I think you were all told about the tree,” I said. “I hope you’ve brought your own item to add to it. Everyone and everything is welcome! Please come join me in the back yard.”
Evening had fallen while we were eating. In the fading light outside, the air had turned not cold but crisply cool. Close enough to winter that it wasn’t too hard to picture the massive pine Nate had chosen for our purposes as a Christmas tree. The twinkling white lights that wound around it and the glittering star at its highest peak—courtesy of Aaron—made it all the more fitting.
The shifter kin gazed up at it with gasps and murmurs, and then after a few encouraging gestures from me, they started walking right up to it and picking spots to hang the decorations they’d brought to add to our grand Christmas tree: glinting balls painted with symbols or scenes, toys and figurines hung from loops of ribbon, here and there a candy or a candle. Soon the lower branches were dappled with delights.
“I think it’s still missing something,” Nate said, his voice playful, as he considered the tree. “There’s not enough of our dragon shifter on there.”
I shot him a puzzled look, and he drew something out of his pocket with a grin. It was a silver dragon figurine, rearing on its hindlegs, fire blazing from its mouth. A black cord looped from its back. “For your strength,” my bear shifter said, and moved to add that ornament to the tree.
The other alphas were all pulling out figurines from their own coat pockets. Aaron held a dragon that was glossy white with two amber gems for eyes, its head tipped in an authoritative pose. “For your integrity,” he said, and went to find a free spot to hang it.
The dragon in Marco’s hand had been carved entirely out of a gleaming red gemstone, stretched out in flight with its wings spread. “For your passion,” he murmured, stealing a swift kiss. He hooked its cord over the tip of the highest branch he could reach.
West’s fingers tightened around his for a second before he opened them, as if he were afraid his wouldn’t live up to the others. The dragon he’d brought was whittled from a fine-grained wood, its body looping around on itself as if it were reaching toward something or someone behind it.
“For your compassion,” he said, so quietly no one other than me might have heard it.
All of them in a row and that one at the end in particular left me choked up. “West,” I said.
“You know how much I love you, Sparks,” he said, holding my gaze for a beat before he went to place his ornament alongside the others.
“How much we all love you,” Nate added, hugging me close with an arm around my shoulders.
I dug into the little purse I’d been carrying. My fingers closed around warm copper. “Great minds think alike?” I said, drawing it out.
I’d commissioned the piece, so I doubted there was any other quite like it in the whole world. A wolf, a bear, a jaguar, and an eagle leapt from the design in different directions, but they were joined together in the center by an etching like a flame.
“It’s beautiful,” Aaron said.
“It’s us,” Marco declared.
As West rejoined us, the four of them drew me into a combined embrace. I soaked in the heat of their bodies and their twining scents. I was aching again, but this time with gratitude for the path that had led me here, that had let me find the men I was meant to share this life with.
Please let me never lose them.
Chapter 4
Nate
I ran my thumb over the book’s cover, its new leather smell tickling my nose. It looked well bound to my unpracticed eyes, the pages inside crisp and the black text neat. Of course, the contents of that text were going to matter a hell of a lot more than how the type looked.
I turned to Aaron, who’d left the Christmas celebration outside to come with me to the office that had belonged to every disparate alpha before me. When I held the book out to him, he took it gingerly.
“Does it look well put together to you?” I asked. “You’ve got to have a much better eye for this sort of thing than I do.” The eagle shifter had never made any secret of his fondness for books and the information he could glean from them.
Aaron flipped to the table of contents and then through several of the entries. “It’s come together really well,” he said, in a tone that was impressed enough that I relaxed. “She’s going to love it, you know.”
“I hope so.” I swallowed down a twinge of worry as I took the book back from him.
“Why wouldn’t she?”
I grimaced. “I just can’t help wondering if it’ll end up upsetting her more than anything else. All those reminders of the past…”
Aaron gave me a friendly pat on my arm. “Nothing in that book is about the painful parts of the past. Our dragon shifter lost a lot on the day of the attack, and every day after while she was forced into that secret life. This gift is going to take a large step toward replacing things she might never have expected to get back. I wouldn’t be surprised if she cries, but I guarantee they’ll be happy tears.”
“I don’t really want to make her cry at all,” I muttered, and this time he gave me a playful cuffing instead of a pat.
“You definitely know how she feels about you trying to protect her.”
“Hey! I learned my lesson. I’ve been very good about not overstepping.” I tucked the book into a gift bag I’d set aside for this purpose—simple red paper printed with gold snowflakes, too pedestrian for what it contained? But it was too late to find anything else—and pushed away from my desk. “Thank you for all your help with the particulars. I might not have had anything to give at all without your advice.”
I couldn’t say organization was exactly my strong suit, and bringing this book together had required quite a lot, from tracking down the best contributors across each of the kin groups to working out the necessary timelines for receiving their submissions to presenting the stories they’d offered in a coherent way. The eagle shifter had cheered the project on and offered much-valued tips from the start.
“Oh, I’d imagine you’d have been fine,” Aaron said. “But I was happy to help. I can’t wait to see her face when she opens that up.”
My feet hesitated before I reached the door. I glanced at my fellow alpha. “Do you think she’s all right—just in general?”
Aaron raised his eyebrows. “What do you mean?”
“Just—all the effort she’s been putting into these celebrations, running around, handling half the work on her own, trying to make each one of them spectacular… I know she’s enjoying it, but at the same time, it seems a little much. Considering...” I motioned to my belly area.
Aaron chuckled. “You’d better not let her hear you suggest she should be taking it easy,” he teased. Then his voice turned more serious. “One of my healers on staff looked her over yesterday morning and didn’t raise any concerns. Hanging decorations isn’t pushing herself all that hard.”
“Not physically,” I agreed. “And I suppose it makes sense that she wants to accomplish something major before she has to take it easy for a little while.” Even our dragon shifter would have to take some time to settle into life as a mother. It was going to be an adjustment for all of us—but one I couldn’t have been looking forward to more. The thought of finally getting to hold my infant daughter in my arms sent an eager quiver of excitement through me.
“Exactly.” Aaron nudged me toward the hall. “Serenity knows her limitations. If she needs more from us than we’d naturally offer, we can trust that she’ll ask. I think what she needs most right now is to have all of us there by her side, celebrating with her.”
Which was all the more reason we should get back to the festivities.
We emerged into the back yar
d to the sound of voices raised and instruments blending together in harmony. As the final part of her celebration of our disparate natures, Ren had invited all those among my kin who performed music of one sort or another to play a song or two for everyone. Those watching the band of raccoon shifters playing now were swaying along in time with the melody. Ren stood near the front of the crowd, her face lit with pleasure as she took in the music.
During the Christmas before this one—Ren’s first as dragon shifter—we’d still been so busy picking up the pieces and getting our domains back in order after dealing with fae and vampires and rogues that the holiday had passed with relatively little fanfare. I wasn’t sure how much she’d celebrated her last few years before we’d found her, when she’d been scraping by mostly living on the streets. But she’d occasionally mentioned the private holiday moments she’d shared with her mother while they were still together: sparkling trees and colorful window displays, curling up together in their apartment watching classic movies over hot chocolate.
If the events she’d put together over this week filled even a little of that hole, I guessed I could understand why she’d put so much energy into them. My heart ached, in a good way, seeing the happiness in her expression right now.
Damn, I really hoped I wasn’t about to break that.
I caught the eyes of a few of the book’s contributors in the crowd and motioned them over. The white-haired badger shifter, the elegant horse shifter, and the wizened black bear shifter came to join me. Yvonne’s eyes sparkled as she smoothed back a silver mane no less impressive than that of her animal form.
“It’s time?”
“Seems like as good a moment as any,” I said.
We let the raccoon shifters finish their song, and then I stepped forward with my hand raised for attention. “Ren,” I said, beckoning her. “You’ve given us the gift of this incredible celebration. Now I and my kin have a gift for you.”
“Nate,” our dragon shifter said, glancing around as if checking that no unexpected figures were going to appear in the crowd like the fae monarch had yesterday night. She walked up to us and came to a stop in front of me with a curious expression. “I’m starting to get the impression there’ve been a lot of other preparations going on behind my back while I was busy with my own.”
I couldn’t help grinning at that comment. “You’re not the only one who wants to honor the people you care about.”
A flush colored her cheeks. Her gaze slid over the shifters who’d accompanied me. Yvonne spoke up in her clear smooth voice.
“We disparate kin have many different natures and perspectives, as you pointed out so well in the dining hall. One of the beliefs we—and all shifter kind—can unite under without hesitation is the certainty that your mother, our last dragon shifter, was a leader we’re proud to have called our own. And we’ve been more than pleased to see how you’ve been following in her footsteps.”
Ren blinked hard. “Thank you,” she said, and was that a wobble in her voice? Damn it, Aaron might be right about the tears. Hopefully on both counts and not just the first.
“We can only imagine, as difficult as it was for us to lose an esteemed leader, how hard it was for you to be torn from your community and then to lose your mother as well,” the bear shifter said in a gentle tone. “Which is why, when our alpha asked us to help bring her back to you in the only form we can, we were more than happy to.”
I offered Ren the gift bag. She eased it open with trembling hands. When she pulled out the book, she just stared at the cover for a moment, reading the gilded lettering there. A History of Haven Drake.
“I asked kin from all across my people—and some from the other groups as well—who spent time with your mother while she ruled to share some of their memories from her time as our dragon shifter,” I said. “So you can get to know that side of her in a way you didn’t have the chance to before. Over a hundred of her people—and yours—sent me recollections.”
Ren opened the book slowly, turning from the title page to the table of contents to the beginning of the first account, from an old wolf shifter who’d worked on Ren’s mother’s estate while Haven was growing up and who had helped organize the ceremony of her ascension. Aaron and I had decided to include the stories in chronological order, for lack of any better guiding principle.
Our dragon shifter ran her fingers over the first few lines. The tears the avian alpha had predicted glimmered in her eyes. But the smile that came with them reassured me that they hadn’t been brought by pain.
“Thank you,” she said again, nodding to the three shifters standing with me in turn. “I’ll need to thank everyone who contributed. And… thank you.” She threw her arms around me, still clutching the book, hugging me with all her dragon strength.
Applause broke out in the watching crowd. I hugged Ren back and bent over her when she eased away to claim a kiss. If I hadn’t already been convinced, the enthusiastic press of her lips to mine would have told me I’d chosen my gift well.
I motioned for the next group of musicians to jump in with their performance. Ren stayed tucked close to me as she looked over the book again.
“The only problem is that now I want to abandon my own party so I can start reading,” she said.
I kissed the top of her head, my heart swelling with so much love it threatened to burst through my chest. “I’m sure my kin can spare you for a little while.”
She paused, and then she shook her head, tucking the book under her arm. “This week is about all of us celebrating together. And anyway, it’ll probably be better if I take those memories in gradually so I completely appreciate each one.”
“Whatever makes you happy,” I said.
Her arm tightened around me. “I am happy,” she said. “So much.”
She did sound happy, but a faint tremor had crept into her voice as well, bringing me back to the concerns I’d mentioned to Aaron earlier. I didn’t think our dragon shifter was going to appreciate me asking yet again whether she was all right in front of so many of our kin. So I settled for resting my palm on her belly next to her hand, encircling her and our unborn daughter in all the steady warmth I could offer.
Chapter 5
Ren
“What about the order from France?” I said into the phone. “Has that shown up?”
The attendant of the feline kin estate gave a short sigh. “No, but the shipping company has promised it’ll be here in the morning.”
I adjusted my position in the plane’s seat. The soft leather that covered most of the surfaces in the private jet that was carrying us from Nate’s estate to Marco’s was one of the most comfortable materials I’d ever sat on, but between my irritation and the weight of my daughter pressing down on me, I couldn’t enjoy it.
“It’d better be there,” I muttered. That was half of the drinks for the feline kin’s Christmas celebration. “And that machinery I put in a rental order for?”
“It showed up this afternoon, but apparently the delivery person realized there was a piece missing. He promised he’d get that to us tomorrow.”
Great. I stifled a groan and tipped my head back in the seat. The plane had gone through a bit of turbulence earlier, but now it was cruising along smoothly with nothing but a faint vibration in the floor and the hum of the engine to match. Maybe I’d feel better if I got up and paced some of this frustration out.
“Okay,” I said to the attendant, rubbing my eyes. My head was getting muggy from two busy days in a row. But we were only halfway through—and the feline kin had exacting standards. I couldn’t screw up there. “Thank you for the update. I’ll touch base with you in person in the morning.”
“Happy to help!” the puma shifter said in that slightly flat tone the feline kin were so good at, that always left you wondering if they were actually being sarcastic no matter what they’d said.
I shoved my phone into my purse and clamped my jaw against a yawn.
“Hey,” Aaron said, leaning over fro
m the seat across the aisle from me. “Don’t you think you’ve been working on this enough for one day? I don’t think much is likely to change overnight.”
“I guess,” I said, and the yawn snuck out despite my best efforts, stretching my jaw. Well, that wasn’t the most convincing show of alertness either.
Marco got up and held out his hand to me. “Why don’t you come to the back room and really get some rest? We’ll all join you.”
I gave him an odd look. “It’s just the five of us. It’s not like we don’t have plenty of privacy right here.”
He shrugged with a sly smile. “One more door if the pilot happens to peek back from the cabin. And also, I may have arranged a bit of a renovation of the back room.”
He did know how to appeal to my curiosity. I hefted myself out of the seat and let him guide me down the aisle to the inner door just past the bathroom.
When I’d come into the back section of any of the alphas’ private jets before, I’d found nothing more than a smaller room with similar seating to the front. Tonight, the first thing I noticed as I pushed open the door was the lack of any seats at all along the closer wall. Then my gaze caught the end of a broad footboard.
The back room was set up as a bedroom. An oversized bed filled most of the space, two lamps glowing on the end tables at either side of it. A pearl gray duvet that looked deliciously airy stretched across the mattress.
“Okay,” I said. “I see your point.”
Marco laughed and nudged me toward the bed. I sat down on the edge and rolled my shoulders. The stress of the days ahead was still dragging at me. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to fall asleep.