by Isabel Wroth
Lori threw in another foot stomp, her milk inflated breasts threatening to jiggle out of her violently pink crop top.
“I thought that meant he didn’t want to smell another guy on us—”
“No,” Reece cut in. “Do not play the dumb bitch card, Lori. Ilex fully owned up to being the son of a fertility god; he said none of your pack who’d fucked another dude in the last forty-eight hours, should show up. Your alpha was fully informed.”
“Well, she didn’t inform me!” Lori shouted.
Reece whipped out his cell phone to wiggle in Lori’s direction. “Really? So if I call Darla right now, she’s going to tell me she loaded up her bitches to help us out, and you just hopped in the car not knowing what was going on or where you were headed? She’ll tell us she didn’t warn you or explain the rules for the night?”
Like watching a tennis match, Kerrigan looked from Reece to Lori, eager to hear the wolf shifter’s response. Lori huffed, puffed, and growled under her breath.
“So I fucked a dude the night before, but I asked my pack if I smelled like Jerry. They said no, which meant there wasn’t any come inside me—”
Juliet scoffed, brushing aside Lori’s excuse like a foul odor.
“What part of ‘fertility god’ was confusing?”
“I never fucked a fairy before, okay? But this wasn’t supposed to happen!” Lori snapped with extreme aggression, gesturing again at the baby snoozing away in his battered carrier.
His blankets and things were clean, but the carrier looked like it had been through ten other babies and never been cleaned.
Kerrigan could see spit up stains on the faded black fabric, food crusted to the plastic pieces on the outside, and the shade that was supposed to be for pulling up to shield the baby from the sun had rips and tears in it that rendered it completely useless. It didn’t look safe at all.
Rowena, who’d been calm and composed throughout Lori’s raging outbursts, spread her hands in question.
“I fail to see how any of this is our problem.”
Lori lost none of her disrespect, or her anger. In fact, it only seemed to increase. “It’s not your problem, it’s his problem! He did this to me!”
Lori stabbed her finger at Ilex and used the toe of her stripper shoe to give the baby carrier a little kick, startling the baby awake.
Kerrigan watched his huge blue eyes fly open, confusion and fear creasing his face seconds before he started to cry.
The sounds of his distress caused Lori to curl her lip in disgust, clearly having no intention of doing anything to reassure her son.
Kerrigan was sure Lori would have kicked the carrier again had Maksim not blurred faster than her eyes could track to snatch it up and out of her reach.
Knowing her mate was a vampire, the desire to reproduce hadn’t ever manifested, but the second Maksim unstrapped the crying baby from the carrier to lift the tiny squalling bundle against his chest, Kerrigan’s ovaries went boom.
Even as Maks soothed the wolf pup and cuddled him close, he turned his most menacing stare on Lori.
“I am steadily losing my patience with you, female, and the stink of your lies is offensive beyond my ability to properly express. Ilex made it plain to your pack what would happen if one of you came to him with another male’s seed inside you.
“You chose to disregard his warning because you’d never—as you so crudely put it—fucked a fairy before, and didn’t want to miss out on the opportunity. So no more lies, wolf. Speak plainly and tell us what you want.”
Lori bared her puny canines with a belligerent snarl, her muddy brown eyes flashing with feminine fury. When she didn’t immediately obey, Doyle gave a purely leonine rumble of displeasure.
“I’m calling Darla.”
“It’s not like she’s gonna do anything,” Lori sang rudely. “The guy I fucked the day before our wild little orgy isn’t my fated mate, but as far as our laws go, it was his kid, and that meant I was his bitch.
“I popped out his baby, and that dumb mother fucker had the audacity to die on me in an alpha challenge. I can’t go back with that thing because Darla’s pack is females only. I didn’t ask for this, so either the fairy takes the pup, or I leave it in another territory on my way home and maybe some cubless bitch will take it.”
Ivy made a sound of pained disbelief, cradling her belly with one arm as Uriah drew her under his. He was doing that twitching thing he did when Uriah was about to hulk out and go full on bear, with only Ivy’s grip on his shirt keeping him in place.
Ilex shook his head, his throat working audibly in the shocked silence. His voice was strangled with agony as he choked out a ragged “I can’t” and fled the house. Juliet watched him go with sympathetic tears in her eyes and made a sound like she was going to vomit.
The shock wore off, and Kerrigan felt her own inner bitch rise up in answer to the truly horrifying situation unfolding right here, in her own house.
“I must have misunderstood. Did you just threaten to abandon your baby on the road somewhere between here and Vermont?”
Lori shrugged like it was no big deal to toss the baby out like garbage.
“I told you, I don’t want it, and neither will my fated mate.”
“It? You didn’t even give him a name, did you?” Rowena bit out, the lights flickering overhead.
“Why would I?” Lori shot back, clearly baffled by the anger being reflected back at her.
The unnamed, unloved cub held so carefully in Maksim’s elegant hands had pulled his legs up until he resembled a little frog in his pale green footie pajamas.
It was Lori’s fault for answering the call to satiate Ilex after being warned against it, but Ilex wouldn’t have gone out into the field full to bursting with the power of a fertility god if Kerrigan hadn’t been so impatient.
Like Orpheus, she’d been in such a rush to see Maksim, to free him from his hellish prison, she didn’t stop to consider what might happen.
The werewolf bitches were supposed to have been a safe bet, but the truth was, allowing Ilex to take on the burden of Maksim’s blood lust so Kerrigan could focus on Maksim was Kerrigan’s fault, and passing the magical buck always came with consequences.
Maks looked at her, and Kerrigan could feel the weight of his unspoken thoughts. He too felt a responsibility for what Ilex had done for them, and there was no world in which Maks would allow Lori to take the baby and leave him to die on the side of the road.
“Look, am I leaving him here, or do I drop him somewhere else?” Lori demanded coldly, making it clear she didn’t care whatsoever for the infant she’d birthed.
Kerrigan reached out to lay her hand over Maksim’s where he was rubbing soothing circles across the baby’s back, melting like goo when the baby finally stopped crying.
“Okay,” Kerrigan murmured.
Maks gave her a reassuring smile in answer, rocking the pup like a pro. “She cannot come back. Ever.”
“Not a chance,” Kerrigan agreed, turning on her heels to march right up to Lori. “Give up all claim to your son, right now.”
Lori made a rude noise, jerkily lifting her shoulder. “I already said I don’t want it—”
“And now you’re going to make it official,” Kerrigan snapped, wanting the disgusting female out of her house, yesterday.
“You’re in a den of witches, bitch,” Juliet threw in, appearing to stand at Kerrigan’s shoulder. “Speak the words, make them rote.”
One by one, Callie, Rowena, Astrid, and Ivy stepped in to form a wall at Kerrigan’s back, their magic rising with a wave of iridescent heat.
Lori shifted from foot to foot, finally realizing her strength as a werewolf counted for precisely nothing, and she was alone without a pack to protect her.
Her eyes got big, her mouth worked a few times, but she finally managed to speak.
“I give up all claim to my firstborn son.”
Satisfied, the witches at Kerrigan’s back throttled down, but Kerrigan wasn’t finis
hed. She reached out and snatched Lori’s arm, her fingernails piercing through skin when Lori jerked back.
As the world turned monochrome, the shadows and lights faded to black and white, Kerrigan felt power surge up from the floor beneath her feet and out through her hand.
It wasn’t the cold darkness of black magic, it was the vengeful punishment of the Goddess herself that filled Kerrigan.
When Kerrigan opened her mouth, she spoke with a multi-layered, melodic thrall of power so ancient it had no name.
“No matter the circumstances, the birth of a child was a gift given to you by the Mother of All. Hear me, Lori Dianne Eckstrom, you will never be given such a gift, ever again. Fate heard your intention to abandon your offspring, and so Fate will abandon you.
“You will have no mate, and you will bear no more pups. You will never come back here. You will never come looking for the son you rejected, and you will never call yourself his mother. Your bond is broken.”
Kerrigan felt one, two, three drops of blood hit the floor between her feet and Lori’s, and the magic that overwhelmed her evaporated with a rumble of thunder.
“So it is known,” Rowena echoed, the coven each repeating the words in reverent murmurs.
Wide-eyed and terrified, Lori gave one more jerk of her arm and fled the house.
“Dude, remind me never to piss you off,” Reece stuttered, actually gripping his balls like he feared for the safety of his future offspring.
“I’ll just ah…” Doyle hooked his thumb over his shoulder, inching toward the door, also protectively cupping his groin. “Make sure Lori leaves. Now.”
“Me too!” Reece followed, both lions racing out the door after Lori.
Juliet snorted and grabbed her coat off the couch. “I’ll go check on Ilex.”
“We’ll make a run to the store for baby stuff,” Ivy offered, grabbing Uriah’s hand with a determined scowl on her face. “She couldn’t even be bothered to leave that poor baby anything but a shitty carrier. What kind of person does that?”
Uriah was all sweet rumbles and love, pulling Ivy back under his massive arm, rubbing her swollen belly on their way out.
“The kind who gets cursed by a goddess, honey. We can get some ice cream while we’re out, huh? You’ll feel better after a midnight snack.”
Maksim was waiting when Kerrigan turned around, his brows drawn together in concern as he searched her eyes for any hint of black. Kerrigan smiled, feeling not a single hint of lingering darkness.
She held her hands out for the baby, not having expected such a tiny thing to weigh so much.
He looked up at her, blinking unbelievably long lashes at her in curious confusion.
“You, sir, were not the birthday surprise I was expecting tonight,” Kerrigan told him. He cooed softly in answer, grabbing at the air until she gave him her finger to hold.
“You guys don’t have to take him,” Rowena said gently, wiggling one of the baby’s tiny feet with a gooey smile. “There are wolf packs in the area, and I’m sure we could find this cutie a really good home.”
The little cap popped off his head to unleash a wealth of curly black hair, and Kerrigan couldn’t help to think the wolf pup looked a heck of a lot like Maks.
One look, and Kerrigan discovered room in her heart to love another male. Totally and completely sunk, the very idea of giving up the pup with Prussian blue eyes made her arms tighten around him and her vision flash monochrome.
“No. He has a good home right here. Right?”
Maks hummed in agreement, palming the baby’s head, his thumb gently smoothing back and forth through his curls.
“Exactly right.”
“Is it just me, or does he look a little bit like Maks?” Callie asked as she peeked over Kerrigan’s shoulder, going so far as to lean her head against Kerrigan’s.
“Definitely,” Rowena confirmed warmly. “Astrid, what do you think?”
Astrid reached in and drew the tip of her finger down the pup’s cheek with a happy, emotion-filled smile, drawing another burble of sound from him.
“Fate is a curious thing, you know, and she likes to reward those who fight for their love.”
“Okay, spill it, Astrid. You’ve clearly been sitting on this for a while,” Rowena drawled teasingly.
Astrid gave a deeply satisfied sigh, a shimmer of light rippling along the skin of her exposed forearm.
When she looked up to meet Kerrigan’s gaze, there were nothing but stars and infinite mysteries swirling through Astrid’s eyes.
“You may not have carried him in your body, Kerrigan, but this sweet little warrior is the result of your relentless determination, Maksim’s blood lust, and the love you have for one another. Ilex did the heavy lifting, but this baby is your son in every way that matters.”
Kerrigan felt Astrid’s words reverberate in her chest, like the echo of a gong having been struck. Astrid winked and stepped back to make room for Maks to curl his arm around Kerrigan and the pup.
He had a smile on his face wide enough to bare his fangs, and there was nothing but gentle acceptance in his gaze.
“What will we call him, love?”
“Liam,” Kerrigan answered in a daze, not even having to think about it. “His name is, Liam Gray.”
More Books By Isabel Wroth
The Sarazen Saga
Sarazen’s Claim
Sarazen’s Vengeance
Sarazen’s Betrayal
Sarazen’s Hunt
Sarazen’s Fury
The Etheric Travelers Series
Awakening
Perdition MC
Never Ever
Athena’s Raid
Ripley’s Saint
Dillon’s Universe- Coming Soon!
The Golden Bulls of Minos
Queen’s Ransom
The Valos Of Sonhadra
Shadowed
Portrait of Death
Unforgotten
Uncovered
The Little Coven Series
A Little Green Magic
A Little Dark Magic
Afterword
Well, guys and ghouls, there you have it! I hope you enjoyed reading Kerrigan and Maksim's story as much as I did writing it.
I can't say which Little Witch will be up next in the series, but suffice it to say, it's gonna be good!
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