Kid started laughing so hard that he doubled over. “Dude, did you just swoop in, broad daylight and everything, IN YOUR DRAGON FORM, and eat that motherfucker right in front of God and everyone?” Finally my jaw dropped in shock too, matching Brace, who still hadn’t managed to move or pick his own jaw up off the ground. All the while, Bomber was there smirking, looking proud as fuck of himself, telling me us that Kid was absolutely correct. Looking as though he were about to finally answer us, he opened his mouth and out came the loudest, fiercest, flamiest burp I’d ever had the pleasure of witnessing.
“Yup. I sure did. That motherfucker is never going to bother you again, B,” he said, beaming with pride. Collecting myself and my concussed brain the best that I could, I ran over and jumped into Bomber’s arms, wrapping my legs around his very nude waist, careful not to kick him in his exposed manly bits. For the first time in a very long time, I allowed my tears to flow freely down my face.
“Thank you,” I whispered into his ear, right around the time Brace joined us from behind to create an embrace I never wanted to be free from.
“Wait, I know y’all are having a really weird moment right now, but I need time to process. Here I was, ready to defend our fair lady against that piece of shit, and then you come in and eat him. Problem solved, no one else coming in to help him take us down, no fucking side battle at all, save maybe your dragon having indigestion. You did just eat a giant pile of shit, after all. I mean, what the fuck?” Then Kid deadpanned off to the side, as if he were looking into a hidden camera on a prank show. “That was the most anticlimactic, climactic battle I’ve ever seen.” We all dissolved into a fit of laughter before deciding it was probably best that we get Bomber dressed before we rode back off into the sunset toward our new home, this time without fear that someone would eventually come after me. Turns out, anticlimactic was exactly the kind of ending this arc of my life needed.
Epilogue 1
Brace was organizing some elder shifter gathering so that we could have a few scribes start writing down some oral histories that might have been missing from the files that our council had been gathering. Some of the other shifters didn’t even have the small library that we were graced to inherit from the old feline council. The goal was to share as much knowledge with those communities who needed it in an effort to keep the secret squirrel plots for breeding and mate matching from coming up once more. We also enacted a few common laws amongst all shifters regarding breeding programs, pelt thieves, and trafficking of shifters.
Wooly and Mammoth sat in for the bear shifters when their elder couldn’t make it for meetings as travel wasn’t always readily available for him. The giant beast of a man couldn’t take public transportation because in his youth he had spent far too long in his animal form and took on more of the animalistic traits than was probably healthy.
“Do you think he’ll back in time for our surprise?” Betina asked me as she snuggled up to my back, dragging her nails up and down the skin there, eliciting goose bumps with each swipe she took up or down the length of my skin.
“I hope so, but if not, we’ll figure something out to surprise him another way.”
“I don’t want to surprise him another way. What we came up with was perfect,” she pouted. Betina wasn’t wrong. We had thought long and hard about it for the past two days. There was no decent way to tell your mate that the female in your grouping was having a baby and that we weren’t exactly sure which male had been the father. I was ecstatic, although not very optimistic that it was mine. Dragons were not an easy breed to produce, and I didn’t think that mixing breeds with another shifter type would make it any easier. Though, I had been wrong about shit before.
No matter who ended up being the father, we were all family now. Our new council recognized the three of us as a mated grouping, which was the term we had come up with for anyone who mated beyond the traditional coupling or pairing that happened with the fated mates. It had only been a little over six months since we moved into the old council space and while we weren’t opposed to having a little one amongst us, or a herd of little ones for that matter. I worried that it was too much, too fast for our Little Precious B. She had been through hell and back in her early years and I had hoped that she would have time to enjoy just being herself for a while, but judging from the ear to ear grin she had been wearing since she first heard the heartbeat and confirmed what we already expected, I didn’t think she was too upset by the turn of events. In fact, we had been under the assumption that she wasn’t ready - physically - to have a little one just yet since she had yet to go into a heat cycle since we’d all been living together.
That was the only thing that gave me hope that maybe a wee little dragon was brewing in her belly, because dragonesses didn’t go into heat. It was up to the male to make the magic happen.
A text pinged on my phone so I reached to check it. I turned to grin at Betina. “He’s on his way!”
She hopped up and down in bed before shimmying her way off the side and jumping into the walk-in closet we all shared. It was big enough that it rivaled the size of Brace’s old room and en-suite bathroom from the clubhouse all by itself. We had no problems sharing the space with three people. “Hurry, get up and get dressed,” she called to me. I did just that with a grin on my face, knowing without a doubt that we were about to rock our man’s world.
I couldn’t believe that neither of them had realized yet. In the dark of night, as the other two lie sleeping, I had heard it. There was a quick little patter of another heartbeat in the room with us. At first, it was startling because I thought someone else had entered our domain, but no. When I leaned in to wake Bomber, my ear drew closer to Betina’s belly and the sound grew louder. Sure enough, there was a little titter of a heartbeat. Since the two of them hadn’t realized yet, I thought I’d surprise them with a special gift today so I made a meeting that I needed to attend with the elders in order to get out of our lair alone for a bit.
Our lair. I couldn’t help but laugh at the fact that we were all calling our bedroom suite that now. Damn the dragon! His sexy ass had us feeling a different way about the space we now called home. That included his hoard area that lie beneath us, and damn if that wasn’t a hell of a sight. I wasn’t sure when he managed to transfer all of his belongings to the space without anyone noticing, but one day, about three weeks after we moved in, he took both Betina and me down there to show us.
The idiot had to be a billionaire with all the precious gems, gold, and the insane amount of art and amazing creations he held down there. He just shrugged it off as we were awed by it. I could tell by his smug face that he was incredibly pleased with our reactions though. After all, a dragon’s hoard was his point of pride.
When I opened the door to our suite, I was greeted by darkness, which was odd since I had warned Bomb that I was on my way. “Anyone home?” I called out. No one spoke, though I could faintly hear the heartbeats coming from back by the bedroom. I moved to head in that direction, the balloons I had secured earlier held firmly in my hand.
“You couldn’t even put a light on for me?” I teased them only to have a faint purple-hued fire light the way between me and them. Dragon’s breath. Someone was in a playful mood. I turned the corner and opened the bedroom door to see them both lying in bed with a giant present wrapped up in their laps.
“What’s this?” I asked, the grin on my face widening as I realized what was happening.
“What’s that?” Betina asked, pointing her fingers at the balloons that read, “We’re having a baby!”
Bomber started laughing immediately. “You knew?” He managed to get out.
“Of course I knew. I heard an extra heartbeat in the room with us,” I explained.
Betina was crying what looked to be tears of joy. “That’s how I confirmed. I mean, I never had a heat cycle,” she mumbled.
“I know. That’s why I think this one is Bomb’s.”
“This one?” Betina asked.
“Sure, and the next one we have will be just as welcome, no matter who played a part in putting it in your belly.”
“No matter who - of the two of us,” Bomber corrected while pointing a finger back and forth between himself and me.
We all chuckled at that. “We’re going to be a family,” Betina told me as she leaned up to place a kiss on my lips.
“We already are a family,” I reminded her as Bomb joined us. and kissed me the moment Betina’s lips left mine. “I love you both,” I told them and then I leaned down and said it to the little one our woman was carrying as well. “Love you too, little one. Welcome to the B Team.”
Epilogue 2
Something about painting the nursery for the three sweet babies I was expecting with Charlotte in a few short weeks felt surreal, terrifying, and incredible all at once. We’d settled on a robin’s egg blue for the walls, or at least that’s what the containers of paint on the floor had written across the top. Already, her belly was being stretched to the limit with time still to go before she would be considered full term. I didn’t envy her in the slightest, but I had so much respect for the heavy burden she had to bear on her own to bring not one, but three beautiful lives into this world.
Charlotte and Chantal were unpacking and sorting through the baby clothes they’d just purchased while I painted the last wall of the nursery just above where the three cribs would be. They’d been talking mainly about Chantal’s babies and wondering what kind of trouble Gray and Bomber would be getting into with them while their women were busy in the nursery. I had been more focused on my own wandering thoughts about what fatherhood would be like than I was on the girls’ conversation until I heard my sweet Charlotte voice a concern aloud to her sister that shook me to my core.
“Chantal, I am excited, don’t get me wrong, but I’m also terrified. I never wanted to give birth to babies that would end up like us. What happens when people come for my babies because of the power they have? I don’t know that I could separate them like our parents did with us. Hell, look what that did to Charisma.” Queue my heart shattering. Charlotte had never expressed this worry to me before, but I’d thought about it many times. If I was being honest, I’d been thinking about it since Chantal first told me that I was destined to father the next generation of shadow cats.
“Baby,” I began, stepping down from the ladder I was standing on, and moving over to where she sat on the floor. “There is no one on this Earth that will be able to lay a paw on our babies, I promise you that.”
“I know you want to believe that, but my parents-”
“Your parents didn’t belong to the council of shifters, nor did they have an entire MC at their back willing to do anything to protect you three,” I interrupted, not wanting her to go any further down that stressful rabbit hole. “We live in a new world now, one that we control. I will be there, as will all of my brothers, to ensure that nothing happens to you and your sister or either of your children. For that matter, we will be here to make sure that all women, regardless of what type of animal they are, has a choice in who they mate with or what they do in their personal lives. Our girls will grow up together in a supportive environment, full of people ready to kick ass for them whenever it's needed.” I planted a kiss on the top of her head and instantly felt her sigh in relief at hearing my words and the conviction with which I spoke them.
I believed all of my promises to Charlotte, including some that I never spoke out loud. My heart swelled with pride at the thought that I was going to be a dad soon, and I knew with every fiber of my being that I was going to protect those babies with my last breath. Knowing her mom and the rest of our non-traditional family, those girls would not only be protected, they would also be some of the sweetest, mouthiest, loveliest women to ever grace the Earth, and I couldn’t wait to meet them.
ABOUT THE AUTHORs
Christine Michelle & Bella Hickman
Christine Michelle and Bella Hickman met one fine, summer afternoon…
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The B Team: A Dark Leopards MC Novella Page 9