“I am a bear.”
“Yeah, well, welcome to spending your life surrounded by Nightshade Bears,” he laughed. “They’re a whole other breed.”
“We heard that,” Preston walked back out to the porch and scooped up Baby Andy still in his cub form. “Come on. Get it inside. We’re ready for it.”
We lifted the tree back up and Barry took the lead. Perhaps he figured he knew the layout of his sons’ house better or was just used to taking the lead. I had no clue where the omegas wanted the tree set up. So I followed his lead. The sofa was piled high with boxes of Yuletide decorations and Baby Andy was already trying to squirm out of his carrier’s arms and snoop through the boxes.
The tree stand was in the corner of the room and included a huge pot of what I expected to be dirt but was water once I looked inside.
“There are fish in here,” I said aloud and all the adults groaned.
“Don’t say the f-i-s-h word aloud,” Preston said, covering the baby’ ears. “He doesn’t know they’re in there. The tree needs them but I’m pretty sure he’ll try to f-i-s-h them out.”
“Sorry,” I said, glancing at the baby now chewing on Preston’s fingers.
We slid the tree into place and Mori rushed over to fuss with it. He murmured how we didn’t even give it any warning that it would be moving back inside and about how sorry he was that he didn’t know what we were planning to do but that it was okay now because he was there and wouldn’t let the brutes yank it out of the ground again.
Barry shot me a ‘told you so’ look and then pointed to my trunk and backpack sitting behind the door.
“Thanks for bringing them over,” he said.
“Eh, Colton took Bolt home once he was sure you weren’t going to eat his kid,” Barry shrugged. “That one’s pregnant. He just hasn’t realized it yet. Midwives are always the last ones to know when they’re pregnant. Ivan went with them and Lero said he thought you put the mountain inside your trunk.”
“It’s mostly ice. Well, just ice and a few outfits,” I said.
“Uh… You packed ice?” Mori looked over his shoulder.
I pulled the trunk into the center of the room and Baby Andy squirmed out of his carrier’s arms to run over and find out what I had brought. I took the necklace off that held the key and raked it across my finger collecting a drop of my icy blood. That was the magic behind the lock. No willingly given blood, no open trunk. Preston sat down on the floor and pulled the baby away from the trunk. Baby Andy snarled and growled but he didn’t really have any fight in him. He was just whining about not getting his way.
I opened the trunk and Mori looked over his shoulder again. In the far-left side, was a plastic garment bag of the outfits Rune bought me to blend in. The rest of it was enchanted ice straightfrom my mountain. Baby Andy broke free from his carrier and ambled over. He put his little paws up on the ledge of the trunk and looked in. His little tongue stuck out and Preston pulled him away again.
“That doesn’t melt. It would live inside you forever.”
“Not to override anyone’s authority but it would melt inside of him. That’s about the only way to melt it - eat it. Otherwise it’s frozen forever.”
“Who’s going to pack up your stuff for you from the mountain?” Mori asked and Barry shot him a strange look.
“Eh, I’ll figure it out when it’s time. I mean, I planned to live through New Year’s out of the trunk and bag. I’ll be fine,” I said. “I’ll go back when I need to.”
“We can find someone---” Mori started but Barry shot him another look. “I’m sure you can handle it.”
“You’ll have to forgive my brother. He likes to pack and unpack stuff,” Preston said, but I was still missing something. Only I wasn’t about to dive into decades of family history. If my mate was implying that Mori was a snoop, he’d be sorely disappointed in my stuff. I didn’t keep much that wasn’t practical and the unpractical stuff I had was all stuffed into my backpack along with the survival gear.
The subject of my stuff was dropped, and I closed up my trunk so we could carry on with decorating the tree. Mori and Preston fussed about what should go where and how high up to stop the breakable items. Sure, he was my mate . So maybe I was a little biased, but he did warn Mori that Baby Andy had a big stretch to him. When the little crystal jingle bell shattered, BabyAndy shifted back into his human form and wailed. Preston held his baby close, cooing to him to calm him down and I sprinted through the house to retrieve the broom and dustpan from the pantry where I left it when I finished cleaning up the living room. By the time I got back, Barry had already scooped up all the glass onto the cardboard top of one of the decoration boxes.
“Decades of broken decorations, plates, and cups. You learn to improvise quick,” he shrugged at me.
Baby Andy was still crying. I glanced around the living room, trying to guess what might cheer him up. Barry disappeared through the house and Preston sat down in the armchair. I hovered near him unable to leave but not sure if I was making things better or worse. The baby looked up at me with teary eyes and a quivering lip. I patted down my pockets for snacks and found an oatmeal protein bar.
“Rapbey,” Baby Andy said and I held it out.
“That’s not the raspberry chocolate ones you like, baby,” Preston said. “That’s ….” He took the bar and sniffed it. “Oatmeal, walnuts, peanut butter, and…. blue berries? Wild blue berries maybe?”
“And some honey,” I nodded.
“Rapbey,” Baby Andy said and made grabby hands at the bar.
“You can try it, but I don’t know if you’ll like it,” he said, taking it out of the bag and examining it. He pulled off a few of the larger chunks of walnut and ate them himself before passing the bar on to the baby who slobbered on it for a while but didn’t look all too pleased.
