Wess nuzzled into my side once I was fully shifted and led the way across the snow to where he had buried Venal. With one big, white paw, he knocked the frozen snow away from Venal’s frozen face and I peered down at him. Yeah. At some point we had to move him but now wasn’t the time and it wasn’t like he was going anywhere. He was a solid ice statue. Part of me wanted to say poor Venal but the other part knew better. Some people who were hurt healed and helped others. Some hurt people went on to hurt people. One way or another, Venal had ended up in the latter category. The pain thrummed through my skull again and Wess nuzzled me. His touch made me forget about the pain for a while.
Instead of heading straight back to the house, Wess and I wandered through the snow for a bit. He kept his mouth open, breathing in the scents of his new home. I hadn’t originally planned on it, but I ended up leading us to the sleepy, nearly empty village square and then to my parents’ house. My carrier was already up with my youngest sibling, a rowdy cub, banging his paws on the tray of his highchair.
“I expected you for breakfast,” Dad grinned as I nosed the door open and peeked inside. He glanced out of the kitchen window and told us to wipe our paws before coming in. If I had been on my own, I might’ve stayed in bear form, because breakfast was breakfasting no matter which form you consumed it in, but I wanted Wess to properly meet my carrier. They both had ‘seer’ abilities after all and were two of the most important people in my life. We’d barely shifted back before I heard Andy’s little bear paws hit the floor and come scurrying through the house. He plowed into my legs and climbed up to wrap his little arms around my neck. Breathing in my baby’s happy scent, relaxed me in a way nothing else could. He was such a happybaby. Strong and healthy and surrounded by people who loved him.
“I’m Wess,” Wess held out his hand to Dad who shook it, trying not to laugh. We were more huggers than handshakers but there had been many discussions about not catching newcomers off guard with hugs.
“I knew you were coming,” Dad said and tapped his nose. “I mean, down from the mountain. I kept having these visions of Venal… Well, like he is now and there aren’t many types of magic that can perform that act so spectacularly. I just didn’t know who you were coming for. I could see Mori having his true-mate do that too.”
A squirrel spirit danced from foot to foot on the counter behind Dad, waving to me frantically and pointing at a bowl of uncracked walnuts now that he realized I could see him. Baby Andy turned his head and I told myself he was only looking at his grandcarrier and Wess. He couldn’t see the squirrel. He hadn’t inherited my magic.
“Better ours than the other side of his family’s,”my bear rolled his eyes.
“Your hair is sticking up, Preston,” Dad reached over and smoothed it down.
“Ouch!” I jerked away.
“Come here! What is that?” he asked and took the baby and handed him to Wess when he couldn’t get a proper look because Baby Andy kept trying to lick his nose.
“Dad! Cut it out! I have a headache!”
“There are….. What are these?” he said and tapped his finger against my head. “Wess? Did you literally hit his head on the headboard?”
Through the house my sire laughed but his footfall told me he was on his way to see what was going on.
“No!” I said, pulling away or at least trying to. “Leave my head alone!”
“Can I see, mate?” Wess asked, handing the baby off to my sire.
Andy immediately started trying to eat his grandsire’s hair and Wess came to take a look at my head. Better him than my carrier who tried to give me a concussion with his thumping fingers.
“These are horns,” he announced two seconds after pushing my hair aside.
“Uhh…. Forgive me, but I was there when they pulled him out of the open wound of my abdomen. This kid was not born with horns,” Dad said.
“No, he was not,” my sire agreed.
“But he has them now,” Wess said. “Probably my magic. I don’t know. I’ve never known both sides of a true-mate pair where only one was a snow demon.”
The squirrel had given up on getting one of us to crack him a nut. The poor furry guy looked so dejected but giving in and cracking one for him meant admitting to everyone that I saw him. The other spirits might know for sure then too and I had enough problems without that going down. A second later, Dadturned around and smashed a nut against the counter. Baby Andy growled but it was a happy sound as the squirrel snatched up the fleshy part of the nut. My carrier shot me a look that said he knew my baby seen it all and he suspected that I had too. This wasn’t the first time we exchanged this look, but he never said anything and I wasn’t about to fess up to it. I’d seen the wringers magic put people through and I was just fine being fluffy and not ironed out by all that trouble.
We sat down for breakfast and though Baby Andy shifted back to his human form he was having nothing to do with the highchair his grandsire brought out for him. So he stayed in my lap, dipping his fist into my food and sucking on his hand. This morning he stayed mostly in the gravy and tried to squish the bits of breakfast sausage into his hand without much success. He managed to reach over and slap his grandsire’s half-eaten biscuit and whimpered when it didn’t stick to his hand like the gravy had. My sire was in the middle of tearing a piece off when Andy scooched over onto Wess’s lap, which wasn’t hard since we were sitting side by side and we were all crowded around the table because there were so many of my siblings already eating too. I tried to grab his little fist before it landed in the unburst yoke of Wess’s sunny-side-up eggs. I tried so hard to teach him that he could only do that with me, Mori, and his grandparents. My heart plummeted into my stomach and I reached for him before Wess could yell.
Only my mate didn’t yell. A grin spread across his face as Baby Andy licked his fist clean of egg yoke and dipped it back in. Relief spread over me and inside his inner sanctum my bear rolled his eyes.
“Wess is family now,”he said, more than a little exasperated with me.“Of course, he’s not going to get mad at the baby for being hungry.”
Wess picked up a piece of the egg white between two fingers and offered it to the baby. My baby’s eyes sparkled as he opened his little mouth for the bite. Wess made a pinching gesture in the air at Andy and then pinched off another piece of egg to feed him. The baby laughed and then made his own ‘pinching’ motion by hitting his palm with all his digits and then taking it down to the plate and trying it. He did manage a few bits of solid egg to bring back up to his mouth.
I glanced at my parents who were sharing a look that was pure joy. Of course, they hadn’t expected Wess to get mad at the baby and I wasn’t sure why I had. I’d gotten comments about letting him ‘eat’ from my plate but I couldn’t imagine telling the baby he can’t eat. It wasn’t like wild bears didn’t feed their cubs and it wasn’t like he had cooties. If he did, they grew while he was growing inside of me!
“Sas,” Baby Andy said and I was about to translate for Wess when he picked up a sausage patty and tore off the tiniest bite. Baby Andy opened his mouth and kept it open until Wess placed the bite on his tongue. Then growled while ‘chewing’ it.
The door swung open and Lero walked in. Everyone said hello and Baby Andy went back to dunking his fist into Wess’s eggs.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Wess
