“Tell your mate to stop picking at me,” Mori said.
“I don’t think we’re going to solve longstanding arguments or personality traits before he gets here,” I said, trying to kill some of the tension. “I could make snow ice cream.”
“Yes!” Preston said, his eyes lighting up.
Mori didn’t look as pleased but he wasn’t the one carrying my baby. So, outside I went.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Preston
Nightshade Bear Territory
Mori met my gaze. He wasn’t sure what started the argument this time. It was his little comment about the ice. Sure, pregnancy hormones were surging through my body and that made all my emotions a bit more extreme than usual but I was carrying a baby that was half Wess. My little baby would be part snow demon. Hell, I was pretty sure that somehow I was part snow demon now.
My twin’s eyes lifted to the top of my head and he frowned at me. Thoughts flittered through his eyes and I wasn’t sure what I could say to make peace between us without giving ground I wasn’t willing to budge on.
“Do you really think I’m a bigot?” he asked me.
“No, you’re just oblivious sometimes. Not in a mean way. You want to know things but sometimes it feels like you’re trying to write an encyclopedia instead of getting to know it to get to know someone,” I said, choosing my words carefully.
“I don’t mean it like that, but I do like to collect knowledge.”
“If you’re going to work with people, you’ll have to learn to curb that a bit. Also, I know I said to treat Wess like family but maybe like family you like. I know you were half teasing but… Mori, he’s mine. He’s mine. My mate. My guy. He might not be ready to chomp body parts off Colton, but I will take heads for that man. He helps around the house, he loves my baby, he protects my baby, he puts up with my family – might even like you guys, and he gives the best massages ever known to bear kind. And yes, those are all basic things. Things every partner should do but Mori most don’t and I don’t want anyone else to do those things for me. I don’t want another partner. I love him and I will take heads and rip out entrails over that guy,” I teared up as I spoke. “My hormones are carrying me away, but I mean it. I’d kill for that guy just as fast as I’d kill over you or Andy. I know everyone is being an ass right now. Dern’s never that helpful and who the f-u-c-k knows what crawled up Annila’s b-u-t-t to make her crazy. She’s on my permanent s-h-i-t list because she almost blew you up!”
“I know she did!” Mori sighed. “The big picture is bigger than we know. I don’t know that for certain! I don’t have any proof, but I can feel it, Preston! There are more things going on that we can’t see and that doesn’t make any of this alright but it makes me think and I don’t want her to be crazy because she has a son and a little grandbaby. She was so close to her son before all of this.”
“I know,” I frowned. “She should’ve stayed home with her grandbaby.”
“Are you sure you don’t want me to move out?” Mori asked.
“Do you want to?” I asked him.
“Not over this. Not particularly but I don’t want to be here if I just upset you every time I open my mouth.”
“You don’t. This is just… It’s just a really messed up time,” I sighed.
“And Lero is making out with ghosts or something,” Mori said and filled me in on that situation.
I rubbed the bridge of my nose aware of how much like our parents I must’ve looked. I didn’t have the energy to deal with Lero playing tongue hockey with a ghost or anything else. He’d have to figure that out all on his own. I hadn’t seen a ghost around Lero. So, if there was one, he was doing a damn good job at hiding.
“Colton’s almost here,” Mori said. “Don’t tell him. Please don’t tell him. Either he’ll believe me and Lero will pull away from us all or he won’t believe me and it’ll be drama.”
As a parent the hardest thing I did that day was keep my mouth shut but I did because Mori was right. Blabbing wouldn’t save our nephew.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Mori
Nightshade Bear Territory
Iheld Baby Andy in my lap while Preston stretched out on the sofa. The baby had shifted into his little bear form and watched Colton intently as he pulled stuff out of his black leather midwife’s bag. Andy was hoping for a snack but lost interest when nothing edible emerged.
While Baby Andy chewed on my fingers, trying to cut a tooth in, I watched Wess. He leaned on the back of the sofa over Preston who lay shirtless on the sofa. He watched my brother like he might be the last omega in the world or at least the only one he’d ever love. I waited for the pang of envy that always hit whenever I saw people my age with their true-mates. Only it didn’t come. Preston deserved to be happy. I wanted him to be happy. He needed someone around who didn’t ask questions before turning threats to ice. Sometimes my brother was too nice even if he once tried to beat our cousin’s mate to death with a gas station bag full of snacks.
A squirrel spirit scurried along the back of the sofa and down behind it and under it to find the hidden stash of shelled nuts I’d put out as an offering just for it. It had been taken by a hawk while trying to sort out its stash of winter nuts. Now it was stuck in a perpetual cycle of wanting more and more. Poor little guy.
“How bitey are you feeling on a scale of one to ten?” Colton asked Wess as he pulled up a chair brought out from the kitchen to sit down next to the sofa. He had a portable ultrasound machine. One of the tiny ones but my brother never traveled without the old-fashioned sort that weighed approximately a metric shit ton. It was set up on the coffee table, and he was warming a bottle of ultrasound jelly in his fist.
