Alfie and Axel let out a gasp, but it was Axel who spoke first. “What do you… how do… You know about shifters?” his brother stuttered, barely getting the words out.
Rowan shrugged, “Well, why didn’t you just say that?”
Two
Mikhail
Mikhail didn’t need to move behind his mate at his father’s suggestion. From the moment Rowan had walked in the room, Mikhail was on his heels, although it didn’t seem like his mate had noticed him.
“Seriously, how do you know about shifters?” Axel asked. Mikhail watched as his soon to be brother-in-law handed Mason off to Malek and put his hands on his hips. “And how have you never mentioned this to me… I mean us.”
It occurred to Mikhail that Axel would be his brother-in-law times two now, and unlike Malek and Malachi, he didn’t have to explain everything to his mate, but he was still intrigued by Rowan—goddess, he loved his mate’s name—and he wanted to know how his mate knew about shifters.
He put a tentative hand on his mate’s back. If Rowan knew about fated mates, then hopefully he wouldn’t mind. “I think we would all like to know how you heard about shifters.”
His mate glanced his way, and Mikhail flashed him a smile, but he didn’t get one in return. Instead, Rowan stepped away from him.
Okay, so that wasn’t what he’d been expecting. Then again, they’d just met, and even though his mate knew about being fated, he was still human.
“I had a friend in nursing school.” Rowan’s voice interrupted his musings. Even though he’d just met his mate, Mikhail knew he would be able to pick his voice out of a choir of thousands. It was forever etched in his brain.
“I think we need more than that,” Alfie spoke up. Malachi had handed one of their babies to him. It was probably too soon, but he had a vivid image of Rowan in that bed with their baby.
Rowan shrugged, his eyes fixed on the baby in Alfie’s arms.
“Want to hold Seb?” Alfie asked, smiling up at his mate. Chi nodded and handed over their second son to Rowan. Mikhail watched his mate’s face light up with joy, and it hit him right in the chest.
“Ro, you were explaining how you know about shifters,” Axel prompted as he returned to take a seat now that Rowan seemed calmer.
“Actually, I am pretty sure I wasn’t.” Rowan didn’t even look up from the baby in his arms.
“You so have to spill, Ro. Like, Alfie and I have been stressing trying to come up with ways to tell you about...” Axel looked around the room before carrying on, “...all of this. We’ve been trying to come up with ways to say, ‘Hey, our fiancés are wolf shifters, and, oh, by the way, you’re an uncle.’”
“I definitely thought Axel was crazy the first time he explained everything to me,” Alfie chimed in.
Rowan managed a small chuckle. “I definitely remember that feeling. I thought I was losing my mind when I went home with Felix during reading week halfway through my midwifery course and saw a grown man shift into a fox.”
Rowan looked up, his eyes landing on Mikhail first, but he glanced away quickly.
“Are you guys foxes too?” Rowan’s question was directed at Chi who had managed to get in bed beside his mate.
Mikhail couldn’t stop his snort, and that had Rowan’s eyes landing on him again.
“Do welooklike foxes?” Mikhail asked.
Rowan’s eyes trailed over his body before landing back on his face. “Are you trying to be funny? Because my friend and his family are foxes, and they’re lovely people.”
He heard a snort from somewhere in the room, but he didn’t take his attention away from his mate whose ire he seemed to have incurred.
“Because let me tell you. If you're about to say something derogatory and somehow think, in your world, foxes are...” His mate’s nose crinkled as he seemed to search for a word, but Mikhail took it as his chance to chime in.
“I just meant it as a joke.” He put his hands up in surrender.
“Oh, this should be fun.” Even though it was whispered, Mikhail heard it clearly, and when he glanced over at Malachi and Alfie, he saw the two of them were trying to hold back their laughter. Apparently, they were enjoying watching him squirm.
“You must have skipped the funny part,” Rowan replied.
“We’re wolves. I meant to say we are wolves. And I swear we have no issues with foxes. One of my best friends is a fox.”
