“How soon do you need to feed them again?” Tao asked.
“I think we’re good for another couple of hours.”
“Just let me know and I’ll pull over,” Tao said as the CAT started moving again.
“Xias, can you hand me my bag?” Zhuang asked. “I have a change of clothes in there.”
Xias quickly grabbed the bag and handed it over. Not only did he want Zhuang dressed so he’d be warm, he didn’t like the idea of his mate being naked around someone else. Shifters were supposed to be used to being naked around each other, but Xias couldn’t seem to stop the jealousy sending his stomach on a roller coaster ride.
Was this what it was like to be mated?
Chapter Eight
Zhuang glanced at the backseat. Xias had faded off to sleep a little while ago, and he looked utterly adorable with his hand tucked under his cheek, but the cubs were starting to wake up. Zhuang grabbed the box, brought it into the front of the cab, and set it on his lap.
“They sure are cute little things,” Tao said.
Zhuang grinned with pride. “They are. Xias makes beautiful babies.” How could he not when he was so gorgeous himself?
“Damn, you have it bad, man.”
Zhuang chuckled. He knew Tao meant that as an insult, but it didn’t feel that way to Zhuang. He readily admitted he had it bad. He adored every little thing about his mate, including the three cubs Xias had brought into his life.
“That may be true, but at least I won’t be sleeping alone tonight.” Zhuang chuckled when Tao stuck his tongue out. The man was as prickly as a cactus. Not many were allowed close enough to see past the hard exterior he presented to the world. “You’ll feel the same way when you meet your mate.”
“I don’t want to find my mate,” Tao replied sharply. “Too much trouble.”
Tao’s words were spoken with conviction, but Zhuang doubted they were true. He knew his friend. There was a part of Tao, a part buried very deep inside the hard man, that dreamed of having a mate as much as Zhuang did. He just prayed when Tao found the person chosen for him by the fates, he would be open enough to accept his mate.
“How do you think your father is going to take this?”
“He’ll be thrilled that I’ve finally found a mate.” The man had been harping on him for years to settle down. He’d even gone as far as parading different men and women in front of Zhuang in the hopes one would interest him enough to marry.
“And the cubs?” Tao asked. “How is he going to feel about you bringing cubs sired by someone else into the family?”
Zhuang shrugged. That question he couldn’t answer. His father could be a real hard-ass when he wanted to be, and he usually wanted to be. Zhuang wasn’t quite sure how the elder would feel about the cubs.
Technically, they had been sired by someone else, but as far as Zhuang was concerned they were Xias’s cubs, and that made them Zhuang’s cubs. He couldn’t care less about bloodlines or any shit like that. His mate had given life to these three adorable cubs, and that was all Zhuang needed to know.
“If he doesn’t accept them as mine, I’ll leave.” It was as simple as that. “You remember that place I inherited from my grandfather when he died?”
Tao shot him a quick look. “That old farm down south?”
Zhuang nodded. “That’s the one.”
“What about it?”
“The value of that place is in the land, not the house. It sits on over a thousand acres.”
“And?”
“And I think it would be a good place for the cubs to grow up. It’s far enough away from populated areas that we wouldn’t be dealing with people all the time, but close enough to the nearest town that we could still get supplies when needed.”
“You keep saying ‘we.’”
Zhuang snickered. “Well, yeah, someone has to be my beta. It might as well be you.”
“Your beta?” Tao’s eyebrows shot up. “You want me to be your beta?”
