Still warm, faintly. And—thank gods. “She has a pulse,” I told Calder.
“Mama,” said the toddler, his voice a raspy, pitiful little croak.
“Yeah, mama,” I replied, the heavy feeling in my chest and the sting in my eyes making me want to slap myself across the face. I wasn’t sentimental. Fuck. I turned back to get him out of the car. “Don’t worry. We’ll take care of all of you, I promise.”
Maybe I had no basis for that, but I’d never meant anything more, and when he reached his arms up to me trustingly, letting me hoist him out, I couldn’t even pretend not to be all choked up.
***
By twisting road, the crash had happened a good five miles from the pack house. But as the werewolf ran, it was only about a one-minute flat-out sprint. When a task required running, I was just as likely to lie down and hope for the best, so I’d definitely mated the right life partner. Ian had the fightandflight covered for both of us.
Which meant that by the time Calder had gotten me and the kids settled in the back seat of our car with the engine and heater running, and had gone back to evaluate their mom, my quick, frantic text to Ian had already borne fruit.
Ian burst out of the trees first, flowing from huge, tawny wolf to huge, naked human as he did. I never got tired of watching his shift.
I never got tired of seeing him naked, either, but with the baby cradled to my chest in a desperate imitation of the way I’d seen people do it on TV, and the whimpering toddler wrapping himself around both me and the baby, and the fact that both of them smelled like pee, I didn’t have much motivation to ogle my mate.
A moment later, a much smaller furry form slipped between two trees, wavered, grew taller, and resolved into Arik, his long blond hair all tangled around his pale, tattooed body. He jogged over to the wrecked car and shoved Calder unceremoniously out of the way as only he and Jared would dare to do, going straight for the unconscious woman. He’d proved his healing skills a dozen times over—I wouldn’t have been alive without his intervention. Neither would Ian. I allowed myself a deep, shaky breath of relief. If these gross little kids lost their mother tonight, that’d leave them stuck with me, at least for now. I wouldn’t wish that on any child. I had all the parental instincts of an oyster.
I’d been mad at Ian, hadn’t I? Incredibly fucking pissed. His bright idea for a romantic night out on New Year’s Evetomorrow had been a vampire bar in nearby Lancaster, where he’d taken to hanging out sometimes since making friends with one of their enforcers.
Apparently, being the type of overgrown, idiotic perma-fourteen-year-old who thought cheap booze and whacking your friends with pool cues made for a super fun night out transcended supernatural species.
There wasn’t enough room in my skull for my eyes to roll far enough to express my feelings about that. As I’d calmly explained to Ian earlier, mostly, until I got a little worked up, that was becausemyskull had a fucking brain inside of it, a spatial limitation he didn’t have to deal with.
And I’d keep being angry at him later on, but right now, my wonderful, beautiful, muddy, glowing-eyed mate had opened the car door with almost enough force to send it flying like the one Calder had ripped off, and the deep breath of relief I’d sucked in exited my body as more of a sob. I wanted to fling myself onto his shoulder and cling to him like the toddler was clinging to me, but these freaking kids were in the way.
“Jesus Christ, baby,” Ian said, crowding into the back seat, gold-sheened blue eyes going all wide. The car’s shocks creaked ominously. “Fuck. That’s a baby!”
Seriously? Just what I needed, another wise-guy wise man. This was turning into the most fucked-up nativity play of all time.
“Yes, Ian. It’s a baby. And her big brother. I’ve never held a baby before!” I hissed, pressing her against my chest to muffle her hearing. Although I doubted she could understand me yet and freak out about my lack of experience. When did babies learn English? Did they have to walk first? “What if I break her?”
Ian leaned in closer to peer down at her. His dick was right at the toddler’s eye level if he turned around, and I resisted the urge to slap a hand over his eyes.
“You need to find some pants,” I said, probably the first time I’d ever even thought those words about Ian. He looked even better out of them, in my expert opinion. “You can’t be naked around kids. That’s weird.”
He glanced up at me, and…oh, gods, here we went again. Ian turned into a sap around babies, so much so that I wondered sometimes if he’d actually be happier with a female mate. What did I uniquely have to offer, besides enchanted socks and helpful constructive criticism, that outweighed the prospect of raising his own children? In the dead of night, while Ian snored contentedly beside me, thoughts like those came out of the termite-gnawed woodwork of our cabin in droves.
Finally ridding the world of my father had been one of the most satisfying moments of my life, and the news of his painful demise brought smiles to the faces of everyone who heard it, but killing one of your own parents had to come with some kind of karmic burden, right? Maybe mine would be getting dumped for having the wrong reproductive organs by the man I was pretty sure I’d die without. Literally, because when people tried to kill me, he usually had to do the heavy lifting.
Or maybe even without any outside intervention. The thought of losing him made mewantto die, but the thought of losing him because he didn’t love me anymore gave me a sick, cracking feeling in my chest that made me certain Iwould.
“She’s really cute,” he said, not assuaging my fears at all. “So are you, buddy,” he added, giving the toddler’s head a pat. What the fuck? He hadn’t even touchedmeyet! “They’re werewolf kids, Nate. They won’t care. Besides, do babies care anyway? I mean, human babies aren’t born with clothes on, either.”
Okay, fair, and maybe the baby would be more likely to mistake Ian’s swinging cock for a mobile toy and bat at it than she would to be shocked by his nudity.
Whatever. We had other problems—maybe not bigger ones, because Ian certainly didn’t disappoint. But more pressing.
Like the fact that I still didn’t know if their mom was alive. I wrapped my arms a little more tightly around the kids, stroking the toddler’s back, doing my best to make them feel safe and secure—and knowing damn well that if they lost their mother tonight, they might never feel safe again.
“Forget the pants, I guess. Shut the door. I’m trying to keep them from dying of hypothermia, and now it’s all freezing in here.”
Ian crowded the rest of the way into the back seat and got the door closed behind him, and it started to warm up again. I’d turned sideways, sitting with my back to the passenger-side door so that I had more lap for the kids, and my jeans-clad knee pressed against Ian’s thigh. That one point of contact burned all the way up to the spot under my sternum where I could feel the magic of our mate bond connecting to the core of me, a constant reminder that Ian and I were literally inseparable, until death, or bond-breaking magic commissioned by someone who’d had enough of my bullshit, did us part.
Finally, fucking finally, he reached over the kids and cupped the side of my face, thumb stroking my cheekbone. “Maybe this isn’t the time to talk about it, but I’m sorry.” His already deep voice had gone all rumbly, like it did sometimes when he got uncomfortable talking about his feelings. “Jared nearly choked to death laughing when I told him why we were fighting, and if even he thinks it was a stupid idea…”
Ian didn’t need to finish that sentence. Dating Jared had been one of the worst ideas I’d ever had, not least because it wasn’t my idea at all—it’d been a way for him to keep tabs on me, partly at my father’s behest. But mostly, it’d been a bad idea because Jared’s much hotter and much less manipulative cousinhad been in love with me the whole time, waiting for a chance I never gave him.
