“This is orgasmic,” I mumbled around a mouthful of frosting.
“Please don’t make sex noises while eating my baking,” Vivi called from the kitchen.
“Can’t help it. Blame the pregnancy hormones.”
Mika snorted while wiping down the espresso machine. “How are the twins handling kindergarten?”
I swallowed another bite, considering the question. “Rowan loves it. He’s already reading at a second-grade level and correcting the teacher’s pronunciation. Pretty sure his teacher both loves and hates him in equal measure.”
“Of course he is.”
“Thea bit another kid yesterday.”
“Well…damn.”
“In her defense, the kid tried to take her snack.” I licked frosting off my thumb. “She’s very food-motivated. Gets it from me.”
“The biting or the food thing?”
“Both.”
Mika’s mouth twitched into what might have been a smile. The familiar rhythm of the shop flowed around us. Orders called out, steam hissing, conversations blending into comfortable background noise. I polished off the cupcake and immediately wanted another one. Pregnancy was basically just constant hunger interrupted by the occasional need to pee. Mika must’ve read my mind because she slid a second cupcake toward me without comment.
“I love you,” I told her seriously.
“I know. Remember last month when those tourists showed up? I saw them again yesterday.” She said suddenly. “The ones with the cameras who spent three hours taking pictures of the shop and asking if we had Wi-Fi.”
I snorted. “Welcome to small-town life. We’re so quaint and photogenic.”
“One of them asked if we were Amish.”
“We have electricity.”
“I pointed that out. She seemed disappointed.”
The tourist thing had picked up lately. Ever since Ravenshollow opened its borders six months ago, more people had been exploring the area. Some found their way to Pine Valley. Most were harmless. A few were annoying. All of them wanted to know if we’d ever seen the “big wolves” everyone talked about in local legend. If only they knew.
Vivi emerged from the kitchen with a tray of fresh cookies, setting them in the display case with efficiency. “Have you and Knox decided on names yet?”
“We’re narrowing it down.”
“That’s what you said last month.”
“We’re very slowly narrowing it down.”
The truth was Knox and I couldn’t agree on anything name-related. He wanted a traditional pack name with history and weight behind it. I wanted a name that didn’t sound ridiculous when you had to yell it across a playground. We’d been arguingabout it for weeks with no end in sight. The fact that we didn’t know if we were having a boy or a girl made it even more complicated. We needed neutral options that worked either way, and apparently finding names we both agreed on was harder than negotiating peace treaties.
Marriage was fun.
The afternoon bled into evening while I answered emails, approved new menu items, and tried not to think about Knox out there hunting rogues in the woods. The mate bond hummed in the back of my mind, present but quiet. He was fine. I’d know if he wasn’t. That was the thing about being mated to an Alpha. I always knew.
By the time I finally dragged myself to the car, my back was screaming and my feet had swollen to twice their normal size. The drive from Pine Valley back to Ravenshollow took two to three hours on a good day. Today it felt endless.
I’d moved most of my things to Ravenshollow after the wedding. We’d left Noah’s house, of course, and moved to the pack house, which had become home in a way I never expected. But Pine Valley still held pieces of my heart. My parents had opened this shop and I’d inherited it after they died, and every corner held memories I wasn’t ready to leave behind.
The sun had set by the time I finally pulled through the gates of Ravenshollow. The pack house loomed ahead, all dark wood and stone, nestled into the forest. Lights glowed in the windows. My entire body ached when I climbed out of the car, one hand pressed against my lower back while the baby kicked hard against my ribs. I grimaced.
“Yeah, yeah, I know. Long day for both of us.”
