But I saw it now. All it took was a little help from a sexy alpha shark to uncover the truth.
* * *
I soon sawthe familiar ring of trees that surrounded our pack’s camp. My heart raced in my chest. I didn't know what I was more anxious about – telling them the news, or them meeting Nero. Most of them had met Nishiki before, back when Xander and I saved him from being stuck in his koi form and brought him back to camp to recuperate, but they hadn't met his brother. Only Xander and Sage had met him personally, and those were under hectic circumstances. There was a huge misunderstanding back when Sage had his first heat, and Xander mistakenly thought that Nero was up to no good. The idea of it was laughable to me now, but I understood why Xander reacted the way he did back then. In reality, that was when Nero's alpha awakening had happened, and he was simply reacting to the presence of Sage's heat scent. Xander had apologized for jumping to conclusions, but I was still worried that Nero's name had left a negative impression.
"Overthinking everything again?" Nero asked, wearing a lazy lopsided grin.
"You know I am.”
"What is it this time?"
"Are you going to grill me about my feelings every single time I look like I'm worried about something?"
"Yes."
I snorted. "At least you're honest about it."
The familiar scent of the grove reached my nose as a pleasant breeze wafted over to us. It smelled like home; sweet grass, deer, hare, wolf, mountain lion... A few years ago, it would've been strange to me to think of those different scents as home, but now they pulled my heartstrings. Nero smelled like home, too, but in a different way. The grove was a physical place, but Nero was my person. My mate. He smelled like sea salt and musk, an intoxicating scent I could never get enough of.
In the ring of trees below, I could make out a few figures. I smiled. Even from this distance, I knew exactly who each figure was. Each member of the pack had a unique size, shape, and way of moving, in both human and animal form.
"See that fox that's chasing those two kids around?" I asked. When Nero nodded, I said, "That's Red."
Nero chuckled. "Oh, right. The one that you said you'd rather lick dust off the table than date?"
"Yep, that's the one."
"Sure are a lot of people in that pack," Nero commented. "What if I forget one of their names?"
"They won't mind. Plus, I'll be there to remind you. Now who's the one being nervous, huh?"
"Hey, I'm allowed to be nervous to meet your family. It's a big deal. Besides, you already knew my mom and Nishiki. You had to meet one person. Er, one water spirit. But I have to meet like ten people."
"Excluding the people you already know, it's only nine."
"Wow, nine is so much less than ten."
Our conversation was interrupted as a very loud, very familiar voice called out: "REMMY!"
Nero nearly jumped a foot in the air at the sudden cry. "What the—?"
A second later, a golden furry blur was running towards us. Sage's tongue lolled out of his mouth, making him look more like a golden retriever than a wolf. He crashed into me, his paws pushing me to the ground.
"Oof!"
"Oh my gods, Remmy, I missed you so much, you have no idea how much I missed you, you were gone for like ever and I was starting to get worried you would never come back, even though Xander and Morgan and everyone else was telling me to calm down, I just couldn't because I was thinking about you out there all alone—”
Sage suddenly stopped. He raised his head so quickly that his ears flopped around and stared directly at Nero. His tail wagged. "Hey, I know you!"
Nero smiled and waved at him. "Hey, Sage. What’s up?" He looked like he really wanted to pick Sage up and put him down two feet away. "Er, but how about we refrain from knocking Remmy over?"
Sage gasped. "Why, is he hurt? What happened? Should I call the others?"
"No, I'm fine," I promised. There was a real reason why he shouldn't knock me over but I wanted to wait until everyone had gathered before I spilled the news, because if I just told Sage he would blurt it out in two seconds flat, and that was not the way I wanted the pack to learn about my pregnancy.
Sage backed up, shifted, and hugged me. "Sorry! I just got so excited to see you again."
His voice broke like he was about to cry. I smiled sympathetically and hugged him back. "It's good to see you, too."
