“What are you going to do?” Cal asked her. “You said you wouldn’t be going back to Italy.”
“No. I’m done with that Council life,” she said, grinning, and Nico groaned.
“Mom, trying to talk in memes isn’t cool,” he said in the same exact tone Kit used whenever he was glad about having his dad tease him but couldn’t exactly show it.
“Yeah, yeah.” She waved a hand, then picked up her coffee mug again. “Mikael said there’s a room with my name on it, but I might go stay with the pack instead. I don’t know if I’ll stay and for how long, but I’ve missed having pups around and I know they lost their mom, so having another female wolf around for a bit will do them good.”
Derek smiled. A regular human would’ve thought Anna was trying to take over the maternal role by insinuating herself into a delicate situation. It was different for shifters. So many of the nuances of their lives and personalities came from their animal sides. When she said her being around would be beneficial to the pups, she wasn’t trying to take Zoya’s place. She was giving the pups’ animal sides what they needed.
Even though the three little ones wouldn’t shift until puberty, they were still kids who needed love and guidance, and a wolf pack would give them all that, even if they didn’t have any biological parent around. But they had Sean still, and he was their alpha as much as he was their dad.
Kit brought him and Cal their coffees and they settled down to chat for a while. Cal had very pointedly signed the original release paper which stated that he was using the mate clause as the reason for resigning and expected full release from any Council operations.
Derek hoped the Council would just roll with it. He understood that Cal was a valuable asset for them, but they had so many other enforcers who also had seniority and could do the same jobs. Frankly, Cal didn’t owe them anything, hadn’t in a long time.
“Oh, and Derek?” Anna said. “That demotion of yours was bullshit.”
Nico snorted and Kit giggled with surprise.
“I’m glad you think so,” Derek replied, grinning.
“They’re far too detached from the human world to understand human capabilities,” she mused. “I mean, you’re not that different from us. We have the enhanced senses and the animal side, but that’s about it.”
“Losing one eye isn’t enough to be declared useless in a job someone has done for decades,” Cal added.
“I agree. That, and all the other small things that have been piling up in the decade or so I worked as the private assistant for those assholes have just made me more certain about leaving being the best thing I can do at this point.”
Derek huffed. “The only good thing about them is that they pay well.”
“Oh yes, the savings are a good thing to have, I assume you two have some as well?” she asked and they both nodded. They’d be fine without having to work for a while if they chose not to. But then again, they had expertise not many did and they’d talked about doing some sort of an online consulting thing in security issues.
“At least they’re very good at making sure everyone gets a residence permit immediately whenever they settle down somewhere. No matter where they’re from,” Derek pointed out.
“They might be wrong about a lot of things, including that tech job of yours,” Anna said and looked at them with mischief in her eyes. “But it looks to me that some things are worth turning off and on again.”
The boys groaned loudly, making all the adults laugh.
Derek squeezed Cal’s hand and smiled at his mate. She wasn’t wrong with that assessment.
The Council, mainly Anna’s father, tried to kick up a ruckus about Cal backing off the deal they’d struck. The problem with that was, that finding one’s mate was considered special. It was rare enough that it still ranked higher than having children—biological or not—in the grand scheme of things.
Having a partner was the least important, because anyone could claim they had one or were in love. Having family who depended on you was second. Having a mate was the most important thing. Now that Cal had all bases covered, there was very little the Council could do, so in the end they didn’t even try.
The three days it took them to officially come to the conclusion that Derek could indeed be Cal’s mate with all the shifter blood in him were not easy. It all felt too uncertain, right up until Cal got another call from his former superior to confirm that he was now released from service and that the paperwork would follow.
When Lark and Shani arrived, Mikael and the others threw a Christmas party. Well, actually, it was calledpikkujoulu, the traditional Finnish word for a Christmas party which translated into Little Christmas.
Derek liked the thought of a little Christmas before the real one. It felt somehow less like a boozy workplace party, which, he was told by Mikael, was whatpikkujoulutended to be for most people.
Oh well. Languages were weird.
In any case, the house was packed full of people, with all of the couples, teenagers, kids, and Anna as the only single adult.
They had agreed that this party would be their farm Christmas, and that while the presents would be exchanged on the twenty-fourth or the twenty-fifth depending on when people wanted to do that, all three houses would have their separate Christmases this year.
Again, Derek loved the idea. It felt more intimate to save that magical time for just the families, blood or not. Besides, Mikael’s main house was crowded as hell during thepikkujouluevening.
Derek felt a bit overwhelmed and went to the porch to get some air. To his surprise, Shani sat there, bundled up in a large coat that definitely wasn’t hers, based on its size.
