Micah snorted. “Yeah, Carson brought them around last night. Belle thinks they’re dolls, Luce started crying as soon as the boys did, and Rita was more interested in crawling into the bed with Papa.”
“I mean, they’re only a year old,” I argued. “They have no idea what’s going on, really.”
“One might argue that we hardly ever have any idea what’s going on, either,” Dexter’s smooth voice teased from behind me, and I felt his warmth against my back before his chin settled on my shoulder as he looked down at the baby in my arms. “Well, he’s a cute little thing, isn’t he?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Brandt’s eyebrows climb up his forehead as he and Micah shared a look. I resigned myself to at least one awkward conversation with my older brother before the day was out, but I still wasn’t ready to tell them about Sergio. Not while I was still processing that whole revelation myself.
I also knew that Brandt might have certain opinions about our decision not to bond straight away. He and Micah had bonded —deliberately— without barely even knowing each other, both so convinced that fate wouldn’t steer them wrong. My romantic side was a bit jealous that I hadn’t experienced that same rush ofabsolute certainty. That my alpha was more cautious, wanting us to talk it all out first.
Of course, I appreciated that Sergio didn’t want to rush into anything permanent, too. He was giving me and Dex time to think.
But, holding my brand-new nephew in my arms, feeling his comforting, solid weight and smelling his fresh newborn scent as he stretched uncoordinated limbs and made adorable squeaky baby sounds, what was there really to think about?
I wanted this. I wanted children of my own. A family. A pack within a pack. The renewal of life, and love, and to fulfil that sense of purpose my dragon had ached for for hundreds of years.
“Which one is this one, then?” Dex’s voice brought me back out of my thoughts.
“Patrick,” I answered, saying the boy’s name with an adoring coo. “The eldest by six minutes.”
“A whole six minutes,” he repeated, sounding amused. Then I felt his chin shift as he looked over at my brother and his mate, who was sitting half perched on Brandt’s hospital bed, his arm wrapped around Brandt’s shoulders. “Congratulations,” Dex said in their direction, still a bit stilted but sounding genuine — not a hint of snark to be seen. “They’re beautiful.”
If Brandt’s eyebrows could have gotten any higher, they would have migrated into his thick, black hair. “Thank you,” he replied, with a hint of bewilderment, before he gave me a ‘what the fuck?’ look.
Yeah, we were definitely havinga conversation.
Thankfully —or not, depending on your perspective— Dex addressed the elephant in the room with his usual tactless style. “So, a unicornanda dragon,” he scented the air. “Fascinating.”
I watched Brandt’s jaw tighten. His children’s subspecies was a sensitive topic, and I suspected that there was more to his insistence that he didn’t care one way or the other than met the eye. He cuddled Finlay a little tighter, and the baby let out a disgruntled squawk.
“Shit,” he murmured down at the tiny thing, “sorry, darling.” Then his gaze rose to meet Dexter’s, his expression forcibly neutral. “Yes. Both alphas.”
I startled, looking down at the boy in my arms in wonder. The girls were, as far as we all knew, all betas, but these were the first born-alphas into the pack —theworld, even, as far as we knew— since Beck and Ollie’s twins.
“A dragon alpha?” Dex leaned further over my shoulder, peering down at my nephew with a whole lot more awe. “Amazing.”
“His mark is on the top of his left foot,” Brandt sighed, still sounding guarded. “There won’t be any hiding it from the pack.” There was a hint of trepidation there, and I thought I understood why.
Beck and Ollie had managed to keep their kids’ designations a secret, limited to our small circle of found family, because of the locations of their birthmarks. But hiding a mark on a foot wasn’t feasible, especially not in warmer months. And that meant the knowledge about the baby’s designation would spread. The world at large would learn about new alphas being born again, not just unlocked via magic.
It made me more than a little anxious to consider what our adversaries might do with that information.
The Moonmusic people had already attempted a couple of kidnappings and attacks on our pack. They’d happenedyears earlier, back before we were properly established, but the attacks had been enough for us to set up a community watch and our own internal security measures. And, while Dexter seemed concerned that they might turn to other kinds of subterfuge —including lacing illegally procured scent blockers with Gods-only-knew what kind of awful substances— I wondered if they might try something a bit more blatant once they heard alpha babies existed now.
It was a scary thought.
“Well,” Dex mused aloud, “that is wonderful, but then so are your girls. All a blessing to the pack.”
“Seriously,” Brandt blinked at us, clearly unable to conceal his surprise at Dex’s uncharacteristic behavior any longer, “what the fuck?”
“Is he high?” Micah asked, first looking at Brandt and then directly at Dex, to whom he repeated, “Are you high?”
Dex straightened up behind me, no longer resting his chin on my shoulder. “I beg your pardon?”
“You are aware that you seem to be…” Brandt fumbled for the words, settling on, “differenttoday. Not your usual…er…”
“Smartass?” Damon suggested cheerfully from where he was lingering in the doorway, clearly having popped in to meet his friend’s newborns before he started work for the day. “Obnoxious? Dickish? Mean?”
“Oh, fuck off, kitty,” Dex bristled. “Don’t you have a job to do? Filing and answering phones and…whatever other menial tasks Eric fills your day with?”
