Chapter 2 Nate #2
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 me want to 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 I would.
“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 touched me yet!
“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 cousin had been in love with me the whole time, waiting for a chance I never gave him.
At least I’d fixed that mistake. For now, unless Ian changed his mind.
Not going there.
Anyway. So if even Jared thought Ian’s plan hadn’t been romantic enough for me…yeah.
“Apology accepted,” I said. “But the next time you’re planning to take me on a date and the number of vampires involved exceeds zero, plan something else.
Or take a different date.” No, Nate, shut the fuck up, shut up, shut— “Like Angelo, he’s cute, and he definitely likes werewolves.
He’s the one who invited you to the party, right?
Maybe he didn’t even want you to bring a plus-one. ”
Ian stared at me, his freckled cheeks turning as red as his hair and a more intense golden glow filling his irises as he started to get…oh, I could feel that through the bond.
Really fucking angry. Angry enough to lose his temper and take it out on me in the only way a guy as fundamentally decent as Ian ever would, when dealing with his much smaller and more fragile human mate.
No. No, I could not possibly get an erection while I had two children who’d almost died in a car crash sitting right on my lap. That would be so exponentially less appropriate than Ian’s nakedness.
Also, I needed to make a mental note to call a psychiatrist. Maybe Calder would pay for it with some of that diamond money.
“Angelo,” Ian said, after a pause long enough for all the hair on the back of my neck to stand up straight. “I don’t even know where to start. Like maybe with the fact that the only werewolf he really likes is the one he’s mated—”
Okay, no. “Um, one, no, he obviously likes you a lot, too, or you wouldn’t hang out so much, and two, also no, they’re specifically not mated, you told me that yourself, they’re waiting until—”
“They might as well be! And I’m definitely mated to you. Fuck, Nate, you really think I’d—you think I’d cheat on you? With anyone, let alone a vampire? You told me you were happy I’d made a friend outside the pack!”
And I had been, because Ian’s life had been limited in a lot of ways by the Armitage pack’s needs, and he genuinely got along with Angelo, the incongruously twinky and bowtie-wearing vampire enforcer who’d briefly been our guest at the pack house along with the werewolf who’d ended up becoming his mate-in-all-but-bite.
Plus, the giant attack scorpions Arik and I had constructed from magic had gotten a nice meal out of the murderous asshole who’d been in their car trunk.
It'd been sort of a win-win all around, honestly. Okay, maybe not for the guy in the trunk, but you couldn’t please everyone.
My throat had gotten all thick, and I cuddled the kids again as the baby let out a soft whimper in her otherwise shockingly undisturbed sleep.
The toddler muttered something that sounded like another request for his mother, and turned his head to shoot me a betrayed look that hit me right in whatever organ was responsible for guilt.
Maybe my spleen. It had to do something, right?
And fuck. When I looked up, Ian had the exact same expression on his face as the kid.
“I was glad. I am glad,” I muttered, and I really tried my best to mean it. “I don’t think you’d cheat on me.” Actually, I knew he wouldn’t, even if he really wanted to. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” I lied.
Jealousy and the crippling surety that no one could ever truly love me as much as Ian seemed to. That was what, and I didn’t need any imaginary psychiatrist to tell me so.
Ian sighed, the tension draining out of the set of his broad shoulders, the high emotion coursing through the mate bond simmering down, too.
And then he cocked his head, eyes narrowing slightly as they did when he was about to prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that he had a working brain in that gorgeous head no matter what I said about his skull.
“Baby,” he said. “Come on. Jack’s going to be Angelo’s date to the party, obviously. I thought we should go because I know you don’t have a lot of chances to have fun—”
Ian’s car door opened suddenly, cutting him off.
Damn it, I had plenty of fun with Ian when he wasn’t pissing me off, and honestly, also when he was.
I opened my mouth to tell him so, but Arik had already appeared over Ian’s shoulder, long blond hair flying every which way and scowl firmly in place on a pair of annoyingly perfect lips.
If some Renaissance master had been commissioned to paint an angel with resting bitch face turned up to eleven, he could’ve used my brother-in-law as his model and not changed a thing.
Arik glanced between me and Ian, one aesthetically flawless lip curling. “You can argue about your stupid relationship problems later. Right now—”
“We were not!”
Arik let out a huffing sort of sound and shook his head. “Whatever. The mom’s alive, mostly because I got here in time to keep her that way, but we need to get them all back to the pack house. Ian, move. I need to check the kids.”
Ian obligingly pressed himself back against the seat, and Arik shoved himself into the space he’d created, actually resting his knee on Ian’s thigh.
His naked knee. On Ian’s very naked thigh.
I could feel my face turning bright red, and as Arik leaned in, brow furrowed, his magic curling up from him like wisps of chartreuse smoke and gently prodding at the children, I couldn’t look at anything but Arik’s knee digging into Ian’s leg mere inches from Ian’s cock and balls, with Arik’s swinging above them.
And neither of them even seemed to notice. Fucking shifters, Christ. These kids would grow up thinking this kind of thing was normal.
Say what you would about my father and his penchant for kidnapping, torturing, and murdering people, not to mention using carefully extracted internal organs to create magical clones of their owners so he could torture and murder those, too, at least he’d kept his freaking clothes on most of the time.
“They’re fine,” Arik said briskly, pulling back and finally getting out of Ian’s lap. “Ian, you drive Nate and the kids. Calder’s going to carry the mom. I’ll run with him. She needs a lot more healing, and she’ll get it faster this way.”
“She’s going to make it, though?” I asked, afraid of the answer but needing it all the same.
Arik clearly heard something in my voice that I’d tried to keep to myself, because his frown softened. “Yeah, Nate,” he said, gently by his standards. “Yeah, she will. Just don’t drop the baby until we can hand her back to her mother. I’m sure you can manage that much.”
Relief left me without a comeback. I knew I’d think of one later, probably in the shower, but in that moment I was okay with nodding and letting him walk away with the last word.
These kids might grow up to be angry, furry nudists, like most of my in-laws, but at least they’d grow up with their mom, the way neither Arik nor I had managed to do.
That had to be enough for now.