CHAPTER SIX
Preston
Nightshade Bear Territory
My house looked as if Baby Andy ran the housekeeping routine.
The living room was a pile of blankets and toys.
Stuffies were scattered here and there and a half-demolished throw pillow lay in the middle of the floor with its fluffy innards scattered all around.
I bit back swearing under my breath. If I had thought ahead, I’d have asked Mori to sneak over and clean up.
Wess was going to think that I never cleaned the house and let my child demolish everything in his path.
The throw pillow was cheap, and little bears were going to chew on something.
“Looks like you two had a lot of fun recently,” Wess said, closing the door behind him.
“I—I usually clean up things before leaving the house, but Andy was so hyper this morning and I needed to get him out into the fresh air, and I wasn’t planning on having guests and---”
“And it’s okay,” Wess said. “Seriously. If I walked in here to a pristine house, I’d worry more. Cubs need to play to learn and grow. They need space to be little hurricanes and hunters. This isn’t mess, mate. This is life unfolding.”
“You’re too good to be true,” I said, rubbing the back of my neck.
“No, I’m not. You just haven’t seen my ugly side,” he chuckled. “How about I straighten up since it’s obviously stressing you out? You can chill or take a shower to relax or---” he looked around the living room and spotted my yarn basket. “Knit.”
“You do know I didn’t bring you home to be the maid, right?” I asked and bit my lip. Yep. He thought I was incapable of taking care of my kid.
“Uh… This is going to sound presumptuous but unless you plan on pawning me off on Lero or making me sleep outside I’m going to be here with you and Andy. Helping inside your own living space isn’t being a maid.”
“You didn’t even make the mess,” I said.
“And you did? Preston, did you chew up that throw pillow?” he teased.
“You know what I mean,” I said and my hands found my hips.
“The thing is you can’t have it both ways.
You can’t insist on me being a part of Andy’s life, which I’m happy to do, and then turn around and not let me do it,” Wess said.
“So, I’m going to clean this up. I’m going to put everything away and shove the stuffing back into the pillow.
We can probably get a few more attacks out of it if we sew it up.
While I’m doing that, you’re going to relax however you want to, because I’m not a tyrant.
Then when I’m finished, I’m going to make sure you’re relaxed. ”
“Are you ordering me to relax?” I arched a brow and tried not to wonder how much like my carrier I looked at the moment.
“I am. What are you going to do about it?”
“Drop down and suck his dick until he’s too weak kneed to clean up,” my bear rattled off in my thoughts but fortunately for us both, Wess wouldn’t be able to hear him until after we exchanged the claiming vows.
“I—” I tried to speak but didn’t really have a retort.
What was I supposed to say? No, you can’t clean the house.
Centuries of omegas would rise from the dead and kick my ass for turning down the freely offered help.
Sure, he might not put everything away the way I would, and I wasn’t sure if Andy would mind his scent and he might find little pieces of dry cereal scattered around too.
Andy liked to hide his snacks sometimes.
But… A shower where I wasn’t rushing to get back to my baby or to finish up in time to clean before he woke up from his nap sounded like paradise.
“Fine,” I settled on instead. “You clean the living room.”
“I’m glad you see it my way,” he said, his eyes raking over me before he bent down to retrieve the eviscerated pillow. “And I can assure you, when I was a cub, the place looked much worse than this. Once I dragged in a pigeon to eviscerate.”
“I’m going to shower,” I said, unsure I wanted to think about scrubbing blood stains out of the carpet.
“You better relax.”
I almost asked him or what, but I had to concede I was just arguing against my own wishes at this point if I opened my mouth. I grabbed some clothes and my phone and slipped into the bathroom. I sent Mori a quick text to check on my baby.
ME: Are you two okay?
MORI: We’re good. We’ve had a little bath. Now, Andy’s having a little bottle with his granddad and I’m having
a whole pecan pie.
MORI: How are you doing? You’re not claimed yet. If you’re cleaning the house instead of holding onto his horns, I swear to Juda, Prest.
ME: I’m about to take a shower. He’s cleaning the living room, Mori.
He’s cleaning the living room after Andy eviscerated a throw pillow.
I didn’t ask him to. He just said he was going to do it and there was nothing I can do about it.
I don’t know whether to be in love or think I’ve been whisked off to a fay realm. He’s cleaning the living room!!!
MORI: Cleaning the living room instead of claiming you?
?? How rude!!! Though, knowing you he’s not getting to bite anything until it’s clean so maybe he’s onto something there.
It would make sense that your true-mate is a neat freak too.
Well, you’re a neat freak now. I can’t wait to show Andy pictures of your room from when we were teens.
ME: That isn’t funny! This is serious!
MORI: It is too and yes, it’s serious! That man is your true-mate!
It’s magical but also extremely mundane.
If you’re going to live together forever, he’s going to have to do chores too.
I won’t sit back and watch you raise a baby and a manchild.
I’m not cleaning up after a manchild. Oh, speaking of --- Something is totally up with Lero, and we need to talk about where I’m going to live later.
I know I’m not around much right now, but I don’t want to crowd you now that he’s there.
ME: Uhhh…. Here. I mean, here as far as I’m concerned.
I won’t lock you in your room and make you stay but you don’t have to move out just because he’s here.
I mean…. Obviously, things are different now but not that sort of different.
Not so different that you need to go somewhere else.
No matter what happens, Mori, this is your home base. Even if you never travel again.
MORI: Thanks. I… Well, you know Ni and Teddy have been so wrapped up in each other recently. Then Crilus met his guy and well, I just feel out of place everywhere.
MORI: Shit! I’m raining on your parade. I’m okay.
Really, I’m okay. I just wanted to know if I needed to make plans to move or not.
I already told the dads that Andy and I will be staying here tonight.
They have most of what he needs. I’ll need to stop by and get Nose, though. He won’t sleep without him.
ME: That’s more than okay and you know it. This is your home too. I have a cub. It’s not like we’re going to shag on the living room carpet.
MORI: That’s new carpet. Of course you aren’t going to let him impregnant it.
“Mate, I don’t hear the water running in there,” Wess called from the other side of the bathroom door. “Did you fall asleep?”
“No, sorry. I’m texting Mori,” I bit my lip. Was he done with the living room already and waiting on me?
“Don’t apologize,” Wess chuckled. “I asked if you fell asleep and meant what I asked.”
“Oh,” I blinked.
When had I started explaining everything and apologizing all the time?
“After Sharon Claudis,” my bear chimed into my thoughts.
“Stop it! I do NOT have some PTSD crap from her. She doesn’t have that power over me,” I thought to him and gritted my teeth as if that would make it true.
I told Mori I had to go and remind him that he could stop by/come home whenever he wanted to.
Then I got into the shower and tried to figure out what exactly I was going to do about Wess.
Almost everyone I knew dreamt of meeting their true-mate. I did too once upon a time. It was almost impossible to not want what my parents had. I’d grown up watching how in sync with each other they were. How they managed to handle everything together.
“Our sire cleans house a lot. Sometimes he does all the housework if magic stuff is going on or our carrier is pregnant or chest feeding… Or tired… I don’t think it’s that big of a deal.
He didn’t seem to mind, and I think he’s already done,” my bear rambled into my thoughts. “That’s why he came to check on us.”
It probably wasn’t that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things, but my life wasn’t the grand scheme of anything. It was my life and Andy’s life. I wasn’t going to run for the hill, but I had to stop and question things before I threw myself into this man’s arms.
“He’s a polar bear. I bet he could hunt deer in a single bite,” my bear continued.
“He could hunt hares in the winter. He’d blend right in with the snow,” he said a second later while I was washing my hair.
My inner beast continued listing reasons that our true-mate was wonderful.
I had no doubt that Wess was wonderful. After all, I chose him in the Other World before all these Earthside lives.
We decided we loved each other enough to go round and round the door of life and death and always feel incomplete unless we were together.
Hell, maybe I could get Mori to unlock those memories for me.
It was out of his wheelhouse, but if anyone could do it, it would be Mori.
After I finished washing, I stood under the hot water for a few long, silent moments.
I took a few deep breaths and sank into my bear’s head.
The world was simpler inside his thoughts.
Either things were loved, to be eaten, to be avoided, or to be buried.
Those were the only options. Everything went neatly inside those boxes. Beautifully inside those boxes.