CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Preston
Nightshade Bear Territory
Dad brought back a foul-smelling concoction that was the color of bog water and made Wess drink it.
The only redeeming factor I could find was that it looked to have been frozen into some sort of icy drink.
Wess did love icy things. He sipped it like a champ, slowly sitting up bit by bit, and not complaining when Baby Andy crawled into his lap once he was mostly upright.
I hoped our baby didn’t remember tonight at all. I hoped that he didn’t remember Venal going or Wess getting hurt. Sure, one day, he’d need to know the truth but that was far off into the future and I’d rather him remember it as a story than as events that unfolded before his eyes.
“Babies are resilient,” my carrier said, rechecking the floor for any blood he missed and picking up my thoughts over our family link. “They shouldn’t have to be but they are. He’s happy that Wess is okay. He’s happy that you’re back. It’s simple things with them.”
Before Baby Andy, I got so irritated whenever he did that.
It was like he was tuned into me all the time if I was around him and sometimes even when I wasn’t.
Now, I got it. I got it straight down to the core of my soul.
Having Andy didn’t just show me how much I could love a person but how much I was loved as a person.
And my parents loved Andy and his cousins as much as they love me.
“Come on,” my sire said. “Stretch out on the table. I need to get Grain’s toe set straight, if you’re okay.”
I started to say that I was fine but there was no use in arguing. So, I grabbed a throw pillow and stretched out on the coffee table. Unlike Colton, Dad made regular use of his small portable ultrasound. It only took him a few minutes to clear me and the twins as healthy and safe for regular life.
Part of me wanted to crawl back into bed but I knew from experience that would be a good way to wallow and sink into everything that had happened. I still had a baby to love and take care of and a family to celebrate Yule with. There would be time to cry about it all later.
Not long after my parents left to see to Grain and their own little ones, Baby Andy woke up. He patted around Wess’s head as gently as someone with his hand eye-coordination could.
“Kay,” he said. “Kay.”
“Yeah, I’m okay, buddy. Takes more than a thump on the head to keep me down,” Wess said, smiling at him. “Do you want to open your presents?”
“Zents?” he pointed at the tree. “Zents?”
“Yep. Your zents,” Wess nodded and the five of us, including Snowy, moved to the floor in front of the tree.
Mori took down the shields, and we let Baby Andy have at it.
After all every last gift under the tree was for him.
I had a sneaking suspicion that he’d have more fun destroying the wrapping paper and boxes than he would with what was inside of them.
We could’ve wrapped up rocks and he’d have been happy.
“Why so many throw pillows?” Mori laughed.
“Those are his doing,” I said, jerking my head in Wess’s direction.
“Hey! His ends up in the pillow hospital a lot and he needs backups,” Wess shrugged.
“He’s not wrong, brother. He’s not wrong at all,” I laughed.
That night I had trouble falling asleep. I tossed and turned every which way until I took my pillow and blanket out on the sofa so that I didn’t keep waking up Wess and Andy. After I hadn’t fallen asleep on the sofa in over an hour, I headed into the kitchen and ate more leftovers.
“Annila is pregnant. That’s what Wess found out while he was in and out of it.
That’s what you can’t make sense of. She hurt Annila.
No matter what she told anyone. Everyone keeps secrets.
Some people get hurt and they can’t voice the words.
Annila is a woman not on a mission but on a vendetta.
Now, she’s not only trying to get revenge but to protect her baby.
Some people wouldn’t bother, if you know what I mean.
And that would be okay too but I think Sharon underestimated who she fucked with.
I think Annila is the sort of mother who would die for her children – any of her children.
It’s not like her first son’s father stuck around.
She raised Nic all on her own. She’s made a choice and now Sharon’s going to die for her own choices.
We’ve slowed her down. Well, Wess slowed her down. ”
I massaged the heel of my hand into my forehead.
Poor Annila. Poor everyone who had been hurt by her.
Now, in a few hours, I’d go to Venal’s funeral.
We were burying him in the woods in a small ceremony.
It was so strange to have someone I’d been so intimate with be dead now.
It wasn’t like we were super close or anything.
We met on the Pheromone Swap app. Still, he was inside me – kissing me, touching me, living and breathing – so fucking alive and now he was dead.
A door opened down the hall and I scanned for Wess on our mating link but he was still out cold.
It was Mori padding down the hall with his puppy tucked against his chest. He came into the kitchen and without saying a word, he hugged me with his free arm and I leaned in against him.
We’d probably cuddled up like this in the womb too.
Our carrier liked to joke that we were so cozy that we had to be cut out.
I could believe it. Life was probably simpler in there.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t like him, but I’m sorry,” Mori said, sitting down in the chair next to me and keeping his arm around my shoulders.
I told him Wess’s suspicions about Annila being pregnant. Mori swore under his breath and took a bite of my left-over pineapple and ham sandwich.
“You know, I have to go back then, right? Back to London? She’s crazy now but she wouldn’t be the first dragoness to have someone force themselves on her and then stop at nothing to kill them.
Shit,” he said and rested his forehead against the table.
“If she said something we could’ve gotten her therapy or a doctor or… ”
“No,” I said. “It’s not on you or anyone except for Sharon and I don’t think therapy would’ve solved her problem. Her dragoness is in charge now but you can’t leave until we figure out what’s up with Lero.”
“Shit! With everything going on I’d almost forgotten about his invisible boyfriend,” Mori groaned.
“Are we sure it’s a boyfriend?”
“More like man friend. I saw him for a few seconds. He’s not shacking up with some astral Sharon, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Mori said, not looking up. “Still he doesn’t seem to want my help either.”
“Well, we’re family. We gotta be here when he needs it,” I sighed.
“Yeah and I need to be here until the twins are born at least. How the hell did we end up in this mess?”
“Eh, hormones. That’s what went on with me and Wess anyway,” I chuckled.
“I’m going to heat up some more food. We need our energy to trek out into the woods today,” he said.
“Poor Venal.”
“Yeah. You know what sucks the most about this? Usually if an asshole dies you can be happy about it. Like when they finally got Grady Moore, the notorious breeding farm vampire, I bet they were happy about it. I can’t even be happy about this because of Andy.
Like I hated him, but had he never existed we wouldn’t have Andy. ”
“I know,” I nodded.
“Andy has Wess too now,” Mori said as if I needed reminding.
“Andy had Wess since the moment he walked into Lero’s house,” I chuckled. “He’s out cold and I’m not in the bed. You’re not in the bed. I say he’s accepted Wess as an okay adult.”
“Someone has to be the adult around here, brother, because I’m not sure we’re prepared for all of this,” Mori laughed.
“I don’t think anyone ever is.”