Chapter 2 #2
For a moment, it looked like Mathan might refuse.
Then he relented and handed Alanna over.
“Be gentle with her,” he said, completely unnecessarily.
And because it was Emrie he was talking to, he said it more gently than he would have with anyone else.
He had a soft spot for her. Really, most of the bears in our Clan did.
Emrie squeezed his shoulder in affection before taking the baby. “Of course.” Her attention dropped to Alanna’s big blue eyes. “Hi, angel. I’m so happy to meet you.”
Roarke shifted beside me, just slightly. Most people probably wouldn’t notice it, but my bear and I did. I glanced at him and caught the awe-filled expression on his face as he gazed at his mate, then had to look away when the emotion turned too intimate to witness.
Alanna blinked up at Emrie, blinked again, then started crying, her vocal cords reaching impressive new levels of unhappy.
“Oh, don’t cry, little cub.” Emrie drew her close, patting her back as she paced the living room and murmured softly to her. But no matter what she tried, Alanna didn’t settle. Her wails grew louder as her face flushed red with the force of her distress.
After a few minutes of being unable to soothe her, Emrie looked near tears. She was a sensitive bear to begin with, and being twelve weeks pregnant had only heightened that sensitivity.
I moved to help her and to take Alanna from her, but Roarke stayed me with a quick, pointed, flame-filled look. I stopped so suddenly it felt like I’d run into a brick wall, even as my eyes widened.
Shifters were possessive of their mates, especially when they were pregnant. That was completely normal for us. Dragons, however, seemed to take that instinct to an entirely new level.
Roarke drew his wife tenderly into his arms and kissed her forehead. “It’s okay,” he murmured. “Hatchlings can sense emotions. If you’re tired and anxious, she may be picking up on that. May I try?”
Emrie sniffled. “I thought I was being calm, though. I was just excited to finally hold her.” She glanced down at Alanna’s red, squalling face, and her eyes went soft with compassion as she handed her over to her mate, only to gape when Alanna instantly quieted in the dragon’s arms. Then all of us gaped when Roarke began singing to her in Gaelic.
The little cub stared up at the dragon shifter in fascination, hiccuping as her tears dried, her face no longer resembling an angry tomato.
Emrie looked proud of her mate, but also a little sad, and I knew she was taking Alanna’s crying personally, because she had such a tender heart.
“I’m sorry, Emrie. I think she just misses Piper.”
Emrie nodded, wiping her eyes.
Seeing the need for a distraction, I turned back to the shopping bags and started pulling things out, taking the tags off everything as I went. “A bottle warmer with a dozen bottles. Good. Those will help. We don’t have enough. Let’s see…”
As I kept pulling things out, it started to feel a little like a Mary Poppins bag, with absolutely no end in sight.
“There are a good many nappies,” Roarke said, pausing his singing. “I have more in the SUV ready to bring in later. Emrie insisted we buy them in all different sizes, and in great quantities.”
Mathan grunted. “Kids need nappies, Roarke. You’ll be changing diapers soon, so you and your dragon better get used to it. Many, many diapers.”
Roarke shot him a look. “And I will be proud to change my child’s nappies. I may have to beg my mate to curb her spending a little, though. She’ll beggar us before our children are born otherwise.”
Emrie snorted. “It would take a lot more than diapers to beggar us.” Her mate gave her a look warm enough to singe eyebrows for that remark, and Emrie blushed as she turned to Mathan to ask him a question.
Meanwhile, I kept pulling things from the bags without really seeing them, my thoughts turning inward. I had always imagined that once I found my mate, I would be on cloud nine. That my bear and I would finally be at peace, and the loneliness would be gone.
But now that I’d found her, I felt more alone than ever.
Shaking that depressing thought away, I set my jaw, dragged in a deep breath, then realized I was holding a tiny bathing suit.
“A swimsuit?” She was only four months old. What did she need a swimsuit for?
Emrie blushed, shrugging. “I didn’t know how long she would be here,” she said quietly. “It made sense that if she’s still here in the summer, she’d need swimwear, so I got the suit a little big for her. It’ll give her room to grow into it.”
My bear and I went completely still. Even the sweetest, most gentle member of my Clan didn’t know if my mate was going to stay with me or not. The thought felt like a blade sliding between my ribs.
My bear growled in pain at the thought of losing our mate, but I somehow managed not to show it. I had a Clan that needed me, and a baby who was relying on me to keep her safe. Whether Piper stayed or not, there were responsibilities I couldn’t shirk.
I smiled gently at Emrie as she came to stand beside me. “Okay. Walk me through all of this.”
Two hours later, they left for home. Roarke had sung her to sleep, then tucked her into the baby carrier.
I kept her close to me while Mathan and I tried to put together the baby furniture Roarke and Emrie had brought us.
Alanna had a crib in the room she shared with Piper, but I would mostly be taking care of her here in the main part of the Lodge, so we were trying to get everything set up tonight.
After a few hours of putting baby furniture together, I was ready to throw something, and I was not normally prone to bouts of temper tantrums.
“Why will this piece not. go. in!” Mathan growled, trying to force the pole in his hands into the opposite slot.
“Are you following the directions?” I asked, stifling a yawn, then hiding a grin when he scowled at me.
I could see from here that he hadn’t even glanced at them.
Why was this a thing guys did? We always thought we could manage without diagrams or instructions, but inevitably came crawling back to them after many frustrating hours ignoring their existence.
He grunted. “Don’t need them.”
I shook my head, then looked down at what I was doing. I frowned, suddenly confused. Wasn’t this piece supposed to go in the seat? When I finally realized I’d put it together backwards, I groaned. How was that even possible?
Mathan snickered. “Are you using the instructions, Alpha?”
I grimaced. It had looked simple enough on the front of the box, and I thought I wouldn’t need them. “No,” I growled, taking everything apart that I’d done over the last twenty minutes.
“Maybe you should.”
Growling, I looked across the room of scattered boxes, parts, and trash at him. We were both grumpy and exhausted, and both of us looked like we’d been in a brawl with a T-rex. After a tense minute, we started laughing.
“Nice shiner,” Mathan said once he caught his breath.
I winced, gently touching the bruising around my eye and along my left cheek. “It hasn’t healed already?” I’d tried to force a spring-loaded piece into place, and it had snapped loose and caught me in the face.
“Nope.” He popped the p, just to be annoying.
“Your hair looks like you’ve been stuck in a wind tunnel for ten hours straight,” I reported.
He scowled and tried to tame it, but because it was so curly, it just sprang right back into chaos.
Both of us chuckled again and went back to work.
I didn’t know about him, but I needed all available brain cells to complete the swing I was working on.
Two hours later, just as dawn broke, Mathan and I stared at the fruits of our labor.
We’d put together a crib, a playpen, a baby swing, a high chair, and a stroller, along with a small white dresser for Alanna’s things that had a changing table on top so I didn’t break my back changing her on the floor.
I ran a hand through my hair and grimaced at the boxes, garbage, and tools everywhere. The living room looked destroyed. “Cubs sure need a lot of stuff.”
Mathan snorted, then sighed. “Yeah. They really do.”
He’d mostly raised his little sister by himself, so he would know. “Why have I never met your sister? She’s welcome here in the Clan, if you’d ever like to invite her. She’s even welcome to move here. We can build a house for her.”
Mathan’s jaw worked, and he looked away, wiping his hands on his shorts.
“I appreciate the offer, but she prefers solitude to big groups, and she finds it hard not to flinch in fear around males. She’s in Washington.
I still go up to see her now and then. I just have to make the trip, because she doesn’t ever leave her house. ”
I nodded, my chest aching for my Second and his sister. I would leave it for now, but I planned to bring it up again later.
I pushed to my feet, my knees and muscles protesting. “Okay. Let’s rearrange the furniture so everything fits without feeling crowded.”
Mathan raised an eyebrow. “You’re going to keep all this stuff out here?”
I tried to rub feeling back into my legs, then started throwing all the trash into a big black garbage bag. “Yeah, we need to protect her. And the easiest way to do that is to keep her in the main room.”
Mathan hesitated. “She might not sleep very well out here, though. You know how loud the other bears can be.”
I grimaced. It was true. Bears were loud when they gathered as a Clan. It was the sound of family laughing and teasing each other, something I normally didn’t mind. But with a baby, we might need to tone it down a little.
“Alanna and the Clan will adjust.”
I hoped.