Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Felix sat on the deck two weeks later while his mate napped in her crib. He opened his phone and called his father, Ezra.
Ezra picked up on the first ring. “Felix. Everything okay?”
“Yes. I think so, but I have a concern. I put it off this long because I didn’t want to worry my mate, and we needed time alone together.”
“What’s the problem?”
“Her wolf is unusual. She has only shifted a few times, and I have not shifted with her yet so she’s unaware of the issue, but I can’t keep it from her forever, and I think some of the elders need to be aware. I’m wondering if anything like this has been seen in our history and what it might mean.”
“I’m guessing you’d like me to see for myself since you’re not offering enough details.” He chuckled.
“Yes. That would be best.”
“And your mother?”
“Don’t bring her, but I think we should invite a few other Alphas.”
“Would you like me to handle that?” Ezra asked.
“If you would, please.” Felix had put this off for long enough, but he didn’t want to make a dozen phone calls. He would let his father decide. He needed to wake his mate up in a few minutes and speak to her before others arrived. He didn’t want her blindsided. It was time to talk to her.
After ending the call, he rose and headed for the nursery. His precious mate was still asleep, suckling her pacifier and holding the doll she’d decided was her favorite. She was only wearing a diaper because he often put her down for naps without her dress.
Felix rubbed her tummy to gently help rouse her. She sucked harder and whimpered before finally pulling up her knees and opening her eyes. The smile she gave him warmed his heart. Lately she had smiled at him every time she woke up.
He popped the pacifier from her mouth and lifted her into his arms, holding her against his chest and rubbing her back as she came more fully awake.
When she began to squirm, he lowered her to the changing table, cleaned her up, and then stood her on her feet and put a dress on her. “We need to talk, Baby girl,” he said as he guided her into the great room.
“About what, Daddy?”
He sat in his recliner and lifted her up to settle her straddling his lap. Trapping her with his hand on her back, he held her gaze.
She smiled at him and scooted closer, wiggling her bottom because she liked to press her pussy against his cock when they sat like this. But suddenly, she stopped, her body going rigid.
She sat up straighter and cocked her head to the side. Her eyes glazed over in an eerie way that made Felix’s hair stand on end. She wasn’t seeing him. She was inside her head.
“Someone is coming,” she muttered.
“What?” Felix inhaled deeply. He’d been about to tell her his father and a few other Alphas were coming, but he hadn’t hung up with Ezra long enough ago for him to be here yet. Not to mention the fact that Felix could not scent his father or any other Alpha Protector.
Her eyes were still glazed as she licked her lips. “Four of them. They’re Alphas like you.”
“Khloe…” His heart raced. He rubbed her back. There was no way she could know that. “Look at me, Baby girl.” Her expression was still oddly blank. He knew she was not seeing anything in the room. She might be seeing something, but it wasn’t in this house.
Her eyes moved, still unseeing, as if she were watching something unfold. “One of them is your father. They’re worried. Why are they worried, Daddy?”
Her question unnerved him. She was apparently aware of where she was and who she was with, but her attention was on something he could not sense at all. Not only did she know someone was coming, but she even knew one of them was Ezra? In addition, he was aware that she peed her diaper. It wasn’t a lot but enough for him to feel the warmth against his cock.
“Can you look at Daddy, Little one?”
She finally blinked and turned her head to face him, her eyes seeing once again. She frowned.
“My father and a few others are coming over, Little one. That’s what I was about to tell you.” Apparently three others, but Felix still could not scent them.
She nodded. “Why?” His Little girl had no idea anything unusual was happening.
“I wanted them to meet you, Little one.” That was true, but it didn’t even begin to cover the reasons, and suddenly there were far more important details about his Little mate than what he’d already known.
“Okay.” She leaned forward and kissed him without a care in the world. How could she sense the approach of shifters but not her own mate’s anxiety?
“Can I play the piano for a while until they get here?”
He frowned, confused. There was nothing sweeter in the world than the sound of his Little girl playing the piano and singing. He enjoyed hearing her nearly every day. But there wasn’t time for her to play right now. At least as far as he knew. “They’ll be here soon, Baby girl.”
She shook her head. “Not for another fifteen minutes. They stopped at Leah’s house.” Suddenly, she gasped. “Why do I know that?”
“I don’t know, Little one.”
“Did you know that?”
“No, Baby girl. I can’t scent them yet. They aren’t close enough.”
Her bottom lip trembled. “Why can I sense them?”
“That’s an excellent question. Have you ever had an experience like this before?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
“What about in the last few weeks? Have you sensed other Alpha Protectors nearby or any other shifters?”
“No, Daddy. I’ve only noticed the bears.”
His entire body went rigid. “Bears? You’ve scented bears nearby?”
She shook her head again. “I don’t smell them, Daddy. I feel their presence. And they weren’t nearby. They were just out in the mountains. They’re always out there.”
“Why didn’t you tell me, Baby girl?” He tried to remain calm.
She frowned. “Why would I tell you there were bears? You know there are bears.” She pointed to his chest. “You said one of them attacked you last year.”
He swallowed. He needed to tell her so many things. He had no idea where to begin. Apparently he had fifteen minutes to do so. “That’s true, Little one. There are bears out in the mountains, but I never explained what happened that day. I wasn’t attacked by a normal bear. It was a shifter.”
She gasped. “There are bear shifters?”
“Yes. We only recently found out they were in the area. Before that, none of the living Alpha Protectors had ever encountered another shifter species.”
“So the bears I sense are shifters?”
“I don’t know, Khloe. They could be regular bears. However, the shifters can block their scent from us. If you’re scenting shifters, apparently they can’t block from you. But more importantly, I have not scented them in the area here before. I’m wondering why you can.”
She shook her head. “Daddy, I can’t smell them.”
“Right. You said that. You didn’t think it was odd you could feel their presence?”
She slowly shrugged. “Maybe I should have. I just thought my senses were heightened after I learned to shift.” She set a hand on his chest over his heart. “You’re nervous.”
He chuckled. “You just now picked up on that? You can sense bears and wolves in the distance, but you can’t tell your mate is freaking out?”
She cringed. “Are you freaking out?”
“A little bit, yes,” he admitted. He didn’t like this. It was unnerving. What the fuck was going on? “Is there anyone else out there you can sense, Khloe?”
“No. Nothing large. Just small animals like squirrels and rabbits. There haven’t been any wolves nearby until now. Just the bears.”
“Leah lives too far away from here for you to scent her or her mate or anyone else.”
“But I told you?—”
He covered her mouth. “I know. I know, Little one. I get it. You aren’t smelling them. I’m just talking this out in my head. I don’t know anyone who can sense when guests are coming. I can scent them when they get close, but not from a distance, and I certainly can’t feel their actions.”
She cocked her head again, her eyes doing that weird glazy thing. “They’re coming now. Leah is not with them.”
He waved a hand in front of her face, wondering if she could be distracted from her vision and finding she could not. In any case, she didn’t linger long in the weird trance. She shook out of it and met his gaze with her normal sight again.
This time she was shivering. “Is something wrong with me?”
He forced a smile. “Definitely not, Little one. You seem to have an odd gift. That’s why I asked my father and a few others to come visit in the first place. I wanted them to see your other gift so they could go to the elders and inquire about it.”
Her brow furrowed. “My other gift?”
He nodded and took a deep breath. “Your wolf is unusually large, Khloe.”
She stared at him. “Large?”
“Very. I’ve never seen a wolf that big, not even one of the Alpha Protectors. Most shifters are proportionately similar in size to their human form. You are not. Your human is tiny. Your wolf is enormous.”
She leaned into him, wrapped her arms around his neck, and held on tight. “I don’t want to be weird,” she murmured.
“You’re not weird, Baby girl. You’re different. And you’re not the only one. Another recently mated Little girl has special abilities, too.”
She leaned back to look at him again. “Yeah?”
“Yep. Her name is Olivia. She’s mostly blind in her human form, but her wolf can see, and she can communicate with the bears telepathically.”
Khloe gasped. “She can?”
He wasn’t altogether certain the same wouldn’t be true for Khloe under the circumstances. After all, if she could sense them, maybe she could communicate also.
“Your father and the others are almost here, Daddy.”
He rose from his seat, holding her in his arms. There was no way he would put her down. He needed her touching as much of him as possible. Under normal circumstances, he would put panties on her before guests arrived. She was slightly damp from wetting herself, but she hadn’t commented. As far as he knew every Little girl who was mated to an Alpha Protector sometimes wore diapers at home, though they didn’t often do so in front of others. But no Littles were coming right now, and he knew not one of the Alphas would comment, and Khloe seemed unbothered.
As he approached the front door, he finally scented the four shifters.
Khloe held on tight around his neck and set her head on his shoulder.
Felix opened the door to welcome their guests as the four of them emerged into the clearing and shifted into human form. Ezra was flanked by Owen, Talon, and Elias. Owen was Brock and Elias’s father. Talon was Arion and Damon’s father. Elias was Leah’s mate and the only man approaching who was of Felix’s generation.
Ezra smiled warmly. “Hello, Little one. So good to see you again.”
Khloe shyly snuggled in closer to her Daddy’s chest. “Nice to see you,” she murmured.
“Come on inside,” Felix said as he stepped back. “Things have changed.”
Ezra chuckled as he followed his son into his home. “You haven’t mentioned what the first thing was, so I suppose a change won’t seem very odd.”
“Trust me. It will.” Felix returned to his seat in the recliner, settling Khloe sideways on his lap. She needed to be able to face the others.
Everyone else took a seat on the sofa and loveseat.
“Is everything okay?” Talon asked. His hackles would be raised the highest of all the men since it was his son, Damon, who was mated to Olivia—the most recent shifter with extraordinary powers.
“I don’t know. It would seem Khloe has some unusual abilities like Olivia.”
Elias gasped. “She can talk to the bears?”
Felix shook his head. “No. Well, we don’t know that yet. She can sense them from a great distance. She also sensed the four of you coming before you left Elias’s house.”
A collective gasp filled the room.
Felix nodded. “And those are just the things I learned after I called my father to request this visit.”
Ezra sat forward in his seat. “What more is there, son?”
Felix patted his mate’s bare thigh. “Her wolf is extraordinarily large. That was why I called you in the first place. I wondered if anyone had ever seen such a thing.”
“How large?” Owen asked.
“Bigger than any of us.”
All eyes widened.
Khloe stiffened.
Felix held her closer, rubbing her thigh.
“Will you show us, Little one?” Ezra asked gently.
Khloe looked at Felix. “They will all look at me.”
He smiled. “They won’t judge you, Baby girl. They just want to know what you look like.”
She leaned in closer. “I haven’t ever shifted with my clothes on.”
She was right. He hadn’t thought about that. They’d been naked a lot for the past two weeks. “You can do it, Little one. It’s easy. Your clothes will stay with your human form when you shift and be right back on you when you shift back. You don’t need to take them off.”
She brought her lips to his ear and cupped it before whispering, “I peed myself.”
He turned her head so he could whisper back, “I know, Baby girl. It’s okay. No one else knows.”
She pursed her lips and lowered her gaze. “Okay, Daddy,” she finally murmured.
When Felix set her on her feet in front of him, he smoothed her dress down. He knew she was embarrassed for a number of reasons, but she couldn’t understand that not one man in this room cared that she had wet her diaper, and none of them would overreact to her size either. They were sensitive to the needs of Little girls. All of them had their own.
“Take a deep breath and let the change take over, Little one,” he encouraged, patting her bottom.
She took a few steps into the center of the room, closed her eyes, inhaled visibly, and shifted. When she landed on all fours, Felix glanced at his father.
Ezra’s eyes were wide, but it was also obvious he was trying to control his reaction.
A glance at everyone else in the room confirmed they all were.
Elias held out a hand. “You’re such a gorgeous wolf, Little one.”
She slowly moved toward Elias and sniffed his fingers before he lifted his hand to pet her head.
Felix was glad his friend had called her Little. She was certainly not small in wolf form, but she was still his Little girl.
Each of the others leaned forward as if they could get a closer look if they did so. It wasn’t necessary. There was no denying she was huge. It’s that none of them trusted their vision, and Felix understood what they were thinking because all the same thoughts had gone through his mind the first time he’d seen her also.
Felix rose from his seat and headed toward the hallway, turning at the entrance. “Come, Baby girl.”
She turned toward him and followed his command.
He wanted her to shift back in her nursery so he could change her without risking embarrassment. “We’ll be right back.”