17. Jasper
Jasper
Dakota
“H ere we are,” I announced to Angelica as I led her up the path to the front door of our home. “I was going to show your Papa this earlier, but we decided to come tell you about the baby first.”
“What is it?” Her eyes were wide as she took in the details of the small front yard, a double garage to the side.
I opened the front door and gestured up the stairs. “Up there, little kit.” Following closely behind her, I heard her gasp as she recognized her name on the door.
“Mine?”
“Open it.”
She carefully pushed open the door and let out a yell, “Papa! Come see!”
Jasper moved next to me, looking into the room. His intake of breath was loud near my ear. “It’s perfect.”
Angelica loved to be outside, so I’d gone for a fairy princess room using the inspiration and ideas that humans had about the fae, rather than real life.
On the ceiling was a mural of the full moon with stars dotted around.
The walls were a forest, the carpet a deep, lush green.
Her bed was made from reclaimed wood with a pale green gauze canopy, stitched to look like it was an almost transparent leaf.
The bedding was fuchsia and looked like rose petals.
I had hidden the closet behind a pretend waterfall; the mural extending down to a mirror made to look like a pool.
She turned to look at me and burst into tears. I exchanged a panicked glance with Jasper. “I think she’s just overwhelmed.” He offered as a suggestion.
The next thing I knew, she had thrown herself at my legs, hugging them tightly and sobbing. “It’s… so… pretty. Thank you, Daddy!”
Jasper kneeled next to her. “Baby girl, it’s okay. Why don’t you look around for a minute while I check out the house with Daddy?” My heart gave a small pinch every time I heard that name in association with me.
We left her to get used to the space, and I led him down the hall. “This is, ah, my room. Or our room. There’s a spare bedroom with a large bed. I—“
“This is our room.” Jasper said firmly, walking into the room that he found in fox form that first night.
He had been over just once since then, leaving no trace of himself behind.
I couldn’t help but imagine the space with his things, his scent all over it.
Wanting it and getting it were two very different things.
“I didn’t want to assume that because of the baby, you’d move in or even want to share a room.
” Why was it so hard to ask him for what I wanted?
“I mean, I hoped that eventually you would. That’s why Angel has a room here all ready for her.
I had planned little more than that. I guess what could be the nursery is next door and there’s a spare room down the hall. ”
“Can I see the nursery?”
“It’s just a home office right now. I can move everything downstairs. Or if you’d rather, there’s a room over the garage that I could use.”
“Show me and give me ideas for how you’d decorate the room. You did so well in Angel’s room.”
“I did?”
“Yeah. Of course you did. It’s lovely.”
His praise sent a warm feeling through me, soothing fraught nerves.
The whole day had been intense. Suddenly, I was on the brink of having everything that I never even dreamed of.
Part of me wanted to hold back. It was a bit too much after how we’d started out.
I was wary that he would change his mind and reject me again. There would be no surviving that.
The room that I thought would be best for the nursery met Jasper’s approval. Angel found us discussing the best placement of furniture and what colors we wanted to paint. “Can I sleep in my new bed tonight?”
It surprised me when Jasper said, “sure thing. Let’s go back to the house and pack up some things.” He glanced at me as if looking for permission. The emotional back and forth was giving me whiplash. Going from thinking Jasper wasn’t truly in this to him moving in? How did I process that?
“Want me to come so you can pack more things?” I heard myself offering. Glutton for punishment, I mentally chastised.
When Jasper caught my eye over Angelica’s head an hour later as I helped her pack toys and clothes, the smile he gave me warmed my heart and gave me hope that this wouldn’t be a mess.
How he curled into me that night sealed my doom. Asleep, all his barriers were down and he let me hold him close, trusting me with his safety. I was completely in love with my mate. I was also sure that while he might have affection for me; he didn’t quite feel the same way.
One month later.
While we had settled into a sweet family life together, where the surface looked pretty and perfect.
Underneath, I was a bag of worry and stress.
My bear pulled at me constantly to mate mark Jasper.
To ask him to mark me so that we could have some stability.
I balked at that idea; bonding for convenience.
I felt like Jasper was only with me because of the baby.
It wasn’t anything that he did or said; it was just something that I couldn’t put a finger on.
Likely it was all my insecurities playing up.
I’d never expected a fated mate bond, not after losing Cooper, so this was all a huge adjustment.
It was worth it for Jasper. He was light and fun in a previously boring existence.
Kade and Angelica made the anxiety over Jasper’s feelings for me worth it all.
The pregnancy had made Jasper hornier, literally insatiable, to the point where we’d had to get Poppy from The Spell Shop in Northarbor to make a one way soundproofing charm with an alert for when Angelica got out of bed.
That had come in handy more than once. Physically, we were more than compatible.
There was nothing to be worried about there, but still I did.
I wondered often if Jasper used sex and physical intimacy as a patch over the lack of emotional intimacy.
I could never properly get a read on him.
A lack of a bond didn’t help, yet I couldn’t broach that subject because it felt out of bounds.
As with Kade, the pregnancy suited him. The pair were spending a lot of time together comparing rounding stomachs.
Kade was nearing halfway through and seemed to be enjoying his babies.
Both had been lucky with morning sickness, but Kade tired easily and Blake was restricting the hours he could work in a day before sending him to have a nap.
I didn’t dare try to put Jasper on any sort of restrictions.
We didn’t have that kind of alpha/omega bond.
Kade trusted Blake implicitly, and with good reason, since the man would move mountains for his mate.
Jasper didn’t trust me the same way. He trusted me with his family, just not his heart.
It fractured something inside that I’d likely never have that.
Jasper was too sharp, too scarred after his previous mating to ever pass over the reins like that.
“Kota? Is everything okay?” Kade asked from the comfortable sofa Blake had put in his office. Kade didn’t enjoy going upstairs to nap and preferred to curl up under his mate’s watch while Blake worked.
“Everything’s fine, little wolf.”
“Are — “ Kade’s words cut off as a commotion sounded outside. “What the —?”
Shouts and were those bird cries? My shifter hearing picked up the sound of someone falling to the grass from the open window, everyone silent as they watched with bated breaths.
“Sanctuary, please! We need sanctuary,” an unfamiliar voice cried.
It was impossible to hear what was going on in the chaos after the cry. “Stay here,” Blake commanded, looking at me to make sure that his mate stayed in place. Kade and I rushed to the open window and saw the pack around something, the bodies blocking the way.
Blake rushed out of the doors towards the lawn that surrounded the property.
The noise stilled as he approached. People moved out of the way, showing their alpha deference.
I could just about make out two men lying on the grass together, naked and covered in injuries.
One was favoring his arm. Likely having sustained wing damage if these were the birds I heard.
“I heard there were shifters here wanting sanctuary.” Blake said as he got close enough.
“Actually, Alpha, we’d like to join your pack.
Do you have any use for a couple of bird shifters?
” The undamaged one, Jake as he introduced himself, outlined their issues; being trapped in alter form as punishment for being together, fleeing the pack lands after breaking the pack bond, breaking the cuff so Jake could shift back, being attacked.
“Oh, that’s so awful!” Kade gave an involuntary shudder. “Being locked in one form is awful! Completely barbaric! I didn’t know packs still did that.”
“Sweetwater did it until recently, strictly only for the most serious of crimes. They discouraged mixed matings. Pairings could stay in the pack dependent on status, though there was usually some sort of punishment. Not form locking though. I wonder how the aviary got away with that? That practice died out with Blake’s father, thankfully. ”
“D’you think he’ll let them stay?”
“Blake? Of course he will. Besides, we don’t have any birds in the pack. They’d be useful as long as one isn’t too badly damaged.”
Distantly I heard, “welcome to the Sweetwater pack,” and shared a smile with Kade.
I decided I better call my parents. Dad was officially the pack healer, so he should take a look at Sebastian’s arm to see if there was a possibility of a lasting injury. I hoped for his sake that the arm would be fine and he could fly again.
The crowd dispersed as Chase came and helped the men up, leading them into the house. I could make out some of the conversation, some of it lost in the noise of enforcers returning to their jobs.