Chapter 40
Chapter Forty
Emery
Gemma and Danny arrived with bells on as the saying went. I’d left off the bandage as there was zero point trying to hide my pregnancy. In fact, the she-wolves seemed to be in awe, and I allowed touch.
Such a simple phrase, but a powerful one.
I knew some of the more superstitious among them thought I was a good-luck charm.
They all—every one of them—asked me if they could touch my belly, but I felt nothing but love and awe.
Not a single bad word, and even though I knew many were jealous, they never crossed the line of not being happy for me.
And then as I looked at the next she-wolf that arrived, I knew things were going to get awkward.
All those weeks ago, I remembered the older wolf putting forward his daughter, Raven, as a brood-mate.
A surrogate in wolf-terms. It had caused a huge rift between myself and Phoenix, even if I understood Karl’s reasoning. Her eyes sparkled with tears.
“I can leave,” she choked out and saw one of the older she-wolves put an arm around her.
“Nonsense,” I said and extended my arm, wiggling my fingers to draw her close. She rushed at me so rapidly with her arms extended I had to brace myself, expecting a collision, but she slowed infinitesimally at the last second and ever so gently bent and kissed my belly.
I had to swallow. Her gaze lifted to mine, and I wriggled my fingers again to get her to sit.
Whether it was me, her, or the whole situation, but the floodgates on stories seemed to open.
Raven had been promised to her mate since infancy.
And while I personally wasn’t a fan of that idea, it turned out they had actually fallen in love as only best friends could until the night of the first Gathering—which was, I found out, the night I met Phoenix—when her mate’s whole family left to move to a pack hundreds of miles away because they thought the problem lay with Phoenix, not shifters in general.
Apparently, his grandmother was convinced because Phoenix’s mother had left the pack, it was a sign.
And, yeah, not just a sign of a bad marriage. Apparently, everything wolf was a million percent more. I held Raven as she cried. It wasn’t—as her father thought—the thought of not being able to have a child, but the sorrow of losing her mate.
Another she-wolf, Asia, had a similar depressing story. Asia’s mate had taken four other she-wolves because he’d said the blame lay with Asia. Needless to say, when he hadn’t managed to knock up any of those either, he decided it was the pack’s fault and left, as well.
Mirabelle’s father was a jaguar, and much to my horror, I learned that the jaguar mates were able to conceive, but they lost their babies before ten weeks. I might have cried a little myself at that.
Gemma had been quiet as I talked to the people who wanted to talk to me, but then after some time, she clearly decided that enough was enough, and Danny brought out the first cocktail, and every single one of them apart from mine was alcoholic.
Then the games.
Then the gossip, and the laughter, and the knowledge I was part of a really big family. Something I’d always wanted, and despite the fact the only man standing sentinel was Bayer—much to Danny’s delight—I ached to share that with Phoenix.
“So, Em”—most of the she-wolves liked my nickname—“what are you going to call her?”
I grinned at Elizabeth, Mirabelle’s grandmother. The last game had revealed our daughter’s gender at birth.
I glanced at Esther. “Well, we know her middle name,” I teased, watching the delighted blush steal over Esther’s face.
“But neither of us want to call her after our moms.” That statement was met with more giggles and a few more stories.
Funny how Gemma’s cocktails seemed to loosen even lupine tongues.
“I’d love a traditional name. A pack name,” I said softly, hoping they would understand.
I knew our daughter would be born into the modern world and had even checked out local colleges—because it was never too early—this week, but I wanted her to have roots I didn’t have, and I didn’t know how to explain that even to myself.
“Ashtani,” Elizabeth said quietly, and a few of the older ones nodded.
“Ashtani.” I tasted the name on my tongue and quite liked it. “So long as you don’t tell me her story was tragic,” I warned.
“Ashtani was supposedly the first moon-mother,” Esther said.
“She was a human who adored every living creature and had a pet wolf. Her village blamed her and her wolf for the death of their livestock when it wasn’t their fault.
A wild animal had killed the livestock, but because the villagers had seen Ashtani with her wolf, they were blamed, and she was cast out. ”
I narrowed my eyes. “Are you sure this isn’t going to be a tragic Joan of Arc story? Because I’m cutting off the strawberry fizzes if it is.”
There was a general outcry, as much for the liquor as for the story, I was sure.
Esther grinned. “No. Ashtani fell in love with her wolf, and their union was blessed by the moon-mother, which enabled the wolf to take human form, and they formed their own pack. They had a huge family and lived happily ever after.”
“Ashtani.” Mollified, I turned the name over in my mind and really liked it.
Making a decision without Phoenix wasn’t fair, so I would wait, but I was more than ninety-nine-point-nine percent confident he would like it.
Or I would threaten to call our baby X-something like a certain billionaire I wasn’t fond of.
I really enjoyed the afternoon. At twenty, Trust was the youngest pack member and had refused to be left out of the party just because he had boy bits, as he phrased them.
I saw him eyeing Bayer a time or two and knew I would have to steer him in a different direction, as when Danny noticed, he all but put up a sold sign.
Trust didn’t seem heartbroken though, and I mentally started compiling a list of male wolves I’d met.
Unfortunately, as Trust explained, he wasn’t an alpha, despite his dad trying for years, which set off another round of giggles.
“Why does that matter?” I asked, a little slow on the uptake.
“Because there have been so many packs disbanded without them,” Esther explained. “Pack isn’t just a culture or a family to wolves, it’s part of our psyche, and no pack works without an alpha, even a bad one,” she added.
“And, honey,” Trust chimed in. “The first time my dad brought me a live mouse to chase down and eat, I threw up.”
“Eww.” I raised my hand. “No, nope. No disgusting eating animal stories unless you want me to heave right here.”
Everyone quickly steered the conversation in a different direction.
I felt equally delighted as guilty that I’d been here all these weeks, and apart from a few wolves, hadn’t made a conscious effort to meet the rest of the pack, and as I smothered a second yawn, it was Danny who broke things up.
“I had such a good time,” I told Gemma, immensely grateful. She glanced toward the nearly empty kitchen where we could both hear Danny talking at a hundred miles a minute to a mostly silent Bayer, and I snickered. She rolled her eyes.
“Bayer’s a sweetheart,” I said softly in case she was worried.
“Oh, I’m sure,” she hissed back. “But are any of the hotties around here actually straight?” Which made me laugh so much I was in danger of peeing before I made it to the bathroom.
“I got waylaid by at least ten pack members tonight who think you’re wonderful,” Phoenix said later as we cuddled in bed. He turned his head. “So Ashtani, huh?”
“It was a suggestion,” I mumbled. “Exactly the same as Esther.” I fell asleep before I worked out why he thought that was so funny.
Phoenix
I managed to stop my phone before it woke Emery and took it out into the hallway, closing the bedroom door behind me. I answered it, striding toward the kitchen and coffee. It was Simeon.
“Alpha, I had some scouts track Micah Olsen’s progress to the pack.
Isla dropped him at the border, as you know, and he was a complete shit to her, and Isla never so much as acknowledged his existence.
” He paused. “She’s making an excellent beta commander.
” My jaw dropped, and I struggled for a reply.
Coming from Simeon, my dad’s beta commander and often the biggest pain in my ass, that was a huge compliment, but he continued before I got the words together.
“Thing is, my scouts have just returned and reported he got in a vehicle.”
My wolf pushed forward. “What vehicle?” I asked, feeling the brush of fur in my mind.
“We didn’t recognize the vehicle, but one of my wolves was present when the cops came this morning.”
“The cops are still nosing around?” I asked, surprised. I was convinced Em had handled that.
“Not the cops, so much, Christopher Valentine, Emery’s dad.”
“Fuck,” I spat out, abandoning the coffee maker, then changing my mind. “Come here, bring the scout. I’m putting the coffee on.”
“Yes, Alpha.”
Belatedly, I realized it was 4:40 am. Oh well.
The scout was Kasim from Curtis River, the same wolf who’d caught Ben, and I knew he was turning into a great asset for the pack. I served coffee and even found some cake from Em’s party, which both Simeon and Kasim dived on like the wolves they were.
It was good cake. Then Isla walked in, and Simeon immediately updated her while I got her some coffee.
“I followed him until I knew I would be scented, Alpha,” Kasim explained.
“Did they know each other?”
Kasim huffed. “No, the bear told the human to fuck off when he got out of the car because he looked like a good snack.”
“Except Micah didn’t shift and attack?”
Kasim shook his head, but I knew he wouldn’t, couldn’t.
“The human told Olsen he had a gun and wanted to know if he was a wolf shifter.”
I sighed. Nicholas had done so much damage.
“Olsen snarled and said he despised wolves. The human gazed at him suspiciously and asked if it was any one wolf in particular, and Olsen named you. The human seemed doubtful, and Olsen started raving on about you stealing his pack. And that you’d even started taking humans.
“Then the human walked back to the car and opened the passenger door for Olsen and said it seemed like they had a common enemy. I didn’t hear any more since they drove to Olsen’s lands and, like I said, followed until I knew I was getting too close to their scouts.”
I leaned my head back against my chair and begged the goddess for strength. Nicholas had paid the price for his betrayal, but how could Emery’s father do that to his son?
“What do we do?”
I lowered my head and gazed at Simeon and Isla.
He looked uncomfortable with the question, and I knew what he was going to say.
In the olden days, a threat to our pack would be taken out, but I couldn’t sanction Emery’s dad’s killing without thinking of him, and I knew he wouldn’t be okay with it. Obviously.
And I wasn’t a murderer.
“I wish there was a way to get to the pack from the inside and find out what was going on.”
“Ben,” Simeon said, and Isla opened her mouth on what I knew would be an angry objection.
“Absolutely not!” I beat her to it. The idea was absurd.
Simeon just looked at me, and I groaned. “He’s a child.” To say nothing of what else he might be. The problem was I couldn’t say that.
Simeon nodded and drained his coffee. “So, what else?”
“Let me talk to Bayer,” Isla suggested. “I know he definitely has friends in the pack.” But we had to do something. This couldn’t go on. It was too dangerous.
All of them left, and I knew I needed to talk to my dad and get his advice, but I had the chance of another hour curled up with Em and headed back to our bedroom. As I opened the door, Em moved and turned on the lamp next to him. “Are you okay? Sorry if I woke you.”
“My back’s killing me, and I need to pee,” he groused and threw back the covers.
I pressed a kiss to his head, then caught his hand to help him straighten up, and he winced.
“I can’t decide which is worse. No,” he said with determination.
“A full bladder.” And he let me ease him up.
Then, he let go and took a step, grimaced, then his look changed to horror as fluid splashed on the floor.
“Oh,” he said in a very small voice.
I got my act together quickly. “Don’t worry, sweetheart,” I begged. “Let’s get you sorted.”
And he took a step and then nearly doubled over.
“Fuck.”
It took me a moment to react because Em never said cuss words. He’d made it his life’s mission. “Em?”
And he raised his head, his hand clinging on for dear life. “Go get Esther. Call the doc. I didn’t pee myself. My water just broke.”