Chapter Seven
Treg
Hemlock Mountain
I woke up wrapped around my mate with his face buried in my chest. I stroked his hair and tried to figure out what had woken me up. The cave was quiet. The curtain over the door stopped the blustery winter wind from whipping around us. A finger poked me in my back.
That had to be it.
“Huh?” I blinked.
The finger was too small to belong to Damon. I knew his hands now. They’d been all over my naked body not so long ago. Also, he was out cold. Over our mating link I knew he dreamt of sledding down a hill and crashing into a lake of cranberry sauce over and over again.
Poke.
Poke.
Poke.
“Treg,” Chasten’s whispery voice reached my ears and I blinked again, fumbling to find the blankets.
Sure, Chasten had seen me naked before but this was different.
I was naked and wrapped up with my naked mate.
Against the odds, Damon didn’t stir as I covered us up and half-turned over to find out what my friend needed.
“Are you okay, Chas?” I asked, trying not to be annoyed.
It wasn’t like he could’ve called me. I didn’t know where my phone ended up in all the chaos and it was on silent because I didn’t want to be interrupted during the Snow Demon summoning ceremony.
Plus, I was pretty closed down on the pack link because I wasn’t sure how much the yetis wanted the rest of the pack to know about them.
“Yeah. I’m okay. I ate. Kirk wants to go home, but I told him we needed to stay. We can’t leave you in the middle of nowhere alone.”
I glanced up to see Chasten standing by the bed, head tilted up to the ceiling with his hands over his eyes.
I buried a laugh and tried to think of the best way to handle this.
I’d be okay here. I was with Damon. The others didn’t seem violent or scary or any of those stereotypes that floated around about ‘mythical’ bigfeet and yetis. They were just another sort of shifter.
“I’m okay,” I finally settled on. “If you’re okay to go home, I’ll be okay.
I know you have some meds with you, but Kirk is right.
Eventually, you have to go home. I do too.
My stuff is there. Your guys aren’t here in the village.
I get that, but it’s something Damon and I need to discuss. I can’t take off and leave him alone.”
“That’s why I figured we could stay. Loop and Sawe said they have extra rooms and stuff.”
“Uh…. Chas?” I said, gently unentwining myself from my sleeping mate and moving the curtains back just enough to swing my legs off the bed with the blanket over my lap. “You have kids. Are you going to bring the girls out here?”
“I… I’m trying to make this work Treg. I don’t want… I don’t want you to move out into the middle of nowhere and stop being my friend. We’ve been friends too long for that. I…” Chas’s bottom lip quivered and something inside me ached.
“You’re not losing me. Even if I lived out here on the mountain, I’d still come back to town. Sure, it would be one helluva a commute but….” I stopped talking because Damon was turning over behind me. He rolled into my back and wrapped a big white-haired arm around my middle.
“Do we need to go?” he yawned.
“Can we even go?” I asked.
I had hoped to have this conversation one-on-one but it seemed that the universe had forced my hand or at least my tongue.
“Why couldn’t we go?” Damon yawned again.
“I’ve been out in your world before. I know it more or less.
I can live here or there. Besides, it’s too cold for you here.
You can’t always be inside where it’s warmer.
It’s not healthy. Plus, what if our baby has your lack of cold tolerance?
” he asked and kissed my side, the only part of me he could reach at the odd angle.
“But your family is here,” I sighed.
“Yeah, but I can come visit. People meet their mates and move all the time.”
“What if the pack finds out about you guys and comes to bug you?” I frowned.
“Then they get eaten or fed. Whatever seems right for the situation. It’s something that gets talked about a lot.
Believe it or not, not just anyone can wander up here.
We’re still not sure how the Frist Mate got here.
Something to do with his elf magic probably or the fact that he was born in the Other World.
I need a few minutes to pack, though. Then I’ll need to talk to Loop and Sawe. ”
“Can we even drive in this?” I asked Chasten.
“We drove up here,” he shrugged, still staring up with his covered eyes at the ceiling.
“I’ll be there,” Damon said, pushing himself upright. “You guys should wait on us, though, bitey wolf.”
“His name is Chasten,” I said, trying not to laugh.
“You guys should wait on us, Chasten. If you get stuck somewhere, I’m probably your best chance of not walking home in the snow,” Damon said, unphased.
“Can you drive?” Chasten and I asked at the same time.
“Don’t need too,” Damon shook his head. “I don’t sink into the snow like you do.”
“How long should I tell Kirk that we need to wait?” Chasten asked.
“Until I am ready,” Damon shrugged.
“I’ll go let him know. Thanks,” Chasten said, trying to walk out of the room with his eyes covered. He walked into the blue curtain a couple of times before managing to get out.
I stretched back out on the bed and pulled Damon down into my arms. Kirk was usually a patient wolf for Chasten. He could be less so with everyone else, but he’d been in our shoes at one time. He whisked Chasten away straight out of the hospital before we really ever knew who he was.
“Are you sure?” I asked Damon and then kissed him before he could answer.
He kissed me back, his tongue sweeping through my mouth. He laughed when the kiss broke and it wrapped around me like a warm blanket.
“I am,” he nodded. “I’ve thought about it a lot. Like am I this way because I’d need an extra form to be with my mate? Sure, others have left and they didn’t have it, but maybe still.”
“I’d have loved you either way,” I told Damon and meant it.
“I know,” he nodded. “But, I’m sure. I’m sure we need to go for the sake of you and maybe our future kids. We’ll visit a lot, and we’ll come back for Yule. We have to come back for Yule. It’s the biggest party we have.”
“We will. We’ll have to make the rounds for Yule…
” I said, trying to count up the days until then and until we’d probably have a pup too if we conceived today.
Usually, I’d say one shot would never be enough to be sure.
Not even with knotting but with the true-mate magic at play it was more likely than not.
Newly met couples almost always ended up pregnant unless they were extra careful.
The thing about big magic was that it loves to create life.
“Just a month or so,” Damon grinned. “Plus, if you want me to see a wand man, we’ll have to be out there. They don’t come here.”
“Wand man?” I arched a brow.
“Oh, sorry. Wand person. That’s probably a better way of saying it, right?” Damon asked blushing.
“I’m not confused because you gendered it. I’m confused on what you’re talking about…”
An image flashed through his mind of a short man in a comically long white coat waving around an overly large ultrasound wand and saying he’d slip it in through the belly button to show the baby on screen. I almost laughed, but thought better of it.
“Oh! A healer!” I said, almost facepalming. “They don’t go in through the belly button. Not even for internal ultrasounds. Though, most are just done on your stomach. Down low but still on your stomach.”
“I’ve never seen one in person. I overhear people talking about them on the bus all the time, though,” Damon shrugged.
“You’re right. We should probably see a wand person, though. When we’re a bit more certain that you’re pregnant.”
“Wolves stay pregnant three months, right?” Damon asked.
“Yeah. About that give or take,” I nodded. “How about you all?”
“Not that long. Our pups come out smaller but furrier. So much fur. They’re born looking like oversized cotton balls once they’re clean and dry.”
“How long?” I arched a brow, already wondering how much of a death trap my house was for a puppy.
“Eh, two or three weeks, usually,” he shrugged.
“We don’t get pregnant often. Breeding season is short and babies need to be born in the cold too.
So, our bodies learned to cook the babies fast.” He patted his stomach.
“Ours should be here by Yule. If the baby can handle it, we’ll introduce everyone to them. ”
“Will you be okay in town? I don’t live in the heart of downtown, thankfully, but it’s still peopley and I don’t think it’s as cold,” I said, pushing a lock of his long, white hair out of his face.
“I enjoy the cold. Babies need the cold. I probably won’t be running around with my fur out all the time but I’ll be okay. I know how to use a cold shower,” he said and I pulled him close again, remembering what we’d done in the shower.
We shared a long, slow kiss. Kirk and Chasten would understand if we had a quickie before we got ready to go, right?
Well, they were gonna have to. Some things couldn’t wait, and I couldn’t keep my hands off Damon.
We might’ve never made it out of the cave if Damon wasn’t so persistent that one quickie was enough.
I was thinking more like three or four but he was right.
It wasn’t nice to keep Kirk and Chasten’s girls waiting on their daddies to come home.