by Grey, Aspen
He winked at Jedrik and the three of us burst out laughing. A dose of humor at a time like this was unexpected, but entirely welcome. Eric stomped quickly out of the bathroom and made his way over to Jedrik.
“What’s so funny?” he asked as he sprayed Jedrik’s ankle with some kind of antiseptic spray and began to wrap it with gauze.
“Nothing,” I smiled, closing my eyes and focusing on nothing else but my contractions and the aromas surrounding me. “I can feel it, Jedrik. The baby’s coming.”
“Mine too,” Perry whispered. A calm came over the room. Our chests rose up and down in unison as we experienced our labors together. I felt a hand on my leg and knew it was Jedrik’s. I also knew that he had a hand on Perry’s leg as well. He was there for us and he always would be. He’d fought for us and come out the other side.
“Was it them?” I asked. “Sasha and his gang?”
“Sasha wasn’t there,” Jedrik replied. “Just those criminal bastards. But never you mind that right now. Just focus on bringing my babies into the world.”
“Yes, sir,” I joked.
“It’s time to start pushing, boys,” Wendell said in a voice like a soccer coach. “Time for the main event.”
“Okay, sir,” Perry replied, his voice a whisper of a laugh. “Here we go.”
With Perry’s hand in mind, and Jedrik’s hand on my leg—with both of their scents dancing through my nose and a vision of our futures spinning together in my mind, I summoned all of my strength, smiled, and pushed.
Epilogue
Jedrik
One year later…
I opened the back doors to the shop and the smell of lacquer wafted out into the alleyway. I looked in on the dresser, finally finished and ready to be delivered up to a house in La Jolla to another family that just happened to be quite similar to our own in the fact that they were also a relationship of three, only they were an alpha, beta and an omega all living together.
Max, Elijah and Sawyer were their names. Sawyer was some big-shot lawyer downtown and we all just happened to run into each other one day while we were out walking at Balboa park. I hadn’t even noticed that there were three of them, but overheard them discussing the need for new furniture in their beach house and took the opportunity to step in and hand over my card.
Sawyer was a handsome alpha and had been out with Max, his omega, with their three children.
“We’ve only got two,” I’d joked, nodding over to Roberto and Perry as they played with Perla and Rodrigo in the shade of the trees. “But I’m not opposed to more.”
“Even one more is a handful!” Sawyer joked to Max who was doing his best to hang on to two of them at the same time.
We’d gotten to talking, exchanged numbers, hung out a few times at their beautiful home and eventually Sawyer had commissioned a new dresser from me. It had taken a few weeks and was one of the pieces I was the most proud of in my entire career. I’d finished it up last night. All that was left to do now was to get it up to them. I grabbed my phone from my pocket, snapped a picture of the final product and texted it to Sawyer. It barely had time to send before my phone rang. I answered immediately.
“Holy shit!” Sawyer practically screamed from the other end of the phone. “Is that it?”
“Sure is,” I grinned. There was nothing better than someone loving your work—except of course the love of your family. “What do you think?”
“What do I think?” he scoffed. “I think it’s ballin’, son! Real nice. Real nice. I should have you whip up a few things for the office too.”
“Hey, whatever you want,” I replied. “But corporate work costs double!”
“Oh, sure,” he joked. “I’ll just write it off as a business expense.”
“Perfect!” I laughed. “So, when do you want to send the truck? Today?”
“Not today,” he replied. “The boys and I are up in Orange County for a little trip, and I’d like to be there when it’s delivered. How about tomorrow?”
“Whatever works for you,” I replied. “We’ll be here. I’ll be in the shop working.”
“How’s that family of yours?” Sawyer asked. “Everyone behaving themselves?”
“So far,” I told him. “We’re finally starting to get some sleep—Roberto, Perry and me.”
“Still have a sex life?”
“Thankfully, with three of us, someone’s always horny,” I joked. “And there are only two kids in this house, so we manage to look after them.”
“That’s good,” he laughed. “When our three came, I don’t think I got laid for a month!”
“Oh, that’s rough,” I laughed in reply.
“Anyways,” Sawyer said. “I don’t want to be rude to everyone else, so I’m gonna let you go, but I’ll talk to you tomorrow and we can iron out the delivery details. Sound good?”
“Sounds like a plan, Stan,” I told him. “Talk to you then.”
“Great, bye!”
I hung up and turned around as Perry and Roberto came downstairs. They were each holding their namesake: Perla in Perry’s arms and Rodrigo in Roberto’s. For some reason, Rodrigo was dressed like a sailor.
“Hey, daddy!” Perry said, almost whispering to little Perla, her blonde locks swaying back and forth in the gentle Pacific morning breeze. “Can you say hi to daddy!?”
“Daddy!” she managed to say. They were both already starting to pick up on words, and of course, like most shifter children, were already getting around on two feet with ease. The real problems came when they decided to turn their little roughhousing matches into shifter roughhousing matches, and one of them would forget how sharp their teeth were. We’d gone through boxes and boxes of Band-Aids before they started to realize what kind of power they had in their mouths.
“Hey, girl!” I said, stretching out my arms to take her from Perry. “How’s my little princess?”
“Good!” she replied, obviously proud of herself and her ability to communicate.
“Hey, Roberto? Why’s Rodrigo look like he’s about to go pilot a yacht around the world?”
“It’s beach day!” Roberto replied indignantly. “Or have you forgotten?”
“Of course I haven’t!” I protested. I had. “Let’s go!”
I closed the shop doors behind me and the three of us began walking down the alley towards the beach when I heard a call from upstairs and looked up to see Eric waving down at us.
“Hey, boss!” he called out. “Is it okay if I make myself some food while you’re gone?”
“Go right ahead!” I replied. He waved happily and headed back inside.
Eric had really become a good friend and part of the family after the children came. He loved babysitting and would often stay after work to look after them, despite me telling him that he should be out hitting the clubs or the bars and searching for a mate for himself.
“How about mates?” he would joke.
“Hey, it’s not for everybody,” I warned him. “I wasn’t even sure if three people in a relationship could work. But I guess it was fate!”
“Well, I wouldn’t mind a couple of omegas for me,” he grinned. “Or even a couple of betas! You know? Two holes is better than one!”
As we rounded the corner, I smelled the ocean and felt the wetness in the air. It was a beautiful June morning that hadn’t grown too hot just yet. By the afternoon that would be different though.
I walked behind my mates and children and just watched them in front of me as we took another one of our little excursions together as a family. It was almost surreal. No matter how many times I saw little scenes like this, I almost felt as though I was watching a movie or a music video or something designed to make people happy.
This can’t be my life, can it?
After the horrible beginnings all three of us had, it didn’t seem possible for us to find such happiness. But there we were—walking together down to the beach to look at the ocean, happy and safe with good friends and a hopeful future.
; I’d made up with Sasha—sort of. I’d forgiven him for our past, as well as the trouble he’d gotten us into with his boss, who I later learned was named Cash, and told him that if he could find a way to stay out of our lives, I’d let everything go between us and we could both go our separate ways. It was a difficult thing to do considering just how furious Perry and Roberto were with him, but I knew it was the right thing to do. I was a father now with children, and the only energy I was going to be putting out into the world they were living in was going to be positive. And holding a grudge against Sasha was not positive.
“Okay,” he had replied when I’d told him my decision. He bit his lip and I knew he had more that he wanted to say, but he managed to hold back and simply nod as he looked at me. “Okay, Jedrik. Goodbye. And I’m sorry.”
“Goodbye, Sasha.”
Somehow I knew I wouldn’t see him again. Despite everything he’d put me through, I wished him the best. I had my own family now, and maybe one day he would find his.
“Come on, dada,” Roberto joked, looking over his shoulder at me and nodding for me to keep up. I realized I’d been lagging behind as I watched them walk, caught up in the beauty of the situation. I jogged forward and pinched both of my mates on the butts as we came out on the beach, the morning waves spraying into the air beyond the palms.
“Eeeee!” Rodrigo squeaked, throwing his hands into the air, signaling to his dad to let him down.
“Careful now!” Roberto told him.
“You too,” Perry told Perla as they both set the children down and let them run forward.
“Not too fast!” I warned them. They looked back at me and smiled. Wrapping my arms around my mates’ necks, I followed my children as they raced into the sand, laughing and smiling in the rays of the morning sun, still somehow unable to believe that the life I was experiencing was mine.
No more hardship.
No more pain.
No more sorrow from our pasts.
Just love. And a happily ever after.
“I love you guys, you know that, right?” I asked Perry and Roberto. They looked at me strangely, as though I’d just said something that never needed to be said.
“Of course we do,” Perry replied.
“And we love you too,” Roberto added.
“We do,” Perry agreed. “We love you too.”
The End
Scent of the Author
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Book 3 - The Alpha’s Two Angels
Contents
1. Sasha
2. Jace
3. Arnold
4. Sasha
5. Jace
6. Arnold
7. Sasha
8. Arnold
9. Jace
10. Sasha
11. Arnold
12. Jace
13. Sasha
14. Jace
15. Sasha
16. Arnold
17. Sasha
18. Arnold
19. Jace
20. Arnold
21. Sasha
22. Arnold
23. Jace
24. Arnold
25. Sasha
26. Jace
27. Arnold
28. Jace
29. Arnold
30. Jace
31. Arnold
32. Sasha
33. Jace
34. Arnold
Epilogue
Scent of the Author
Chapter One
Sasha
Worthless.
Terrible.
Liar.
Home wrecker.
Psycho.
You’re not good enough for love. Just do your job, get the money and keep going. Survive.
Those were the thoughts going through my mind as I stared at tonight’s John who was grinning at me out the window of his Lamborghini, casually flashing two hundred-dollar bills at me like they meant nothing to him. They probably didn’t.
Five years ago we would have jacked that car from you, I thought miserably. Sold it and left you high and dry.
But the life of a car thief, or at least the scout of a gang of car thieves, was behind me now. Now I was nothing but a San Diego streetwalker, a working boy, a night gentleman, or to put it very simply—a whore.
When I’d been working for Cash, the boss of the gang I used to run with, money had come and gone like water. Turn on the faucet and there it was. If it went down the drain, there was more of it ready whenever. And I had been low on the totem pole as far as the organization was concerned. I couldn’t even imagine what Cash had been making.
But Cash was gone now, as was the rest of his gang, killed by Jedrik, my ex-boyfriend, after I’d done the most insanely stupid thing of my life and gotten him involved in my bullshit.
Jedrik and I had had the most quintessentially, stereotypically terrible relationship you could imagine, and it was pretty much all my fault. Having grown up with a manipulative mother who eventually drove my father away from us, I had no examples of how to love someone. All I knew was that I didn’t want Jedrik to leave me, and I’d do whatever it took to keep him from doing so, and that usually meant some pretty unsavory behavior.
But he did leave me, and rightfully so. I’d wandered around aimlessly for a while, lost in my own despair, before running into Cash and his goons one night at a bar downtown. They’d put me to work and made me feel useful. I’d managed to keep my nose clear of my ex but when I spotted him with not one omega, but two, I lost it.
I stalked them, tailed them to his house and caused a ton of trouble for all of them, all of it culminating in a battle between Jedrik and Cash that had almost cost Jedrik his life.
Looking back on the person I was then, I could hardly believe what I’d done, and every day when I woke up I vowed to never put another person through my insanity again. I wasn’t fit for a relationship. No alpha would ever have to deal with me. I was alone and that’s how I was supposed to be. I knew I’d done horrible, terrible things and that I’d have to spend the rest of my life paying for them.
“So, we doing this or not?” the John asked, snapping me out of the rubble of my thoughts. I looked up at him.
He wasn’t that bad. He was one of those rich assholes who was running around with his daddy’s money and whatever the latest fashion trend was, but he was at least moderately handsome. His Lambo stank like cigarettes, though.
People still smoke? I thought as I grumbled and opened the door to his car and got in. He smiled and started to pull away, but I put a hand on his leg and pointed to an alley across the street.
“Over there,” I told him. He flashed me an indignant, entitled look and scoffed.
“I ain’t going in some stinking-ass alley to get some ass, sweetie.”
Sweetie. Johns always loved having a pet name for you.
“Well, then you aren’t getting any,” I told him, moving to get out of the car.
“All right, all right,” he said quickly, adjusting his semi beneath his sweatpants. He was horny, which meant he wasn’t thinking with the right head, and slowly maneuvered his two-hundred-thousand-dollar car across the street to the alley I had designated.
This was the only place I’d do anything, as it was also where Jace would be waiting to make sure everything went okay and I wasn’t in any danger.
Jace was, for all intents and purposes (except one), my boyfriend. We’d met on the street where he’d been working for two years already, and he’d taken me under his wing immediately, showed me the ropes and made sure I was all right. Had things been different in both of our lives, I could have seen us falling in love with each other, but life had a cruel way of sticking it to you.
Jace never knew his parents. He grew up in foster homes in Los Angeles before he broke free at six
teen and came to San Diego. He was a beautiful, beautiful man now, but he was wounded, like me, and we had both vowed to never open our hearts to another person for as long as we lived.
The risk was just too great and the payoff was never worth it. The few times I’d tried to get involved with an alpha, I’d just been tossed aside like garbage.
“Yeah, you’re fun for a fuck, but you’re just not relationship material,” they’d say.
“I mean—I don’t think we’d ever have anything serious together, ya know?” That was another one I’d heard before I started to realize that a traditional life just wasn’t for me.
So Jace and I were together, but not really together. We had a place in Mission Beach together, a crappy place but any place was better than living on the streets. We cuddled, confided in each other, slept together but that was it.
I think partially we understood that sex led to feelings—love—and we both had decided not to ever go there again. But also, after working the streets all day, coming home and having sex all over again was the last thing either of us wanted to do. We wanted a shower, a ton of soap, something good to eat and a warm, caring friend to cuddle with.
So that’s what we gave each other. I looked out for him and he looked out for me, and as the Lambo pulled into our alley, I smelled his scent of delicious fresh cream and eyed the shadows of a loading dock where I knew he would be waiting, looking out for anything that might put me in danger.
