In Spite of Everything

by Catherine Lievens

  But would Calum be the right choice? Julian didn’t know. He didn’t know enough about Calum to be sure. Now was the time to get to know him, though. Julian and Kaspar still lived in the Bishop House, and they would for a little while.

  “How about this,” he started. “You just said yourself that you’re a loner, and I don’t expect you to change. I understand how overwhelming the Bishop House can be. But I’d like to get to know you before I make any kind of promise. You might not be a good fit for us, or the babies. Also, I don’t want to be rude, but I don’t think I could leave my babies with someone I don’t trust.”

  Calum nodded. “I understand. And I know that saying you can trust me won’t make it happen. But you can get to know me if you want. There’s time. You’re not even showing yet.”

  “That’s what I was thinking. We can talk, see if we work well together, and once Kaspar and I find another house, we’ll revisit this conversation and decide what’s next. But two babies are a lot of work.”

  “That’s why you need me. There will be three of us. I could take care of night feedings or whatever. I’ll do just about anything. I’ll help.”

  He wasn’t wrong. Julian looked at Kaspar again. He was pretty sure that Kaspar thought the same, but he wanted to be sure. He didn’t want to make any promises he wouldn’t be able to keep.

  Kaspar nodded. “That’s fine with me. I’ve been here longer than you, Julian, and I do like Calum, even though he’s a bit of a bitchy guy.”

  Calum blushed fiercely. “I’m sorry if I was ever rude to you.”

  “Don’t worry about that. But it’s obvious we don’t know each other as well as we should, and I look forward to changing that.”

  “So do I.”

  “Good. Then we’ll be okay.” Kaspar smiled. “Welcome to the family, Calum.”

  Julian had no idea where this would go, but he felt good about it. If he and Kaspar could give Calum the help he obviously needed while getting the help they needed, too, it had to be a good thing, right?

  Chapter Fourteen

  Julian really could have done without this meeting. His back ached, and it meant he hadn’t been able to sleep well last night. He was tired and sleepy, and he couldn’t wait to get home and back into bed with Kaspar. But instead he had to be here—at a meeting with the human team—to find out what Luther had discovered about Randy and Jacqueline. Julian was curious, but not so curious that he wouldn’t rather be at home.

  Calder gently elbowed him in the side. “At least try to look like you’re interested,” he murmured

  “I am interested.” He wasn’t. The bat council member was talking about something or other, and Julian was bored to death. He was here to see Luther, but that was all, at least for today. “I’m also tired, though,” Julian told him.

  Calder grinned. “Kaspar kept you up last night?”

  Julian rolled his eyes. “You’re my son-in-law. I’m not talking about that kind of stuff with you. And no. The baby keeps me up at night.”

  Calder’s gaze slid down to Julian’s stomach. “Already?”

  Julian shrugged. “Not the baby himself, but backache and stuff like that.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “I will be.” But Julian was touched by Calder’s worry. They really were a family, weren’t they? He was a good man for Kari, and Julian was glad his son had chosen well.

  “Kari is always complaining about something. I never realized that pregnancy could be so hard.”

  Julian chuckled. “Kari is a complainer. He complains about everything, even if it’s fine. He likes the attention, especially coming from you.”

  “I don’t mind. I want to take care of him, but he’s a hard man to take care of.”

  Julian wasn’t surprised, but he liked that Calder wasn’t giving up. Kari needed more people to take care of him. Calder was the perfect man to do that.

  A knock on the door made Julian sigh in relief. Maybe they would be able to go to lunch, after all. If he couldn’t go back to bed, he at least wanted food, and Kaspar was waiting for him.

  The door opened, and Luther walked in, a few of his team members right behind him. The others stayed outside, and Julian prayed that Kari wouldn’t try to bash their skulls together or something like that. Julian wouldn’t be surprised. He wasn’t sure it was a good idea to have Kaspar and Kari wait for him and Calder out there, but they were having lunch together once this was over, and this was the easiest way to make that happen. They wouldn’t have to go back to cete territory to pick Kaspar and Kari up, but it also put Kari in the path of a lot of people he might want to kill.

  “Thank you for meeting with me,” Luther said. He sat down in the chair in front of Calder and nodded at the council members around the table. Not all of them were there, but Calder was because Luther wanted to talk about what happened in cete territory.

  Calder leaned over the table. “Can you tell me what happened?”

  Luther looked uncomfortable, which was new. Julian didn’t know him well, of course, but he’d never seen the man be anything other than sure of himself. “Again, I apologize. I should have thought about what I was doing before doing it. But I acted on what one of my team members told me, and I trusted him.”

  Calder leaned back in his chair. “Of course you did. He was part of your team. I don’t blame you for trusting him, or for coming to cete territory. Nothing irreparable was done, even though you were rude. I would just like to know what happened.”

  “Of course. In the beginning, Randy stuck to his story that someone he didn’t know had called him and told him that the cete and the sleuth were planning something. It didn’t take him long to tell the truth, though. Apparently, that someone’s name is Jacqueline. It wasn’t the first time they spoke.”

  “She was the coyote council member.”

  “I remember her,” Luther confirmed.

  “We expected her to create problems, especially after she lost her role as the coyote council member. We didn’t think she would try to use your team to do it, though.”

  Luther nodded curtly. “Apparently, she talked to Randy one of the first times we were here. She cornered him when he was alone, and she talked him into doing this. I never realized that Randy had something against shifters. I apologize for what he said. He was a new team member, and while I trusted him, I should have known better. Jacqueline had an easy task with him because of how he feels about shifters, and that shouldn’t have happened.”

  Calder waved his words away. “Don’t worry about that. What did Jacqueline want to obtain by doing what she did?”

  The corner of Luther’s lips curled into a half-smile. “You should be the one answering that. You know her better than I do. I only know that she tried to use one of my team members, and I’m not happy about that.”

  “Well, she’s used to being in power. You probably don’t know a lot about how things were in the forest until very recently.”

  “You’re right. I don’t.”

  “Just like I suspect happens with humans, part of the council was in this for power and money, while the other part was trying to make sure the people in the forest had the best life possible. Until recently, the former had the majority on the council. There was nothing we could do. We had to work around them, and it wasn’t easy. Jacqueline was one of those. She was exclusively on the council for power and to make sure that the coyote alpha had everything he wanted. She allowed him to torture and abuse his son. She and the council members on their side allowed a lot of people to be abused. Then the balance tipped. They lost a few council members, and we got the majority back. We created new laws, and she had to accept them, just like we accepted the way she and the others were doing things before because we couldn’t do anything about it. She’s angry. She wants her power back, and apparently, she’s ready to do just about anything to make that happen.”

  Luther tapped his fingertips on the table. “But she’s not a council member anymore.
”

  “She’s not. I know better than to hope that will be the end of it, but it will hinder her, at least in the beginning. But as you saw, she’s already thinking about revenge, and she won’t stop trying just because we found out. What happened to Randy?”

  “I sent him home. I can’t have him here if I don’t trust him. I told him he was lucky because he didn’t get killed on the spot when he said those things.”

  “We wouldn’t touch a human. You don’t follow the same laws we do.”

  Luther hesitated, then seemed to think better about whatever he was about to ask and didn’t. “The rest of my team and I aren’t going anywhere, though. We’re staying for a while, and I want to be able to live with you. I realize we are guests, even though you’re obligated to welcome us. Unfortunately, there’s nothing either of us can do about that. I could tell my boss I don’t want this job anymore, but he would send someone else.”

  Julian grimaced. There was no way for them to know who that someone else would be or how they would behave. If they were lucky, they would be a good person like Luther was. If they weren’t, they might be more like Randy, and that was the last thing they needed.

  He cleared his throat. “You need to keep an eye on us.”

  Luther’s attention turned to him. “We do. Unfortunately, it’s our job. But I hope we can learn from each other. Just like you had never met a human being before we arrived, we had never met a shifter. I think it could be a great learning opportunity for the entire team, and I’m looking forward to it.”

  Julian wasn’t too sure about that. Luther might want to learn about shifters and their customs, but he doubted that most of his team would get behind that. Still, as long as they weren’t like Randy and didn’t try to sabotage this, he didn’t care much. It wasn’t like they had a choice anyway. Luther seemed to be a good person, and if this was what he wanted, then it was what he would get. It was better than the alternative.

  It was better than losing the forest to humans who hated them.

  * * * *

  Kaspar was relieved when the door to the council room opened and people started to walk out. He and Kari were waiting for Julian and Calder, and the rest of the human team was staring at them.

  Or rather, they were staring at Kari, and Kaspar was pretty sure that smoke was going to start coming out of Kari’s ears eventually if they didn’t stop.

  “I swear, it’s almost like they’ve never seen a pregnant person,” Kari muttered. His arms were crossed over his chest, which didn’t help because it drew attention to his stomach.

  “Well, I doubt they’ve ever seen a pregnant man.”

  With the way Luther and the rest of his team had reacted to Seamus being in labor, Kaspar didn’t think pregnant men were something humans could deal with. It would certainly explain why they were staring at Kari right now. They seemed to have a death wish, and Kaspar wasn’t about to tell them to fuck off. Kari was more than able to do that himself.

  Kaspar grinned when Julian stepped out. He and Calder were talking, and to Kaspar’s surprise, Luther was right there with them. For all that Julian had lived alone for most of his life, or maybe because of it, he was a good judge of character, so Kaspar thought he was probably right when he said Luther was a decent person.

  Julian beamed when he noticed Kaspar and Kari and walked toward them. “I wasn’t sure I’d find everyone standing,” he said when he got to them.

  Kaspar barked out a laugh. “It was a close thing.”

  Kari was still scowling, but he gave his father a tiny smile. “They’re still staring at me,” he muttered.

  Julian patted his shoulder. “Ignore them.”

  “How can I ignore them? They’re staring as if I’m, I don’t know, a weirdo. Do I have something on my nose?”

  Luther cleared his throat. “I apologize for my team, but I’d like to explain why they’re staring, if it’s okay with you.”

  Kari looked like he might refuse, but instead, he nodded curtly.

  Luther nodded back. “You see, in our world, in the human world, only women can get pregnant.”

  Kari cocked his head. “You don’t have carriers?”

  “I’m going to assume that carriers are the men who, like you, can get pregnant?”

  “That’s what the word means, yes.”

  “Then no, we don’t have carriers. We have men and women, and that’s it.”

  Kari’s glare deepened. “Men and women? Are you saying I’m not a man?”

  Luther seemed to realize he’d said the wrong thing. It would have been pretty hard for him not to. “I didn’t mean to offend you. And no, I wasn’t trying to say you’re not a man. I was saying that human males don’t have the ability to get pregnant. That’s all. I apologize.”

  Kaspar fully expected Kari to hold a grudge and tell Luther to fuck off, but instead, he nodded, albeit begrudgingly. “Fine. But you need to get them to stop staring at my stomach. I’ll kill them otherwise, and I’m not kidding.”

  Luther blinked and looked at Calder, who nodded. “He’ll do it. You better be careful. They wouldn’t be the first people he’s killed, either. He’s the reason we got the majority on the council.”

  Luther swallowed and gestured at his team. Thankfully, they scattered. They were still looking at Kari, but now that they were further away, it seemed to be less annoying for Kari.

  “I hope the carrier thing won’t be a problem?” Julian asked.

  Luther shook his head. “I don’t see why it should be. It’s a surprise, and something we don’t understand, but I’d like to learn from you.”

  Julian nodded. “Good, because Kari isn’t the only man here who can get pregnant.” He put a hand on his stomach. “I’m expecting, too, and so is my husband.”

  Kaspar’s heart skipped a beat. He found himself beaming at Julian’s words. They weren’t married, and they hadn’t even talked about it, but they might as well have been. Kaspar didn’t need a ceremony to call Julian his husband. They were having two kids, and they would move together soon. Still, the word made his stomach churn in the best of ways.

  Luther looked from Julian to Kaspar, then back to Julian. “Congratulations.”

  “Thank you.

  “If you ever need anything, feel free to let me know. Even though I was sent here to keep an eye on you, I don’t expect to have to arrest anyone or anything like that. I’m only here to observe, and I hope that we can cohabitate.”

  Julian smiled. “And that we can learn from each other.”

  “Exactly. As this situation just showed, there’s a lot I can learn from you. I’m sure that I can teach you at least a few things.”

  “I’m sure you can.” Julian took Kaspar’s hand. “Now, if you’ll excuse us, we were planning to go to lunch.”

  “Of course. I’m sorry for the delay. Thank you for seeing me this morning. I hope that now that Randy has left, everything will run more smoothly.”

  “I hope so too, but like I mentioned earlier, Jacqueline isn’t going to stop. We have to expect her to do more, and probably soon.”

  Luther’s expression became more serious, and he nodded. “We will, and we’ll be by your side if you need us.”

  Kaspar couldn’t say he’d expected that to happen. When he’d been told that a human team was coming to the forest, he’d thought they would try to hurt them, maybe take some of them away. He hadn’t thought that the human team would try to integrate instead. Not that they could. They couldn’t shift, and in a world full of shifters, it was weird. But they were trying, Luther especially, and Kaspar couldn’t deny he was curious. He was also relieved that the human team wasn’t the enemy Kaspar had thought they would be in the beginning.

  Julian and the rest of the council already had more than enough enemies as it was. They might have the majority now, but some of the council members weren’t okay with that. Even with Jacqueline gone, it didn’t mean they were harmless. But as Julian had said, eventu
ally, Jacqueline would try to get revenge, and she was smart. She’d almost succeeded already, and only Luther’s state of mind had saved them from a fight. Kaspar could too easily imagine what would have happened if things had gone the other way the day Seamus had given birth, and it was terrifying.

  He tried to push the thoughts away as he, Julian, Calder, and Kari, walked toward the dining hall.

  “You’re thinking awfully hard,” Julian teased him.

  “I was just wondering what was next. I hate to think that Jacqueline is out there plotting.”

  Julian sighed. “Me, too, especially with the babies coming. But we don’t have a choice. Until she takes the first step, we can only wait.”

  “I hate waiting.”

  “I know. But there’s no way out of this. We’ll keep an eye on her, and on the human team.”

  “You seemed to get along just fine right now,” Kaspar pointed out.

  “Luther isn’t a bad man. I think he might be slightly too optimistic when he says that we can learn from each other, but his heart is in the right place. He said he would be there for us if we need him, and I truly believe he will. We found an ally in the most unexpected place, and we should count ourselves lucky for that.”

  Kaspar counted himself lucky for a lot of things—finding Julian and falling in love with him. Having Julian love him back. Getting pregnant. Building a home and a family.

  Yes, he had a lot to count himself lucky for, and even though he was terrified of what the future would be like with Jacqueline waiting on the sideline, he also couldn’t wait to start living.

  Epilogue

  Julian leaned back in his chair, smiling as he rubbed his stomach. The bump was visible now, and he expected the baby to start kicking any day. He was still hungry, but this pregnancy had brought heartburn, so he knew better than to stuff himself full.

  “I’m going to explode,” Kari whined. “And not because I ate too much. I want to eat more. There’s just no space in my body, because this baby is taking all of it”