by J. K Harper
He reached the bottom of the stairs, smacked right into them because of his uncoordinated forward momentum, and tumbled back into his fuzzy little rear. Emitting a squeak of surprise, he looked up at his mother.
Jessie laughed even as she darted down the steps and knelt beside him. He immediately burrowed into her side with his little nose, nuzzling and snuffling and making funny little whimpers that were similar to the little sounds he made as a human baby. He gazed up at her with pure adoration as well as excitement.
"Grant, oh, you're amazing, little one! Look at you! You are such a handsome, wonderful little bear." Jessie laughed through her words, crazily proud of him for doing this.
Another movement at the edge of the woods caught her attention. Grant swiveled his little head around, too, falling over completely backward as he did so. The trees seem to be moving. Or rather, a single tree was moving? One giant tree rustled wildly at the edge of the woods. It stood out because it was more green than white, unlike the others.
The fact that it was also being dragged by the most gigantic bear Jessie had ever seen in her life kind of made it stand out, too.
She froze for a second, instinct slamming into her that there was an enormous, dangerous wild animal right there. But then Grant, her own little baby bear cub, righted himself back onto all fours. Unevenly, he started plunging through the snow straight toward the huge grizzly bear. Who, Jessie's more logical mind realized with a flash, of course was Shane.
For some reason, he was dragging a pine tree toward his cabin.
Standing in the snow, she abruptly realized her bare feet were going numb. Going back up onto the lowest step to the porch, she stared at the giant grizzly and the little baby one tumbling around his huge paws, grabbing onto pine needles with his tiny teeth and trying to help drag the tree, too. The enormous grizzly, with its distinctive hump and wash of burnished golden-brown coat, made a muffled roar as he tripped over bumbling little Grant.
Jessie couldn't help but burst out laughing. Her smile just wouldn't quit as she watched. Finally, the two bears and one big pine tree were at the edge of the porch. In the slip of a heartbeat, the enormous one shimmered and cracked and broke back into the shape of a man.
“Holy shit,” Jessie muttered, the smile falling into an open-mouthed gape.
Shane walked to her, naked as a jaybird and just as human as she was. She caught her breath again at how frigging gorgeous he was. Jeez.
“I got up this morning because he was making noise.” Shane's voice was wrapped in a smile. “He'd made his first shift into his bear, right there in his crib, and was doing his best to eat the damn thing trying to get out of it. So we went outside. I didn't want to wake you up just yet,” he added, “you were sleeping so soundly. I know I wore you out last night.” Sheer masculine pride edged his tone.
Jessie blushed.
“So, I had a thought.” He paused at the bottom of the shallow set of stairs. His eyes were that same molten gold they'd been the night before, his hair wildly sticking up on end and his face guardedly hopeful.
Grant bumbled toward her as well, shifting back into a little human baby halfway up and tangling himself in his own feet. Jessie reached down to pick him up. He felt warm in her arms, way warmer than any baby just frolicking in the snow should have been. Cuddling him close, she looked at Shane, then at the pretty spruce tree by his feet. “Does your thought have anything to do with that tree?” Her breath puffed out cold and white in the sharp morning air.
He nodded solemnly. “Yeah. I was thinking my cabin looks a little bare. No Christmas lights and stuff like that. So I thought—maybe you'd like to help me decorate it?” His voice suddenly was almost shy, though that was a little funny coming from such an enormous, sexy lumberjack bear shifter god of the woods. He gestured at the needled branches of the spruce. “I brought a tree to put up. Because I noticed you seem to really get into the holiday spirit. I thought you might like it.”
Sudden tears pricked at Jessie's eyes. This was by far the most thoughtful, sweet gift anyone had ever given her in her entire life. Well, aside from Grant, of course. “Um, okay,” was all she could manage to say without totally losing it to the happy tears clogging up her throat.
Shane walked up the stairs with a purposeful tread. He stopped on the porch, right next to her in all his glorious nakedness. Reaching out a closed hand to her, he turned it over. Uncurling his fingers, he revealed a tiny pine cone and a few bright red little berries. “It's not much till we can get some actual decorations in town, but I thought you might want to start with these. We need some holiday sparkle going on in this place. I thought you and Grant might like to help. Because you both belong here,” he ended on a whisper.
Jessie sniffed, nodding. “Yes,” she bubbled out through the thickness in her throat. “Yes, we belong here. With you. There's nowhere else I'd rather be,” she added, feeling a huge grin split her face open.
In her arms, Grant babbled out some noises as he reached for the shiny berries in Shane's hands, though Shane kept them away from his grasp. Then the little boy clearly said, looking right at Shane with his sweet little grin, “Dada!”
Jessie gasped even as Shane's jaw dropped. She looked into his eyes, which were not only a molten gold, but suspiciously shiny. He swallowed hard, then also let a stunning smile sweep over his chiseled features. Reaching out to Jessie, he pulled her against his side and dropped a tender kiss on her forehead, their son held close in her arms.
“It means the world to me to hear you say that, Jessie. Welcome home,” he added, squeezing her shoulders.
“Home.” She laughed with joy as she said it, looking out at the beautiful winterscape lit by the brilliant morning sunshine. “Yes. We're home,” she whispered, her smile shining through her own watery eyes.
“Now let's get that tree inside so our family can start to decorate it,” he added, and she was sure she heard a thickness in his voice as well.
“Deal, mate of mine,” she sighed with utter bliss, snuggling her son and her mate close to her.
“Welcome home, mate,” Shane said, and he kissed her long and deep, standing on the front porch of their home.
An Impawsible Christmas: Four Weddings and a Coronation
by J.M. Klaire
The short sequel to the Alpha Hunted series
Chapter 1
Ivy’s Wedding
“I get why Enid is getting married last, on Christmas Eve, with her coronation to follow on Christmas Day. I even understand why all three of her daughters are getting married in the weeks leading up to that,” Sandra was saying as all the daughters, and herself, were dressing and primping for Ivy’s imminent walk down the aisle.
“It’s her dream to see all three of you married in the human way, she wants more than your mate’s claiming bites declaring your joinings,” Sandra continued. “I get that. My mom would love it if I wore Naythan’s ring instead of his bite, too. What I don’t get is why Ivy is going first. Keelyn mated first, then Bella. Ivy just found her two mates a little while ago. Shouldn’t it be oldest to youngest, like how you mated?
“Or even most pregnant to least? Ivy’s the only one of you three not knocked up. I’d figure Enid would want the pregnant sisters to go first. Maybe even in order of possible birth dates,” she said.
She eyed Bella’s very round midsection suspiciously before adding, “I’m not sure Bella’s going to make it to her wedding next week before she pops. Why isn’t she first?”
“I can hear you, you know,” Bella teased, rubbing the roundness that was currently being discussed.
Sandra was right, though.
Bella’s baby was most likely going to be a Christmas present delivered early. Any day now, actually. But Ivy had begged to go first.
The past few months had been quite eventful for everyone. Keelyn, Enid’s eldest daughter and former werewolf-hunter, had hunted, and fallen for, Bane, the wolf pack’s Alpha, much to the chagrin of her entire family.
The fa
mily was known to hate, and hunt, shifter-kind, but as they say—you can’t choose who you fall for.
When Keelyn brought her mate home, hiding the fact that he, and his friends, were shifters, that was just the beginning of their adventures. Mac, the only bear member of the wolf pack, adopted by them as a kid, had taken one look at Keelyn’s little sister and had fallen hard.
Not even the fact that Bella was already pregnant with another man’s baby could keep them apart. She’d been raped, and was still recovering emotionally from everything that entailed, when she found herself falling for the big bear.
Next had been the youngest, Ivy. She one upped everyone by mating not just one of Bane’s wolf pack enforcers, but two. And she was a lion shifter herself, to boot, adding a lion to Bane’s wolf pack, along with Mac’s bear form.
Devastated that all three of her daughters had gone to the dark side, so to speak, by mating with shifters, their mother, Enid, surprisingly ended up eventually following her girls’ lead, marrying a dragon of her own.
Drake was more than just a dragon, though—he was the king, hence the coronation of his new queen that would soon take place on Christmas day, for the entire kingdom to celebrate. She was also marrying him on Christmas Eve, as she too wanted to marry in the style of her own human kind, which was quite funny since Drake had turned her into a dragon.
He had turned her so the pair had a better chance of saving his daughter, after they’d all gone on a rescue mission into the Dragon’s Realm.
They’d only recently come back, successful, when Enid’s daughters announced that all four weddings would be happening in the weeks leading up to her coronation, so that she could step into her new life happy in her girls’ futures as well as her own.
Once Ivy’s head popped out of the top of the dress her sisters were helping her get into, she answered Sandra’s question.
“I asked if I could go first, I just want to get mine over with.”
“That doesn’t sound like romantic words spilling forth from a love-sick bride,” Sandra teased.
“Oh, I am utterly, completely, undeniably love sick. David and Ryker are the very best mates a girl could ever ask for. I just have no interest in becoming a carnival side show. I know mating two wolves isn’t even looked twice at in the minds of shifters, but a human ceremony? That just isn’t done. Leave it to me to do it anyway.
The closer it gets to Christmas, Mom’s wedding, and the coronation ceremony giving the king a new queen, the more time people have to drag their asses here to the castle for the month-long celebration.
I have zero interest in that kind of crowd watching, what to me, is a redundancy. I’m already their mate. I wear their bites. I’m married according to pack law. Bane has already officially welcomed me. None of this is for me, it’s all for Mom. And since someone has to go first and have the smallest, quietest wedding of the four of us, I asked that it be me.”
The door opened right then, making all the girls surround Ivy, squealing their protests as they didn’t want anyone to see her before she walked the aisle. She didn’t care, though, and silently rolled her eyes behind all of them.
“Oh, relax. It’s just me,” Enid said, sticking her head in. “Oh, sweetheart. You look beautiful!”
“Thanks, Mom. Where have you been? You’re supposed to be in here, getting ready with us.”
“I was ready early. Ash and Mae were tired of being herded and handled by the men, they asked if they could hang out with me instead, so I’ve got kid duty. Which is actually why I came in here. Have any of you seen Mae? She was just here.”
“Mom, you lost your stepdaughter already?” Bella asked.
“Hey, you try keeping up with a baby FlameCat,” Enid grinned. “I was a lot younger when I raised you three, and none of you turned into a half- dragon, half-lion whenever you damn well pleased.”
Enid did look tired, but the grin on her face and her shining, happy eyes told the real story. She was beyond thrilled to be needed again, and she was probably the most excited out of all of them to be getting married, even though she was also already officially mated in the shifter way.
Taking care of Drake’s daughter and caring for her like Mae was her own made Enid happy, and everyone knew it. They were glad to see it, too, as it had been a long time since she’d been truly happy. Back before her first husband, the girls’ father, had been killed by a werewolf, setting each and every one of them off on a new path to their futures.
“Could she be with Ash?” Sandra asked.
Ash was Sandra and Naythan’s son, and he’d been completely enamored with Mae from the very minute they’d brought her back from the Dragon Realm to be raised here, at her daddy’s castle.
“Ash is right here with me; he’s been helping me look for Mae.”
“Have him shift wolf really quick. See if he can scent her. Make sure he changes first or he’ll ruin his wedding clothes.”
“I hear you ladies are missing a little bundle of joy.”
The voice coming around the door was unfamiliar. As Enid swung the door open wider, there stood a woman none of them had ever seen before. She was obviously here for the wedding, as she was dressed beautifully, and in her arms was a bundle of sleeping toddler.
“Thank you! Where did you find her?”
“I didn’t find her as much as almost trip over her. She was propped up in the doorway to the restroom, dead to the world. Her head was leaning on the door and if anyone had opened it, she’d have fallen in.”
“Thank you, again. We haven’t met yet, but since I know everyone on the bride’s side, I’m assuming you’re either on the groom’s side, or you just love weddings. Most of the kingdom will be here by Christmas, of course. Are you just early to the month-long party?”
“I’m definitely here for the groom’s side. Most of the grooms’, actually. I’m with Bane’s wolf pack, I’m here to watch all our boys dress up and act all civilized for once. Usually they just claim ‘em and carry on, so it’s going to be interesting to see them acting all human for once,” she said with a grin.
She looked to be the same age as Enid, maybe a bit older, and by the twinkle in her eye you could tell she was going to get quite a kick out of watching four of her pack-mates dress formal and get married human-style.
“Well, welcome,” Ivy said. “I’ll see if I can’t get my two grooms to behave for you today, since I’m pretty sure ‘civilized’ is the last thing David and Ryker are known as back at the pack’s den.”
The woman laughed, and agreed.
“Here, let me take her from you,” Enid said, reaching to take Mae’s sleeping weight from the woman.
“Oh, not yet, please. I’ll stay close by. Within sight, even, if you’ll let me. It’s been many years since I held such a sweet, innocent child.”
“I don’t know about innocent with that one, but yeah, sure. Come in and sit down. That is, if it’s okay with Ivy?”
“Of course. Anyone willing to wrangle shifters is more than welcome to enjoy them in the rare moments they’re sleeping. Might as well pull Ash in here, too, mom. It’s almost time for the wedding to start, now’s the time for any last minute adjustments, quick breathers, or not-so-subtle drinks from any hidden flasks. Someone has one, right? A hidden flask? Tell me one of you brought liquor.”
“I did,” the new arrival said. “Just reach into that bag right there. I’m glad to share, feel free to pass it around. Consider it a thank you for letting me hold this one. The last time I stumbled upon a sleeping child, it didn’t go nearly as well as this time.”
“Oh?” Keelyn asked, politely making small talk as she rubbed her own, smaller, baby bump and eyed the flask longingly as it passed her by. “Do you often trip over sleeping babes, then?”
“Not often, no. Thank goodness. The last one I tripped over was literal. I was running for my life at the time. It was almost Christmas then, too. Cold, icy, like now, but it was also deep with snow.
“I was trying to escape my husb
and. I knew that if I didn’t run far enough or fast enough he’d kill me, so I was motivated for sure. It was the very worst timing then to trip, of course. I went head over heels, scraping my knees and elbows, hitting my head hard in the process.
“As I stood to run again, the tree root I’d stumbled over started to cry. I thought I must’ve hit my head harder than I realized, thinking tree roots could cry, so I looked closer.
It wasn’t a snow-covered tree root that had sent me sprawling after all, but a tightly bundled baby. The last snowfall had covered him almost completely, and I guess my tripping over him had woken him.”
“Holy hell. Are you serious? That really happened to you?”
“It did. Twenty some-odd years ago. Almost thirty, now. Turns out it was the best thing that ever happened to me, but of course I didn’t know that at the time.
“I didn’t know what to do! I was running for my life, but it looked like he was in at least as much danger as I was. More, really, since he couldn’t run. Who just leaves a baby in the snow like that? And right before Christmas, too?
“I looked around, but I couldn’t call out. My husband might hear me and come kill us both. Although, the whole reason he was trying to kill me was because I couldn’t give him any babies, so it’s kind of ironic, when you think about it.”
All eyes were on her as she told her story out of the blue, holding Mae.
Everyone was still, all wedding day prep and polish had ceased, as five women and one little boy stood spellbound, listening to the stranger speak.
“What an asshole,” Bella said, rubbing her very round belly and wanting to go chase down anyone who’d leave a baby in the snow, or who’d try to kill a spouse who couldn’t have one of her own.
“I’m not sure who I’m more pissed at, to be honest,” Keelyn added, mirroring her sister’s thoughts.
“So what did you do?” Ivy asked.
“I did the only thing I could. I picked that baby up, held him tight to me for whatever warmth I could give him, and I ran.
