I exhaled. “He still scares me.”
“Only a fool wouldn’t be scared of Dan,” Rhys whispered.
“He almost broke my jaw while we were sparring when Jolie enraged him,” I muttered and rubbed at the phantom pain in my jaw.
Rhys clapped me on the shoulder and smiled. “Better you than me.”
“You’re such a good friend,” I teased.
His parents entered, and he escorted them to the dining room.
I waited by the door for my parents, knowing they’d want to rush upstairs.
The entered, ignored me, and started to head up the stairs.
“Hey,” I snapped at them.
They turned.
“She’s sleeping,” I said. “Leave her be for a bit.”
“I’m going to heal her,” Mother said. “Katar, go with your son.”
“Mom,” I sighed.
Dad draped his arm around my shoulders and tugged me away. “Come on, let’s go get food ready. Your mate is going to be ravenous when she wakes up.”
“Isn’t that how she is whenever she wakes up?” I asked with a smirk.
Dad laughed. “Too true.”
“So, any casualties?” I asked when we entered the room where Emrys, Adelaide, Declan, Rhys, Dan, Kylan, Ezio, Deryn, Silver, Dalton, Klaus, Martin, Sharla, Madison, Tamara and Yukio sat around our table.
Everyone shook their heads.
Wow. Jolie had no idea what she’d accomplished by enraging everyone. Normally, there were at least a dozen casualties in a battle that large.
“What are we eating?” Dad asked.
“Pizza,” Rhys announced.
“It was the easiest and fastest thing we could get,” Deryn explained.
“Are there any shops open?” I asked, thinking of the destruction I had seen going on in the city.
“Our shop is always open,” Dan said with a wide smile.
I sat down, and leaned my head on my arms on the table. I was so tired.
“So, what is our grandson’s name?” Dan asked.
“No,” Deryn said immediately. “Jolie can introduce him when he comes down.”
“Did you tell him?” Rhys asked Deryn.
“Tell me what?” Dan asked.
Deryn shook his head, smirking. “I want to see his reaction when it happens.”
Dan scowled. “If there’s something wrong—”
“It’s not wrong,” Deryn said and then scowled. “I don’t think.”
“That’s super reassuring, Son,” Dan grumbled.
Mom returned, kissed the back of my head, and sat beside me. “She’s still sleeping,” she advised everyone. “But, she’s healthy and so is the baby and Nico.”
“He almost died,” I whispered, remembering that awful pain in my chest when the knife had gone into his.
“Where’s that dagger?” Emrys asked.
“I put it in our vault,” Rhys answered. “I’ll give it to you three to decide what you want to do with it.”
“We should just give it to the elders,” I suggested.
Dan nodded. “That’s my vote, too.”
What? Dan agreed with me on something for once?
“I agree,” Dad said.
Thor and Leona entered, and Leona searched the room, her eyes wide and frantic.
“Where is she?” she demanded.
“She’s sleeping,” Kara told her.
“Is she—”
“She’s fine,” Dalton assured her.
“But, all that power,” Leona whispered.
Dalton nodded. “I know. It surprised me, too. She used dozens of crystals with stored magical energy to pull it off, but she is fine. Kara just went and checked on her.”
Leona sagged into Thor, who wrapped his arm around her waist to hold her against his side.
“See, I told you she was fine,” Thor whispered. “Jolie is resilient.”
“Like a cockroach,” Adelaide said.
Several around the room growled, myself included.
She scoffed and rolled her eyes. “I didn’t mean it as an insult. Just that things which should normally kill one of her kind, she lives through. It’s quite remarkable.”
“Says the villain as she debates dissecting her,” I whispered to Dad.
Dad snorted as he tried to keep his laughter in, and Mother pinched my side.
“Let’s make the table bigger,” I said to Rhys.
Everyone stood, and backed up a few steps. Rhys and I hit the buttons on each side of the table, then shoved it apart at the seam. The table was magical, and could seat anywhere from four to thirty. I was glad Rhys had designed the room to be so large. The first time I’d entered, I had thought it was ridiculously oversized, but now I understood his reasoning.
Mother set her hand on the back of my head, and I felt her warm energy filling me.
“Mom,” I mumbled.
“Hush. You’re tired and your mate needs you at one hundred percent, so she doesn’t have to be the only one dealing with the baby,” she told me.
I wouldn’t argue with her on that. Plus, I felt like I had failed Jolie today. She’d been injured fighting Justina, when we had all agreed not to let her fight her. If she hadn’t ordered me away, I would have killed Justina immediately.
“Why are you scowling?” Dad asked.
“Nothing,” I lied.
He arched a brow at me.
I waved my hand. “It’s really nothing. I’m just brooding.”
The doorbell rang, and we all cringed when we heard Caleb cry.
“Whoops,” Rhys said as he stood. “I hadn’t thought about the doorbell waking him.”
“You may want to unhook it until he’s a bit older,” Adelaide suggested.
I stood as well, knowing he would need help carrying the boxes.
The werewolf at the door looked stressed, but smiled as he spoke to us, and made three trips for all of the pizzas they had ordered.
We set them out on the table, then passed around paper plates.
“Here, you all are,” Jolie said as she entered the room.
Deryn, Rhys, and I rushed to her side.
Caleb’s eyes were closed again, and he was in human form. I looked at his ears and felt a smile tug up my lips. His ears were pointed at the top, something I had missed before.
“Stop hogging them,” Adelaide complained.
Jolie stepped away from us, turned Caleb so he was leaning back against her chest, facing everyone in the room, with her arm around him and one under his butt. “Everyone, this is Caleb.”
All of the grandparents started to stand, but then all froze.
“Dalton, you go,” Dan said. “We’ve had chances to bond with him while he was in her womb.”
Dalton smiled appreciatively, then walked to Jolie. He kissed her forehead and her eyes closed a moment as her smile spread. Dalton rested his forehead against Caleb’s and whispered to him.
Caleb opened his eyes and made a cooing sound.
Dalton stepped back and turned his head away as he tried to discreetly wipe his eyes.
“My turn!” Dan said and rushed over. He kissed Jolie’s cheek. “How are you feeling?”
“Tired, but good,” she said.
Dan looked down at Caleb, bending so he was eye level with the child. “Hello, Son.”
Caleb met Dan’s eyes, then shifted into a wolf pup in Jolie’s arms.
Dan’s eyes widened and his mouth dropped open.
“That was the secret I was keeping,” Deryn said, chuckling. “And it was so worth it to see your face.”
“That’s not normal?” Dalton asked.
Dan shook his head. “They’re usually not able to shift until around five years old.”
“He shifted in vitro,” Kara told him.
“We thought we’d all hallucinated it,” Deryn said. “Clearly, we hadn’t.”
“That’s remarkable,” Dan said. He brushed his fingers across Caleb’s head, between his ears. “You’re perfect, little o
ne.”
“Caleb,” Jolie reminded him.
Dan smirked. “Yes, Caleb.”
Caleb shifted back, and Jolie shifted her hold on him, so he lay on her arm, with his butt against the bend in her elbow, and his head in her palm. He seemed to enjoy that position.
“Who’s next?” she asked, looking up with a wide smile.
Perfect. Yes. Those two were perfect.
I looked at my brothers, and saw the same feeling reflected in their eyes.
Chapter 28
Jolie
“Caleb, don’t bite so hard,” I growled at the rambunctious six-month-old.
Caleb opened his jaws, his needle-sharp puppy teeth loosening from my finger.
“Thank you,” I whispered and ruffled his ears.
Deryn bounded up to us in his wolf form, wagging his tail with his tongue lolling out the side of his mouth.
Caleb yipped in delight, and ran to Deryn, rubbing along his legs, looking more like a cat than a wolf.
“Your turn,” I told Deryn, and headed towards the house.
I cast one glance back, watching as the father and son ran into the forest to play.
“Ready?” Fox asked.
I yelped, since I hadn’t heard him approach. “What?” I asked.
He smiled and then bowed. “Would you accompany me, my queen?”
I smiled back. “Okay.”
He wrapped his arms around me, spun around, and dipped me as he kissed me. My head spun, and I wrapped my arms around his neck, even though I knew he would never drop me.
“Where are we going?” I asked when he righted us.
“Come on and you’ll find out,” he said, slipping his fingers between mine, and tugging me along.
I chuckled at my kind-hearted mate, and jogged along behind him. He led me to one of Dan’s SUVs, where Ezio stood, waiting for us.
“Ready?” Ezio asked.
Fox nodded, and ushered me into the back seat.
Once we were buckled, Ezio drove out, whispering conspiratorially to Fox.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“You’ll see,” Fox said. “I’m not going to ruin it.”
We pulled into a car dealership, and I looked at Fox, but he wasn’t looking at me. When we stopped, Fox leapt out, and opened the door for me.
“Come on,” he hurried me, took my hand, and led me to the middle of the lot, where Rhys stood with a car salesman.
Rhys kissed my cheek, and spread his arms. “Pick one.”
I blinked. “What?”
“You don’t have a car,” Rhys said.
“And, we think it is time that you have one of your own,” Fox added.
“You mean…I won’t have a driver or bodyguard assigned to me?” I asked, my mouth open in disbelief.
Rhys picked up one of my hands and said, “We would prefer you to have a driver, ten bodyguards, and a dozen more on backup, but we know that you can take care of yourself. You proved that when you gave birth to a child, used your power to save the city, and then defeated Justina. We are overprotective jerks at times, and we are trying to work on that.”
“So, we are taking this first step, by giving you a car of your own. One that you can drive wherever you want to go. We would still prefer if you took someone with you, but it’s not something we are going to require. We want you to be safe, but we want you to be happy first and foremost,” Fox said.
I hugged them both, and then looked at the cars around me. There was every type of car, and I didn’t know where to start. So, I just walked to each car I liked, and inspected it. I narrowed it down to two cars, test drove them, and then picked the winner. A cute sports car that had enough room for four people, or three people and a baby car seat. I got it in white.
“Dan’s going to have some improvements done to it, so you’ll get it in about a week,” Rhys told me.
I snickered. “Of course, Dan is.”
“Let’s go get the paperwork finalized,” the salesman said.
I walked between Rhys and Fox, holding each of their hands.
“Thank you,” I said, smiling up at them. “This really means a lot to me.”
They each squeezed my hand, smiling in response.
I expected us to go to our house, but instead, they drove to Dan’s pizza restaurant. When we walked in, my eyes widened at the huge crowd gathered. Emrys, Adelaide, Katar, Kara, Silverowl, Andras, Gavin, Gavin’s human girlfriend, Mawrth, Rhian, Brenin, Dan, Deryn, Caleb, Ezio, Yukio, Declan, Martin, Sharla, Tamara, Madison, Zelphar, Kylan, Tobias, Lorenzo, Thor, Leona, Nico, and Tawny were all there.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Happy birthday!” everyone yelled.
My mouth gaped open and shut, like a fish out of water. It was my birthday? I had totally forgotten!
The front door opened, and Dad, Colton, and Sam walked in, carrying a huge cake. They started singing, and the rest of them joined in.
Tears brimmed, as all of the people I cared about the most sang to me. I blew out the candles, but didn’t have a single thing to wish for. I had everything I ever wanted or needed, right here.
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About the Author
Catherine Banks is a USA Today bestselling fantasy author who writes in several fantasy subgenres under two pseudonyms. She began writing fiction at only four years old and finished her first full-length novel at the age of fifteen. She is married to her soulmate and best friend, Avery, who she has two amazing children with. After her full-time job, she reads books, plays video games, and watches anime shows and movies with her family to relax. Although she has lived in Northern California her entire life, she dreams of traveling around the world. Catherine is also C.E.O. of Turbo Kitten Industries™, a company with many hats including being a book publisher and Etsy store full of nerdy fun.
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Royally Enraged: A Reverse Harem Fantasy (Her Royal Harem Book 4) Page 19
