by J. L. Wilder
“Everyone is fine,” Cam said. “You’re not supposed to be worrying about childcare right now, okay? We’ve got them. This is your celebration. Go out there and get something to eat. The food smells amazing.”
“You should go before me,” Sophie protested. “You’ve been waiting. I can watch the kids.”
“Oh, absolutely not,” Cam said with a laugh. “The alphas have me under strict orders. I’m not to leave this tent until Robby comes to take over baby-minding for me. I can’t surrender my post to you. Go on.”
Sophie laughed with him. “Fine,” she said. “I’ll go. But I’m coming back later.”
She gave her children one last lingering glance, then ducked out through the tent flap and went over to Burton.
He was holding Caleb so that the baby faced outward, away from his body, and Sophie was unsurprised. Caleb rarely tolerated being held in a position that didn’t allow him to see what was going on around him. She waved as she approached, kissed her son on the top of his head, then stood on her toes to kiss Burton. “This is amazing,” she told him, raising her voice enough so that Chrissy, who happened to be standing nearby, could hear her words of praise. “I can’t believe you guys put all of this together for me. It’s wonderful.”
“Come get some food,” Burton said. He wrapped an arm around her waist and led her over to a series of flat rocks that had been worn so smooth that Sophie could only imagine they had come from the river itself. On each rock, something good to eat had been laid out. And sure enough, at the center of the whole arrangement was a roasted turkey.
She pointed. “Where on earth did you get that?”
“That was Ryker’s idea,” Burton said. “He thought we ought to have something really special for the mating feast, and he got it into his head that a turkey would be the right answer. The whole time you and I were together, he was ranging around the forest, looking for a bird. We all thought he was crazy—but apparently, right before he came to the cave to take my place, he found it. Marco was prepping it to cook when I got back.”
“There are no turkeys around here,” Sophie said, utterly bemused.
“Well, there must be,” Burton said. “I thought he was fighting a losing battle too, but I guess I should have learned by now never to bet against Ryker.”
“That’s true,” Sophie said. “I guess if Ryker was determined to bring home a unicorn, he would probably find a way to make it happen. A turkey really shouldn’t surprise me at all.”
“Have some,” Burton said.
Sophie picked up a few pieces of meat and began to eat. Though she had spent most of her life as part of a pack that adhered to human traditions and lifestyles—like eating with utensils—she had quickly adjusted to the ways of the wild. It felt natural, now, to eat with her hands, and just as natural to fill a pocket of her dress with the nuts and berries her alphas had collected so that she could carry them around with her and eat as she went.
She moved to the fire and took a seat on one of the available rocks. Robby, one of the pack’s betas, was returning from the river with woven reed bowls caked with dried mud, each of them filled with water, and he handed one to Sophie so that she could have a drink.
Ryker found her and took a seat on the rock beside her. “What do you think?” he asked quietly.
“This is the most amazing thing I could have asked for,” she said, leaning against his shoulder and gazing around the clearing at all the people she loved. “I wouldn’t have thought this ceremony could be any better, but you surprised me.”
“We love you,” he said, giving her a little squeeze. “Everything we do is for you, Sophie. Never forget that.”
Chapter Four
MARCO
It was impossible to believe, sometimes, that this was really his family. That he had been so lucky.
Marco hadn’t ever expected to find himself a part of a pack. Unlike most of the rest of his family, he hadn’t begun his life that way. The others had belonged to packs and had broken away (or in Sophie’s case, been exiled). They had all lived in the south, and they had come north looking for the life of a feral wolf.
But Marco’s story was different. He had always lived up here in these lands. He had always belonged to the north.
Growing up, it had been Marco and his father. He had no memory of his mother, and if he had had siblings, littermates, he hadn’t known them either. He supposed he had probably been a single birth—there weren’t many omegas in this part of the world, so his mother had probably been a beta—but that wasn’t the kind of thing he and his father discussed.
His father had been a practical man, not an overly affectionate one. He had taught Marco how to hunt and fish, how to nest down and stay warm in the winter, how to avoid predators. In those days, when Marco had been young, when his father had been alive, these woods had been full of bears, and he had never been able to feel completely safe.
He had grown up with the knowledge that he and his father were the only ones he could trust. Nobody else was safe. And when his father had died, Marco had been on his own in the world.
It had been painfully lonely. And for the first time ever, Marco had been forced to contemplate the idea that perhaps he wasn’t cut out for the life he was living. He was a young man still, with many years left ahead of him. How could he get through those years with no one by his side, no one to talk to, no voices at all besides the one in his own head?
Even pure wild wolves didn’t live that way. It wasn’t natural.
He had begun contemplating the idea of finding a female wolf in the woods and banding together with her for companionship and survival. The two of them could be mates to one another, he had thought. But even in those imaginings, he had never thought of anything more powerful than an ally, someone to watch his back and keep him warm at night.
In a way, he mused now as he gazed into the flames of Sophie’s mating ceremony fire, being attacked by a bear was the best thing that had ever happened to him.
He traced the tips of his fingers over the long scar that ran the length of his torso, remembering the day he had gotten it. The bear had been on him out of nowhere, ready to murder him for accidentally crossing its path. After he had been slashed, Marco had sprinted away as fast as he could, knowing that as a wolf, his speed outstripped that of any bear. But he also knew he wouldn’t be able to keep that speed up for long, and sure enough, he had quickly begun to lag.
And then Sophie and Ryker had found him.
It was Sophie who had wanted to bring him home. She’s too kindhearted for her own good. But he would always be grateful that she had taken the risk on his behalf.
Not twenty-four hours later, he had imprinted on her.
She had become his mate, and so much more than just the ally he had imagined finding. She was his best friend and lover, someone with whom he could share all his thoughts and fears. She made him feel stronger, more powerful. The trust she had in him was everything in the world.
And Ryker—and Burton, when he had come along a few days later—had become Marco’s brothers. That was something he had never dared to dream he could have. It was a new kind of love, a new kind of family, unlike anything he and his father had shared.
Marco had thought he might understand what it meant to be a father when the four betas had joined their pack. After all, he was responsible for them, just as his father had once been responsible for him. It was his job to teach them to hunt, and to fish, and to keep themselves safe. Surely that was fatherhood. What more could there be?
And then his children had been born. And that had changed everything once again.
From the moment he had held them, Marco had been a different person. Suddenly he had understood his father in a whole new way. He would do anything to protect these babies, to keep them safe from harm. At that moment, he had been so utterly grateful for the fact that the bears had been driven south, out of their pack’s lands, that it had been hard to breathe.
No one will ever hurt my childr
en the way I was hurt, he’d vowed. He would teach them to defend themselves, but that defense would never be necessary because no one would ever attack them. Now that the bears were gone, the Arctic Circle had been made safe. There was no better place for a group of young wolves to grow up.
Now it felt as though they had been a part of his life forever, even though in actuality, it had only been a couple of months. He couldn’t imagine a world without them anymore.
Having them out here, camping beside the river, had been amazing. This was the kind of thing they would never have been able to do before. Staying in the cave at night had been the only way to guarantee their safety while it was possible that bears were prowling around.
But this was a different world. A safer world.
Burton came over and sat beside him, passing Caleb into his arms without comment. Marco accepted the baby, looking down to see that he was wide-eyed and totally alert. “Has he slept at all yet?” he asked.
“Don’t think so,” Burton said, yawning. “I’m about to, though.”
“How long has he been awake?”
“I don’t know. Maybe eight hours?”
“That can’t be normal for a baby.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Burton said. “But I guess he would sleep if he was tired.”
Marco sighed. “That’s the one thing my father never taught me,” he said. “He never gave me any parenting advice.”
“Well, yeah. He probably never figured you’d be a parent,” Burton said. “Certainly not to nine babies at once. I’m sure he thought, if it ever did happen, it would be because you met a nice beta, and the two of you would figure out how to raise your one baby as you went along.”
Marco shook his head. “My father probably wouldn’t have had any idea how to cope with this situation,” he was forced to admit. “He would probably think I was crazy for even getting myself into this.”
“Well, yeah,” Burton said. “On paper, it looks crazy. Have you thought about the fact that we have no idea whose son Caleb actually is?”
“He’s all of ours,” Marco said.
“I know that,” Burton said. “But you know what I mean. All nine of these babies...some of them are biologically mine, and some are yours, and some are Ryker’s. And we have no idea which are which.”
“Does it matter?” Marco asked.
“No,” Burton said. “But if you had asked me a year ago if something like that would matter to me, I probably would have given you a different answer. You know?”
Marco saw what his friend meant. “That’s true,” he said. “I guess nothing really could have prepared me for what it would be like to raise a family under these conditions.”
“It’s occurred to me that it might become more obvious whose babies are whose as they get older,” Burton said. “We might start to see them look more like one or another of us.”
“I can’t imagine it making a difference, even then,” Marco said. “Even if it was completely obvious that Caleb was Ryker’s child biologically, he would still be my son. And the same is true for the others as well. It’s just so hard to picture this family without all three of us that I think I would only be happy at the realization that one of these children was yours by blood, or Ryker’s.”
“Yeah,” Burton said. “I feel the same way. But if someone had tried to explain that to me before they were born, I definitely wouldn’t have bought it.”
Marco nodded. “I never thought I would be a part of a pack like this, that’s for sure.”
Burton snorted. “I never thought I would be a part of a pack at all,” he said.
“I remember,” Marco said. When Burton had first joined them, he had been disgusted at the idea of forming a pack. If it hadn’t been for the fact that he had imprinted on Sophie, Marco knew he would never have stuck around. “We wouldn’t be the same without you, though,” he added.
“Yeah, I know,” Burton said. “We wouldn’t be the same without any of us. It feels like this group was meant to be together, doesn’t it?”
“It does,” Marco agreed. “I don’t know that I even believe in things like that—fate, destiny—but it does seem like something brought us all together. I don’t think there are any modern packs that are organized the way ours is, with the omega as the lynchpin.”
“But it really used to be that way, back in the old days?” Burton asked.
“Well, if you think about it, it does make more sense,” Marco said. “Organizing a pack with the alpha as the central figure requires the alpha to subdue all the other members of the pack, right? A strong alpha will be able to keep a fairly large pack together, probably, but you only have to look at all of us to see how it has the potential to go wrong. Ryker broke away from the pack he was born into when he was a child. Sophie defied her alpha as an omega. All the betas were able to leave their alphas. None of that should be possible, in theory. But it’s just too hard for any alpha to compel a large pack to stay together. Eventually, some of them will want to wander.”
“And you think our system is more solid?” Burton asked.
Marco glanced over at him. “Are you ever going to leave this family?”
It was a rhetorical question, but Burton answered anyway. “Of course not,” he said. “You know I can’t leave Sophie.”
“Exactly,” Marco said. “None of us can leave her. It’s a much stronger bond than being compelled to stay by an alpha’s order could ever be, because we don’t want to leave.”
“What about the betas, though?” Burton asked. “I suppose they could leave. They haven’t imprinted on Sophie.”
“No, but they’re also here because they want to be,” Marco said. “Submitting to one alpha is something that happens all the time, but our betas have submitted to all three of us. They had to do that willfully. And our combined authority—yours and mine and Ryker’s—ought to be enough to keep the pack strong and whole.”
“Which means that our pack can grow bigger than any of the packs in the south,” Burton said. “And be stronger.”
“And stay together longer,” Marco agreed. “Southern packs fall apart all the time, but it would be impossible to tear us apart.”
Burton grinned. “Not that anyone would ever dare to try,” he said. “Not after the way we dispatched those bears. No one will mess with us ever again.”
Marco nodded slowly.
He wanted to believe that his friend was right. But a small, nameless fear lurked in the back of his mind. He knew that Burton and Ryker felt completely safe now that the bears were gone, and most of the time, Marco felt the same way.
But sometimes, he felt a vague, creeping fear that there was still something out there that had the ability to harm him and his pack.
It’s always best to keep our guard up. I’m sure everything is fine. But we can’t allow ourselves to become complacent. That’s all.
“Want to give him back to me?” Burton asked, holding out his arms for Caleb. “Today’s your day with Sophie. You ought to be getting ready.”
Marco nodded. “I guess I should get something to eat.”
“You definitely should,” Burton said. “You’re going to work up an appetite.”
Marco laughed. “Don’t be crude,” he said, but the truth was that he didn’t mind at all. He hadn’t been able to take his eyes off of Sophie since the moment she had arrived in the clearing, and he was very much looking forward to his chance to take her back to the cave.
God, she’s beautiful in that dress. He gazed at her across the lawn. She was walking by the river’s edge, plucking berries from her pocket and eating them. When the wind blew, he could see every curve of her body beneath the thin fabric. It was all he could do not to sprint across the clearing and grab her right then and there. He felt as hot as if he were running a fever, just looking at her.
He got to his feet. “Maybe I should see if she’s ready to go,” he said, doing his best to sound casual about it.
Burton was obviously not fooled. “Have a go
od time,” he said, showing his teeth.
Marco jogged over to where Sophie stood. Coming up behind her, he wrapped his arms around her waist. “Hey,” he said.
She leaned back against him. “Hi,” she said. “This is amazing.”
He didn’t want to drag her away if she was still enjoying herself. “Do you want to stay a while longer?” he asked her.
She looked up at him. He could see that she was doing her best to assess his mood.
Marco couldn’t help it. He hitched his hips against the swell of her ass. She pressed back into him, and he knew she was feeling how hard he was.
“You’re ready to go,” she breathed.
“I’ve been ready for days,” he admitted.
She nodded. “Do we need to do anything?” she asked. “Say goodbye to anybody? Or can we just leave?”
“We can go,” Marco said, his hand sliding down the front of her thigh. It was all he could do to keep himself from grabbing her skirt and hitching it up. “I think we should. Before we’re seen.”
She nodded. “Quickly, then,” she said and smiled.
Chapter Five
SOPHIE
They ran hand in hand, away from the clearing, through the woods. Sophie felt positively wild as the forest fell away on either side of her, as her alpha’s strong hand clung to her, towing her forward. Her entire body felt like it was throbbing with desire.
After a moment, she noticed that they weren’t moving toward the cave, but she didn’t have it in her to question or to object. Whatever Marco was doing, wherever he was taking her, was fine by her as long as he planned to quench the fire that was growing within her.
She knew he did. She could hear the way he was panting as he ran alongside her. He wasn’t out of breath from running. That rasp was born of desire.
Not to mention the way he had pulled her up against him back at the clearing. God, he is hard. Poor Marco. To think that he had been waiting all this time for his turn to be with her. He must be half out of his mind by now. Sophie knew that she would have been if she’d been forced to wait that long.
