by May Sage
“I get that you’re not used to being told no,” Rye said. “But you’ll never get one of your fucking greasy fingers on Lola, or any other one of our kids. Ever. Now, it’s up to you. You can turn back, and stay out of our way, or we can end this here and now.”
She was pretty certain the man would actually choose the second option, before Rye added, “You might want to know, though, we also have a hundred people ready to burn the fuck out of your territory. That’s what you’d planned to do with ours, isn’t it?”
The Alpha blanched, making Rye smile.
“You’re welcome to burn our empty, fully insured house. We’ll settle down elsewhere. But moving five hundred and twenty-seven adults, as well as three hundred and four kids from the home they’ve inhabited for seven generations might be a little bit more of an issue, I’m sure.”
Coveney had come through with plenty of intel.
The Vergas Alpha stepped forward, but his sons grabbed his arms and leaned in to whisper, evidently attempting to reason with him.
Finally, he turned to them, rage evident in his eyes.
“This isn’t over.”
“Isn’t it?” Byron asked, his beaming voice full of humor. “Because I’m telling you right now: you attack my son again? I’ll take it as a personal offense against our crown. I’ll come down on you with everything I’ve got.”
Yeah… he might seem a little gruff and all, but Ace didn’t mind her mate’s father.
But, if she loved the dad, she completely adored the grandmother.
“Excuse me?” a sweet little frail voice interjected, as the Alpha wolf began to retreat.
They all turned to the petite old lady with long silver hair, who was pointing past the Alpha, towards Kim.
“That filthy piece of shit. We want it. Consider it our due for letting you go without declaring war on your ass, will you?”
The wolf growled, but he nodded towards Hunter, who went to grab the traitor, and pushed her their way.
“Why, thank you so much, you pack of savages.” Then, she smiled up at Ace and said, “I have a brilliant idea. We can chain her to a tree and get everyone to piss on her, before letting her twin rip her throat out.”
See? The lady was brilliant. But as entertaining as the visual might have been, Ace had a better idea in mind.
“Actually, I think we should let her go.”
Everyone turned to her, staring like she might have lost her mind.
She just smirked, recalling how hard it had been to make it out there on her own.
“We will, of course, notify the human authorities, and the Shifter Council, that she’s been accused of treason in her pride.”
In other words, she would be seen as a piece of trash by shifters, and as a convict by human authorities. The woman was going to be majorly screwed for the rest of her days, just like she deserved to be.
A quick death would have been too kind.
Epilogue
Mates
* * *
Rye hadn’t thought anything could smooth down the issues he had with his family. They’d been too quick to dismiss him during his childhood, and too quick to turn their backs on one of their own later in life.
He hadn’t realized that, when Coveney was proven innocent, they’d all felt like shit. They’d spent the last six years trying to find a way to reach out to him, without success. His asking for help had come as a surprise, and they’d jumped on the chance.
“I always saw how strong you were,” Byron told his son. “Colter is steadier, more predictable, and less passionate. As such, he’ll make a better leader when I pass on the reins of our Kingdom.”
Rye nodded; he’d never aspired to be the heir. It seemed like far too much responsibility, anyway.
“You, however, are more like your mother. If you see an injustice, you’ll jump at the defense of anyone who needs your help without thinking – like you did for your friend, Coveney. I should have made it clear that I respected you for that.”
His grandmother, Maria, raised her hand.
“I made it clear! I gave him a hundred grand.” Then, she had to add, “For the record, I prefer Colter because he brings me chocolate.”
The Wayland family reunion was almost as unbelievable as the Cross one.
“Tell me, is that really The Butcher with a bunch of your kids on his back?”
On all fours, the man was wrestling Clive, Jasper, Victoria, Daniel, and Will – and losing, too – while his wife, MaryBeth, baked stuff that put Ace’s desserts to shame in their kitchen.
They looked normal.
“Yep, apparently. Just don’t get the catnip out.”
Byron had his business face on.
“I wondered if he’d be open to a formal alliance. I know he’s no Alpha, but having him in our ranks…”
“Your son mated his daughter. You can definitely ask.”
* * *
Having over four hundred people in their territory was actually not as much of a problem as it might have been elsewhere; they’d just cleaned up the log cabins Aisling never used, and they had accommodated everyone with ease, but, after three weeks of having company, Rye was looking forward to spending time with his pride and his mate.
They knew each other well now; they spent every night in each other’s arms, fucking, talking, laughing, and fucking some more. But they’d never had alone time outside of the bedroom. They hadn’t gone on a date.
Plus, while they were mated, they hadn’t made it official by holding a blood bonding ceremony; every woman out there dreamt of walking down the aisle wearing a pretty dress. And, if he was honest with himself, Rye also wanted to officially seal their hands.
“You’ll invite us for your ceremony, I hope,” his mother said, touching his forearm.
He wasn’t surprised that she’d known what he was thinking about; Tara Wayland was an empath, as well as a submissive. She’d stayed behind in case a fight actually broke out.
“Sure.”
“I don’t think I can say how happy I am that you’ve actually found your mate,” she beamed at him. “The feelings around you…I’ve never experienced this. And your child is going to be so fucking cute. Just look at how tiny and adorable Aisling is.”
He did a double take, and not only because his mother had said fucking.
“Child?”
Did he sound faint? Because he was. He really, really was.
“Oh my…I mean, I don’t want to assume, but she feels like two people. So I just guessed.”
Child. They might have a child on the way, an actual piece of him and her.
Yeah. Things were good.
* * *
The End.
Hierarchy
Wyvern Pride
* * *
Rygan – Alpha
Aisling – Alpha
Daunte - Beta
Coveney - Head Enforcer
Ian - Enforcer
Jas - Enforcer
Tracy - Enforcer in training
Ola - Healer
Hsu - Seer
Christine - Submissive
Niamh - Child
Lola - Child
Jasper - Child
Clive - Child
Victoria - Child
Daniel - Child
Will - Child
* * *
Royal Pride
* * *
Byron – Alpha King
Tara - Alpha Queen
Colter – Head Enforcer, Heir
* * *
Vergas Pride
* * *
Arthur – Alpha
Jason – Beta
Hunter – Head Enforcer
* * *
Known Loners
* * *
Knox
Vivicia – Wolf
Rain – Witch
Faith – Raven
Pretty Kitten
Chapter 1
Perks
Daunte stormed into the pride house, hoping to catch his Alphas bef
ore they left for their appointment; souring his humor wasn’t an easy feat, but the events of the morning had managed that, and then some. He needed to speak to Rygan and Aisling. Maybe they’d say he’d made the wrong decision. It wasn’t too late to get back to the bus station and help the poor girl he’d all but abandoned there.
The large, modern home was bathed in sunlight, courtesy of the front wall, all made of reflective glass. Inside, under the watchful eye of a couple of domestic cats, half a dozen children were attempting to throttle two fully grown feline shifter Enforcers - and managing, by the looks of it. Tracy and Coveney were doing their best to keep them at bay, and failing miserably.
His foul mood evaporated, as if sucked right out of his lungs, and, at the same time, his resolution faded. Yes, if he appealed to them, his Alphas would tell him he could go find the girl he wished to help, and offer her their protection. But in doing so, he would endanger this. All those children playing, the peaceful family they’d earned out of sweat and blood.
He couldn’t do that. He’d speak to Rye later. He’d tell him what had happened - but he would also say that the girl was long gone, beyond their reach. It wasn’t being selfish; it was being a Beta. Putting the wellbeing of his pride first.
Alphas were cut to give orders and protect those in need - that could extend to mere strangers. Betas did the dirty work. This was what his position required. Making sacrifices, and living with the guilt if he had to.
“Where’s Hsu?” he asked, counting only seven kids in the lounge.
Niamh, Jasper, Clive, Victoria, Will, Daniel, and even little Lola were ganging up against the Enforcers - the toddler sat on the floor, holding on to one of Coveney’s legs. But there was no sign of the last child.
It wasn’t a rare occurrence; Hsu liked her own company. She wasn’t pushed away by the other kids, and they didn’t take her need to be alone to heart, either. She was a Seer, which meant she had visions practically every day - time stopped around her as she stared in the emptiness. No wonder she didn’t feel comfortable doing so around everyone else.
“She was having a nap,” Will offered, all the while tickling Tracy’s knee.
Dirty trick. “She has to wake up soon, though. As soon as we win, Tracy and Coveney have to take us out to an amusement park!”
So, that was what the battle of the day had been about.
“I’ll go get her,” he offered, shaking his head in amusement.
Those kids would willingly go against an entire army if that meant a day out of Lakesides; and Daunte couldn’t exactly blame them. Their small town was everything they needed; simple, quiet- but, in truth, for children of their ages, that meant boring.
He walked back to the entryway from the living room, ready to climb up to the second floor to get to the children’s room, but Hsu sat on the first step of the curved staircase, her little head of curls resting against the bannister.
“There!” Daunte said, fingers pointed right at her. “There’s the perfect representation of doom and gloom. I’m pretty sure if I googled it, I’d find a picture of you just like that.”
The kid cracked a smile as he sat down next to her.
That was another part of his job; taking care of the morale of the pride, and that included the children, as well as the adults. He would have taken the time to check up on any of them.
That was doubly true for Hsu. None of the children knew, of course, and the pride had every intention of keeping it that way because it shouldn’t matter, but, legally speaking, they’d had to adopt the children on a one on one basis. There was a piece of paper somewhere in Rye’s office saying that Hsu was his daughter. And really, it didn’t matter. He took care of all the kids; they all did. But everything in him made him want to claw out of his skin when she made that sad face.
They’d never discussed it, but he could see that Coveney was as protective of Victoria, Tracy of Will, Ian of Daniel and Clive, Ola of Jasper, and Rye, of Niamh and Lola. Their kids. Funny how a dusty document had a hold on them.
“What’s up, little one?” he asked her and, for a beat, she kept her mouth shut.
Eventually, she asked, “If you knew something was going to happen, do you have to say it?”
That made him pause. Hsu had always shared her visions; this was the very first time he’d heard her having any doubt about whether she should.
“It depends, poppet. Why do you ask?”
Her little face scrunched up in an adorable moue.
“Some people won’t be happy. They might try to stop it. But I think it’s good. I don’t want my vision to be stopped.”
Oh, goodie; a philosophical question before it was time for brandy. After the morning he’d had, Daunte was already close to having a headache, and now this.
He played and replied half a dozen responses in his head, taking his time, as Hsu looked up to him like what he was about to say should be engraved on holy stone tablets.
Kids. Why, oh, why did they always expect adults to have their shit together?
“Hsu Wyvern, there’s something you need to know- and not doubt for a second. Ever. You’re not our Seer. You’re not obliged by some oath to share any vision with us. The pride house could burn to the ground tomorrow and you wouldn’t have to warn us. You’re our child. We’ll love you regardless of what you see - and regardless of what you tell us. Understood?”
She looked up at him with stars in her eyes, before launching herself at him and wrapping her little arms around his neck.
Yeah. Sometimes, being Beta wasn’t such a bad thing.
Chapter 2
Drool-worthy Archenemy
Some guys shouldn’t be allowed to wear shirts. For the greater good. Seriously, men like him walking around half naked could genuinely cause worldwide peace. Women would be too busy melting into puddles of lust to get up to any evildoings, and men would just spend their days and nights doing pushups in hopes of eventually looking like him.
Daunte Cross. Otherwise known as Clari’s nemesis; well, when he wasn’t half naked.
“You’re drooling.”
Highly possible. Also, no one - absolutely no one in the entire universe - could blame her right now. Daunte was washing his jeep with a sponge and a bucket of water. Apparently, that had required removing his shirt and getting the top half of his sculpted body wet and glistening in the sunlight.
She approved. Whole-heartedly.
“And you’re not? What’s wrong with you!” she asked the small, pretty, and very pregnant brunette standing next to her.
Ace - Aisling Cross-Wayland - had come to meet her at the door, as she always did, because she liked to have first pick of the leftovers Clari brought back from the bakery. She pushed to her tiptoes, one hand on her extended belly, and peeked into the box of goodies in Clari’s hands, before grabbing a cupcake.
“Because,” she replied, licking her fingers clean of frosting, “he happens to be my baby brother, so he’s gross.”
Gross. Clari tilted her head and concentrated, trying to determine what could potentially be considered “gross” about the tanned Adonis.
Then he turned and his eyes narrowed when he found her on the doorstep. She remembered. The man was a first-class jerk to her.
“Yep,” she nodded emphatically. “Totally gross.”
Clari shouldn’t have cared but she had never - not even once - directly interacted with him. She didn’t speak to him, they didn’t even say hello to each other. He was just included in a queenly wave she awkwardly executed whenever she met the members of the Wyvern pride of feline shifters. So, every day. Literally, every day. She worked for Aisling, their Alpha female, and she didn’t have a life. Taking some time off meant watching too many B movies and inhaling her weight in popcorn from her sofa, so she avoided doing it as much as possible.
She got along with every member of the pride, even those who generally communicated by grunts, like Coveney. Everyone except Daunte. He’d been an ass from day one, glaring like her very ex
istence was an insult to him.
She knew that there was a fair bit of racism on both sides of the spectrum - humans who hated shifters on sight and shifters who couldn’t stand humans – and, at first, she’d believed that had been the problem, but she’d since seen Daunte interact with other humans in Lakesides. He smiled at them. Like, really smiled, without baring his teeth like he was about to take a bite.
That’s when she’d taken to imagining his annoyingly handsome face on the target when she threw darts at the pub. She never missed the bull’s eye now. Whatever his problem was with her, it was personal, which annoyed her. She hadn’t done anything to him, dammit.
“How was work?” Aisling asked, with a certain degree of indifference.
A few months back, she’d done everything in the bakery, baking, selling, accounting, while Clari had just delivered the goodies. Things had changed when the Wyvern Pride had turned up; she’d taken a step back and Clari had started taking on more responsibilities.
Ace still popped by almost every day, to bake, to supervise their two new employees, and do little things here and there, but the bakery had become Clari’s thing, too. She’d almost felt guilty at finding an undue amount of pride and concern for a business that wasn’t really hers, until recently. Last week, Ace had presented her with a pretty document printed on thick paper, and told her it needed her signature. She’d made her a partner. Clari still couldn’t wrap her mind around it. Sure, it wasn’t, and wouldn’t ever be, a multi-million dollar corporation, but she had a business now. The thought still made her teary.
“Exhausting. We totally need another pair of hands on Saturdays.”
They both knew that, but they lived in a small town seemingly inhabited by children and their grandparents; there weren’t a lot of potential part-time employees. Clari had cooked up an idea weeks ago, but she hadn’t voiced it, feeling like she might be stepping on someone’s toes. Biting her lip, she spelled it out, “But, hey, I was just wondering if Niamh would want to do a few hours a week. You know, like a summer job. Get some work experience, or something.”
