by Jade Alters
“We’re going to the store,” Jared says.
Freddie leans into the front seat from the back and says, “Are we buying a ton of meat for Hope?”
“Yep.”
“Okay, good.
“You think of everything,” I tell him, leaning over to kiss his cheek.
By the time we get back home, I feel like we have everything we could possibly need for the time being. But the guys aren’t done yet. I stretch, shuffling into their living room, and Dylan takes my hand, nodding to the stairs.
“Hey, we want to show you something,” he says.
Dylan leads me up the stairs, and the guys follow. Everyone seems very pleased with themselves, and I can guess what’s coming. It’s making my heart pound, and I realize the whole of my future is coming together. This is the way things were always meant to be. I’m going to live and love and share with these four men and raise our child and learn to be a better witch. And I get to do it all in this lovely house in the middle of the woods where I can run and hunt and feel so free. I can’t imagine a better life.
“Keep in mind,” Dylan says, as he leads me down to the turret room. “None of us are exactly professional designers. But we did our best.”
“Don’t spoil it!” Max says.
“I think she knows what’s coming,” Jared says, chuckling.
Freddie says, “Speak for yourself, Max. I could easily have been an interior designer.”
I bite back a smug smile. The four of them are so predictable sometimes but in the most adorable way. My eyes are welling up with tears, and I don’t even know if it’s because of how sweet my men are or pregnancy hormones. Probably both.
But when they push open the door to the turret room, I catch my breath.
I can’t say that all the decor and the furniture are exactly what I would have chosen myself, but in a way, I like this better. They’ve done it all just for me, and I can tell how much thought they put into the cornflower blue curtains, the luxurious bedding, and the books on a shelf. Even the area rugs are new. I wander inside the round room with its beautiful view of Foggy River and plop down on the bed.
“It’s perfect,” I whisper. “I love it.”
“Really?” Freddie lights up, and all four of them crowd around on the bed, wrapping me in a hug.
“We just want you to feel like you’re home,” Jared says in my ear.
“I am.” My heart swells in my chest, and I shut my eyes, basking in the affection of my mates. “I am home.”
Epilogue
Epilogue: Hope
About eight months later…
“Push, Hope!’
Whoever invented childbirth should be dragged out into the street and shot. I’ve been given potions, and the guys have cast a few spells to help the process along. It doesn’t hurt too badly, but it’s been hours, and I am tired.
“I know I’m supposed to push, you son of a bitch!” I shriek, and the bed shakes a little bit.
Apparently, panther shifters can get a little moody when in labor, but I’m pretty sure the guys know not to take it personally. The scarier thing is the powerful magic coursing through me. It keeps moving the bed and making the lights flicker. My pregnancy paranoia is half afraid some little demon is about to come out of me. But I’ve done enough research by now to know that this is just how shifter labor goes. Especially when the father is a wizard.
Who the father technically is, is a complete mystery, and we’ve all made peace with that. They really aren’t territorial about their genes or anything. They are equally all fathers to this child.
It warms my heart. Or anyway, it warms my heart most of the time. Right now, I just want to kill something with my bare hands.
“I see a head!” Jared shouts. He actually jumps up and down.
I’m giving birth in Jared’s room since it’s the biggest, a mass of pillows supporting my back, my legs wide open. I am sweaty, and I am tired, and this baby needs to get out of my body. And Jared is jumping up and down.
The kid takes a whole other hour to come out, and when it’s over, I feel as if every bone in my body has turned to liquid. Somehow, I have enough strength in my arms to hold the adorably slimy little newborn, who Max carefully wraps in a blanket after snipping the umbilical cord. He’s ignoring the tears streaming down his face as he looks at his new baby, sniffing and blubbering. Soon, everyone in the room is crying, including the infant.
“Here’s your daughter, Hope,” Max whispers. The guys all crowd around as Max hands me our baby. She’s got little bags under her tired eyes, and her cries turn into plaintive little whimpers when she’s in my arms.
“Hey, little girl,” I whisper. Dylan reaches over and wipes a tear from my cheek. Everyone cuddles up on either side of me and we marvel at the new baby and how absurdly cute she is. I can’t decide who she looks like, and maybe it’s too early to tell. I almost wonder if our bond makes her, even biologically, somehow the daughter of all four of my mates.
“Did you settle on the name?” Jared says.
I’m about to tell them the name I picked, but instead, I remember that somebody needs to call my mom. “Send a picture to my mom!”
Freddie spreads a blanket over my legs and nods at Dylan who takes a nice close picture of me and the baby. “She’s been calling every five seconds,” Freddie says laughing.
“She’ll be so happy to visit,” I murmur to myself.
It took a few conversations to fully explain that not only did I have four mates but, also, that none of them were shifters. My mother wasn’t thrilled until I reminded her that my dad was a shifter, and he was no prize. She couldn’t deny that. Since then, she’s been up to visit several times, doting over me in my pregnant state. She wanted to be here for the birth, but then she caught the flu.
But I’m excited for her to visit. I can see the pride in her eyes when she’s around me and my mates.
The very idea of picking a name seemed impossible to me with so many differing opinions. I think the conversation we had most often while I was pregnant was the topic of what to name the kid. We went over it and over it and argued back and forth. Finally, Jared decided that I should decide and that the guys would all give me their top five names if I even wanted their feedback.
That didn’t seem fair to me, but short of some legal arbitration process, it was the only way to avoid bloodshed.
“I did,” I say softly. I’m still staring at my daughter. I can’t seem to look away.
She’s absolutely beautiful.
Just like me, I think to myself.
“So?” Jared says. He kisses my hair. We can still feel each other’s feelings sometimes. Even now, I can feel love coursing so strongly through us that it’s overwhelming. I kiss my daughter’s forehead and nestle back into the pillows, snuggling closer to Jared and Dylan who are cuddled up to me. “We’re dying here. What’s her name?”
There was one name that was on everybody’s list once they finally turned in their top fives. It seems perfect, and when I said it to myself, imagining the daughter we would have soon, I knew it was the right choice. When I look down at the little girl whose bright eyes are now dancing as they gaze into mine, I’m absolutely sure.
“Faith,” I say softly.
“Yes,” Max says. “I really wanted Faith.”
Everyone laughs and agrees it’s the perfect name. We all rest for a while cuddled up with Faith, basking in our love for each other and the bond between us that will never be broken.
Afterword
A Final Note from Jade:
I hope you enjoyed this story. Well, the good news is that there’s more to come. If you want to be the first to hear about my new releases, promotions and giveaways, I urge you to join my Exclusive Reader’s Club:
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Also by Jade Alters
You might also be interested i
n some of my other collections :
The Descendants
Shared by the Four
Desired by Four
Fate of Three
Fated Shifter Mates
Mated to Team Shadow
Mated to the Clan
Mated to the Pack
Protected by the Pack
Claimed by the Pack
Backfired Magic
Mates & Magic
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Dora
“Harrington and Associates, how may I help you?” I slide across the floor in my chair as the woman on the phone asks to be connected to Audree. I stick a pile of files into my bin for filing to be done later and slide back across just in time to connect the caller and answer another blinking red light.
Somehow, I’ve managed to work right through lunch and my stomach is growling. But there’s no rest for the wicked, and the phones have been going nuts for an hour. I connect three more calls and take two more messages before there’s finally a lull, and I can jog over to the break room to grab my salad from the fridge. I take my lunch at my desk. It’s hardly even a lunch. It’s more like swallowing when I get three seconds together. Ted calls me from his office, and I lick my lips, taking a breath.
I clear my throat and answer his call. “Yes, Ted?”
“Hey, Dora, can you swing by and pick up the Littleton deposition and make five copies as soon as possible?”
“Of course.” Ted hangs up without ceremony. So much for my salad. I head to his office to pick up the deposition, at which point I realize my feet are killing me. My new heels were marketed as being comfortable to wear to work. The advertising lied. For the hundredth time, I think about getting one of those foot massagers for when I kick back after work. Maybe the kind with water and little jacuzzi jets.
The thing is, I like my job. It might sound crazy, but I’ve worked my way up from the mailroom to executive assistant, and the pay difference is substantial. I also kind of like handling legal stuff. At my last performance review, they encouraged me to think about becoming a paralegal, and I’m considering the classes. If I decide to go ahead with that, I’ll get reimbursed for the tuition. And it doesn’t hurt that my parents actually like this job too. When I majored in Anthropology just for fun, they rolled their eyes. Especially because I didn’t have any interest in teaching. This job is one of the few choices I’ve made that they actually respect...at least, for now, that is.
I manage three whole bites of salad before my phone rings again, and I make the mistake of answering the call before I check the number. “Harrington and Associates, how may I—”
“Dora!” My mom’s voice is shrill and I wince, sighing heavily.
Oh great.
“Hi, Mom.”
“Hi, sweetie!” My mom sighs in that loud, deliberate way she does that means she wants something from me. It’s kind of handy, really. At least I know something is coming, and I can brace myself.
“Okay, Mom. What is it?” I’m talking with my mouth full out of necessity because I’m starving.
“Beth’s wedding is coming up,” my mother says. “I was just wondering if you have anyone you’re thinking of taking?”
Every muscle in my body seems to tense up at once. “Oh, um—”
“I didn’t think so!” My mom sounds way too excited. The woman has been on my case to get married practically since I graduated from high school. I don’t even know where she gets the energy to concentrate so hard on my love life, or lack thereof. “Dora, I need you to do something about this.”
I stab at my romaine and feta, glowering. “Why?” I say into my headset.
“Why what, dear?”
“Why do I need to do something about this?” I know better than to ask, honestly. I just get so fed up with her intrusiveness.
My mom proceeds to lecture me on how I need to settle down and start a family. It’s the same old thing that I’ve heard a hundred times. The “why” of it really has no answer, and the truth is, I want to find someone, so I guess the question is really just me being annoyed. But my mother is still irritating.
“Don’t you want someone to laugh with?” Her voice is soft now. The thing is, she does care. I think she even knows how much I would like to find someone, but the way she goes about “encouraging” me is the opposite of the way I would prefer. I’d prefer her to shut the hell up.
“I do, yes, but—”
“I think you should get a makeover.”
Now I’m just pissed. I’m so pissed I have to rub my temples, and my appetite all but disappears. My mom starts talking about how I’m past my prime, but if I just put in a little more effort, maybe I’d find a man. Blah, blah, blah.
“Mom.” I interrupt her, but my voice is serious enough to take her by surprise and she actually manages to stop talking. “Shut the fuck up. Can you do that? Just this once? Can you shut the fuck up?”
“I’m going to ignore that,” my mother says, sounding as condescending as possible. “Because I know your little job puts you under a lot of pressure, and you’re just projecting. Sweetie, you only have a few years left to have children—”
“I have way more than a few,” I say, as a headache begins to encroach. “Please chill. I’ll get a man when I get a man, if I feel like getting a man.”
“I know you think I nag too much, Dora, but I'm thinking about grandchildren. I want to be a fun grandmother. I can’t do that if I’m old and decrepit.”
“You’re already old.” Alright, that was mean, but she’s getting on my nerves.
“Very funny, Dora,” she says dryly. I don’t know what’s more infuriating. That she talks to me the way she talks to me or that she can’t even absorb insults when I bite back. “Listen, sweetie. I wouldn’t be so worried if you were a normal girl, but you got that freak DNA from your father—”
“No, no, no.” I shake my head. She hasn’t brought this up in a while. Nothing makes me angrier than this bullshit. “Mom, no—”
“You need to hear this!” She says. “You have that awful voodoo blood from your father.”
“It’s not voodoo,” I whisper furiously. “And I think that’s a little offensive—”
“Oh, please. It might as well be. Your father was a freak. That’s the only real way to put it. Full of that magic nonsense, and if anyone sniffs that out on you, sweetie… Well, true love only goes so far.”
Honestly, when she talks this way about my magical abilities, it makes me want to cry. It’s hard enough keeping that stuff a secret from regular people. But when my own mother talks shit about it just because it didn’t work out between her and my father, it makes me feel like I have something to be ashamed of. She’s always talked that way.
“Are you resisting those, um, impulses?” She says it like I have an irresistible need to kill people.
“Yes, mother.” I roll my eyes for what feels like the millionth time.
It’s not really true though. I don’t do magic often, but I still do practice it from time to time. The hard part is ignoring all my mother’s lectures telling me I should resist my natural ability because it’s “freakish.” But I’ve gotten a little better at that over the years.
“That’s good, sweetie.” She sounds so pleased, it only makes me feel worse. I talk back about a lot of things. But if I tell my mother I still practice magic sometimes, she’s just going to hassle me even more. “Just keep me posted. Let me know if you start seeing anyone. Especiall
y if you find somebody you think you can take to the wedding.” She laughs then, long and loud. “My God! You think I put pressure on you? Everyone asks me about your love life!”
Well, that only makes me feel much worse.
She finally lets me go and I sulk, hunched in my seat at my desk, devouring my salad so I won’t be hungry later. I need to copy that deposition, but screw that. I worked through lunch. The deposition can wait. I just need to eat.
When I see Ted coming, I sit up a little straight in my chair. I check myself in the mirror. I just got a haircut the other day, and my dark red hair is falling in pretty waves, long and shiny. I check my teeth for any stray salad bits. I look nice. Or at least, I think I do. My green eyes are popping with the eyeliner I tried for the first time today.
I don’t have a crush on Ted exactly. It’s more like...he’s good-looking and not obviously objectionable, and I haven’t been getting out enough. I figure if there’s something there, it would be worth pursuing.
He stops near my desk, and I smile in his direction. “Hey, Ted. How’s your day going?”
“Alright…” He’s looking at this phone, completely ignoring me. Alright, he’s kind of just generically good-looking with one of those old fashioned businessman haircuts. I think he was possibly born wearing a golf shirt. But it’s something. I don’t know much about him except that he likes golf. Which also means I don’t know what there is to dislike. Sometimes that’s the best thing you can know about a person. “Did you make those copies of the Littleton deposition yet?”
