by Amira Rain
If I hadn't been reclining on a table, my knees definitely would have buckled. Somebody in the exam room gasped, and it took me a second to realize it had been me.
Still holding my hand, Desmond chuckled weakly, then with a little more force.
"I don't believe it. Twins."
Dr. Jansen joined in with a hearty chuckle of her own.
"Sometimes this early on, we don't pick up two heartbeats during office visits; we just get one. One twin hides behind the other...it happens."
Grinning, Desmond soon pulled me into his arms, and naturally, no huge surprise at all, I cried. Once Dr. Jansen and Jessie had left the exam room, Desmond developed a distinct frog in his throat and it took him multiple throat clears to get it under control.
A month later, he asked me to marry him, and I said yes, borderline shouting the word, actually, because I was so filled with joy. By this point, I wanted nothing more than to become his wife.
Considering that Desmond was commander of the city, we could have gotten married in extremely high style, sparing no expense. However, when I was five-and-a-half months along, we got married in the vast backyard behind Eloise's care home, so that my grandma could attend without having to travel and possibly become disoriented and upset.
She, Eloise, and Emma served as my attendants. Eric, who was Emma's husband by this point, stood up for Desmond, along with two other shifters. Jake, who was walking by now, though really, he ran more than walked, served as our ring bearer. Adorable as could be in a tiny suit and tie, he only dropped the ring twice. Each time, he looked toward Eric, saying "Uh-oh, Dada!"
The only other guests at the ceremony were the other care home residents, two other caregivers, and Dr. Jansen, who actually married Desmond and me. Not only was she an MD and a certified midwife, she was also somehow a certified minister as well, with legal right to marry couples in the state of Illinois.
Simple and meaningful, the ceremony was just what Desmond and I had wanted. It was sweet, funny, and even a bit chaotic at times. It was perfect.
My grandma had her mental bearings maybe seventy-five percent of the day, which I was beyond grateful for. Even during the times that she didn't recognize me, she just kept telling me over and over, between repeatedly asking my name, that I was such a beautiful bride, making my heart swell with an overflow of love.
In early February, the twins were born healthy, beautiful, and a whopping six pounds each exactly, large for twins. When they were two months old and had both proven to have hardy immune systems, Desmond and I took them to visit their great-grandma. Very sadly, she'd had a few weeks of marked steady decline, and she didn't recognize Desmond or me. However, her eyes lit up when she spotted the babies, and she asked if she could see them.
"I'd like to hold one, too, please, if I might."
Taking a seat beside her on the couch, I first introduced her to Matthew Desmond, who, just like his daddy, had thick dark hair and blue eyes that were already turning gray.
Eyes filling, my grandma clasped her hands together, saying he was the most precious little thing ever.
"May I pat his sweet little head? Oh, he's got so much hair."
Heart melting, I told her to go right ahead, and she gently stroked Matthew's dark hair, then gave him a few little pats while he looked at her, cooing and gurgling.
Soon I swapped out babies with Desmond, and carefully placed our baby girl in my grandma's arms, continuing to hold her with one hand, just in case my grandma suddenly lost strength.
"Grandma, this is Sophie Rose."
Though my frequent, borderline-incessant crying had thankfully stopped since I'd given birth, my voice had cracked on saying my daughter's middle name, and my eyes had suddenly filled with tears. Rose was my grandma's name, and I'd decided to use it as a middle name instead of Alexandra.
Eyes lighting with recognition, my grandma remarked that Rose was her name, and I smiled, nodding.
"I picked Sophie's middle name to honor you, because you're her great-grandma."
She looked from me to Sophie, frowning, and then back to me with her frown slowly changing to a little smile.
"You're a nice girl."
I managed a smile in return, blinking back tears.
"Thank you."
"Are you the new helper girl here?"
Soon Desmond and Eloise took over visiting with my grandma so that I could go in the bathroom and cry in private.
A month or so later, Desmond took me out on our first real date since the babies had been born. He'd wanted to take me out before then, but I'd said I just wasn't ready to leave them for a whole evening yet. Now I was semi-ready, I supposed, and only because I was leaving them under care of Emma, who'd become as close as a sister to me by this point. I also completely trusted her mothering capabilities, and besides, she'd practically begged me to let her watch the babies. Now that she and Eric were expecting another little one in the family, she'd kind of gotten baby fever.
The destination of our date was supposed to be a surprise for me, but as he drove his shiny black truck toward Quincy, I asked Desmond just what on earth he had in mind. I still loved visiting my grandma, even though it had become increasingly emotionally taxing since her decline, but I wasn't exactly sure if I wanted to spend date night at the care home.
In response to my question, Desmond glanced over at me with a clear twinkle in his eyes.
"You up for splitting an elephant ear and sharing a slow dance under the stars at the first 'Quincy cruise night' of the season?"
Of course. It was the one-year anniversary of the night we'd met. The night our love story had first begun, and the night I'd conceived our beautiful babies.
With butterflies rioting in my stomach, I looked over at Desmond.
"Make it two slow dances, and you're on."
Grinning, he took one of my hands in his own, sending a current of something electric racing through my body.
"Deal."
THE END
BOOK THREE
GIFTED TO THE
WOLVES
A PARANORMAL MENAGE ROMANCE
AMIRA RAIN
Copyright ©2016 by Amira Rain
All rights reserved.
About This Book
Jayme Adler has just discovered she is one of the GIFTED.
She is one of the few humans on the planet to be blessed with the gift of supernatural powers but before she has time to work out what is going on she finds herself in government custody.
They want her to use her gift for their gain.
They assign her the task of infiltrating a wolf-pack owned by Alpha Wolves Cameron and Elliot. In order to get the information that the government needs she is required to get close to them.
As close as possible.
But in order for Jayme to win the trust of the two men she is going to have to get a lot closer to them than she ever imagined and enter into a relationship that was beyond her wildest fantasies...
This is a paranormal shapeshifter menage-a-trois romance full of lots of adventure, drama and sensual scenes. Please only read if these themes interest you and you are 18+
CHAPTER ONE
I'd never levitated a duck before. In fact, I'd never levitated anything before. And yet, there I was at the park, somehow holding a big, white, furiously quacking duck aloft, seemingly by some invisible force coming from my hand.
My five-year-old niece squealed, obviously delighted. "Do more, Aunt Jayme! Do more!"
I hadn't even meant to do the first one. I'd simply pointed at the duck, telling MacKenna to look at how big he was, and it just happened. I'd felt something warm on my palm, or coming from my palm, I wasn't sure which, and then the duck just suddenly lifted into the air, straight up, without flapping his wings, as if pulled by a string. I stood frozen, finger still pointing at him, as he just hovered about ten feet up as he was now flapping his wings, so hard that he was "raining feathers" on a dozen or so ducks below him, who were also quacking and flapping, clear
ly startled and upset by all the commotion.
I knew exactly what had just occurred. I'd seen two other Gifteds come into their powers before, one a 'levitator' and one a 'zapper.' Both instances had been in public, and I'd just happened to be near. What just happened to me with the duck was pretty much what I'd seen happen to the young woman who was a levitator. While reaching for a two-liter bottle of pop in a display at a pharmacy, the bottle lifted into the air before she could grab it, making her shriek. This made another young woman nearby gasp in surprise, hand flying up seemingly of its own accord. From her hand, a beam of silvery light had shot forth, connecting with the two-liter and making it explode. I'd been standing close enough to the whole scene to be one of three people who'd gotten drenched in pop. One of them wasn't so drenched and sticky-fingered, however, that he wasn't able to immediately whip out his phone and dial a government hotline to report a "double Gifted sighting" and collect a sizable cash reward.
That was about four years earlier, though, not long after The Takeover, when the sorcerers known as the Angels had tried, but failed, to take over the entire world. Since those first few chaotic months when Gifteds had been spotted right and left in certain towns, it seemed there hadn't been many new sightings. Nowadays, the only new Gifteds were latent Gifteds, women who'd had their powers activated by pregnancy, and they were rare. And I definitely wasn't one of them.
I hadn't even dated in a solid year. Not since the most serious boyfriend I'd ever had; a man named Dave, who I'd grown to love and trust with all my heart, had cheated on me with a nineteen-year-old waitress and then had followed her to Las Vegas. I'd actually thought Dave and I might be moving toward marriage and kids. Discovering his betrayal had been quite a crushing blow. So much so that I'd essentially sworn off men indefinitely. I knew all men weren't cheaters, and I hoped I'd find love again, but I supposed I just needed some time to mentally heal.
At the present moment, standing in the park with my niece, it looked like the poor duck I accidentally levitated was also going to need some time to mentally heal. Not entirely sure what I was doing, I began slowly lowering my hand after a few seconds, and the duck began lowering right along with it, thankfully.
My little pigtailed niece began whining. "Aw, but I think he liked that! He was having fun! Just, whatever you did to make him fly up, Aunt Jayme, please do it again!"
I was pretty sure the duck had not been "having fun." Still, moving my palm slowly, I set him back down on the grass, and he stopped his wild quacking, rejoined the group of ducks as if nothing had ever happened.
Not wanting to accidentally levitate anything else, I pointed my palm in the direction of an empty pond in the center of the park. "Go grab my phone from the picnic table, Kenna. I need to call Mommy and tell her what just happened."
I also wanted to ask my sister, Ashley, if she thought my accidental levitation might happen again, which I definitely didn't want it to, out of fear of hurting Kenna, the ducks, or any of the people nearby in the park. I honestly didn't know much about Gifteds, not that Ashley was a wealth of knowledge, either. I was soon to learn a bit more, though. I was soon to learn a Gifted could be both a levitator and a zapper. I'd never even heard of that. But not a second after I finished speaking to Kenna, a bolt of silvery light shot from my palm and traveled all the way to the pond, which was at least a good thirty feet away. The water in a several-foot radius around where the light beam had "hit" bubbled and steamed for the few seconds that the light lasted, like it had literally made the water boil.
More than a bit unnerved, I immediately folded my arms across my chest and tucked both hands beneath my underarms, now really afraid of hurting someone.
"Go to the picnic table, Kenna. Something dangerous is happening to Aunt Jayme, and I don't want you to get hurt."
I was even afraid to gently set my hands on her in order to guide her away from me.
She wasn't scared though; jumping up and down, she just clapped with her gaze locked on the still-steaming pond water.
"Do it again, Aunt Jayme! Do it again! Make that zapping stuff come out of your hand! Make the water bubble more!"
Fighting a slight sense of panic, I raised my voice a bit. "Kenna, please go to the picnic table right now, where you'll be safe."
"No need for that!" someone called out from somewhere behind us.
I turned to see an older woman wearing a matching grayish-blue shorts-and-top set about the same shade as her hair. She was heading toward us with a phone held up to her ear. I didn't think it was too wild a guess she was probably calling the government hotline.
She reached Kenna and me within seconds and smiled at me.
"No need to be afraid or hide your hands, honey. You see it's just the first time levitating, or the first time zapping, or both, in your case, that it happens without you controlling it. After that, you have to think about doing it, and want to do it. I know all about Gifteds because my granddaughter is one."
The woman smiled at me again, and I began tentatively taking my hands from under my arms.
She began to say something else, but then kind of cut herself off, paused, and said hello to someone on the phone. "Yes, my name is Judy Henderson, and I'm calling to report a Gifted sighting. A double Gifted sighting, actually." She paused briefly. "No, not two of them, just one who is both a levitator and a zapper. I just saw it all with my very own eyes. She levitated a duck, and then she zapped a little pond at the park, made it bubble right up and everything." She paused briefly again, and then turned her gaze from the ground to me. "What did you say your name was, dear?"
"Jayme Adler, and I have to go now. Please tell the government people I'll be expecting the agents."
I at least knew enough about Gifteds to know how the whole thing worked. I knew agents would show up on my doorstep within days, and that they'd assign me to a "post," some town or outpost where women possessing Gifted powers were needed to work with shifters to keep the Angels from taking over the country. I also knew most Gifteds didn't really have a choice about going to live wherever they were assigned. Mothers of young children were the exception, and could either bring their families with them or refuse the assignment altogether if they wanted, though not as many as one might think did this, because the pay was so substantial. But all other Gifteds didn't have a choice. It was either go to the assigned post or serve a lengthy prison term, as refusing to help in the defense effort was now a federal crime.
I had no problem serving my country and helping to protect people with my new-found gifts, as long as my post was still in reasonably close visiting distance of my family but at the moment, I just wanted to leave the park and talk to Ashley about what happened. I also wanted to know what her thoughts would be about my leaving Hastings, Indiana, the smallish town where we lived. I had a feeling she'd be thinking along the same lines I was, that everything would be okay as long as I was posted somewhere reasonably close, which would mean somewhere in northern Indiana or southern Michigan, since Hastings was just twenty-five miles or so from the Michigan border, about a hundred miles dead east from South Bend.
The truth was that Ashley would probably be just fine without me because she had a loving husband and a wonderful set of in-laws in Hastings. However, she'd been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis shortly after Kenna's birth, and her physical limitations made it so that she needed a lot of help with regular daily tasks like cooking, cleaning, and taking care of Kenna. Usually, I was the one who helped her with those tasks, since her husband, Brian, typically worked sixty hours a week as one of only a handful of attorneys in the town of about ten thousand.
Now I wondered who'd fill in for me and help Ashley with daily household needs. As amazingly loving and supportive as her in-laws were, they were getting on in years, and they also traveled in their RV a lot. I wasn't sure they could be there for Ashley every single day, like I usually was.
With my thoughts about Ashley's well-being making me quickly move on from my shock about what had just ha
ppened in the park, I took Kenna's hand and began leading her away from the ducks and the lady on the phone, who was now asking whoever was on the other end how soon she'd get her payment for having reported a Gifted. From the looks of it, I thought it was possible that maybe she hadn't even been the first person to report me. To the west of the pond, several people who'd been having a picnic were all currently on their phones as well, probably having seen me in action, too.
Once we were in my car, Kenna seemed to have forgotten all about my powers. She just wanted to know when we could go back to the park and feed more bread to the ducks, which is what we'd been doing before my display of Giftedness had interrupted everything. Kenna still clutched half a piece of bread in one of her hands, in fact. I promised her that some other Saturday afternoon very soon, we'd go back and feed the ducks again. I just hoped that I'd be posted close enough for me to easily keep this promise.
When we arrived at Ashley and Brian's rambling colonial home on the outskirts of town, the two of them were out front, sitting on the wide front porch in the shade, holding hands. I knew they must have recently come outside, because in the summer months, Ashley could only handle about five or ten minutes out in the heat at a time. Any more than that, and her MS symptoms would significantly worsen. Not to mention that this day was particularly hot and muggy, even for June.
