by J. L. Wilder
He didn’t want me here, she thought. He wanted me to sit out. And now his stupid move might be what gets all of us killed.
Well, Fiona wasn’t going to let that happen.
The Feral Fangs were falling into a clear formation around one pack member, and Fiona felt sure she’d identified the alpha. She sprang at him, claws raking and teeth snapping, driving him to the ground. Around her, she saw each member of her pack choose a member of the Fangs, dividing them so that the fights would happen one to one.
How are the wolves going to fare against the bears?
She didn’t know. She would have to hope that the bears’ superior size and strength would be more than a match for the wolves’ speed.
Time seemed somehow distorted by the fight. At some points, such as when the Fangs’ alpha got his teeth into her flank, Fiona felt as though each second was ticking by with agonizing slowness. Then the fight would sway and she would gain the upper hand, and things seemed to move very quickly.
She wasn’t aware of the moment when the lot around her went quiet.
She wasn’t aware of a point at which the bears and wolves around her disappeared to be replaced by their human counterparts.
She didn’t realize the fight was over until she was pinned to the ground, the hot muzzle of the Fangs’ alpha leering down at her, his claws raised and ready to rake her across the torso. To let her bleed out and die, as Joel had.
She closed her eyes, despairing, and thought of her child. Owen was right, she realized. I should have run away.
Then a voice rang out across the lot. “Tell him to stop.”
“Stop,” another voice said. There was agony in that tone. Anguish. Fiona opened her eyes, confused. “Stop. It’s over. Don’t hurt her.”
The Fangs’ alpha hesitated, then stepped back. and looked around. Fiona scrambled to her feet, ready for a renewed attack.
And stopped, stunned.
Whoever had spoken was right. It was over.
Each of the Feral Fangs, with the exception of their alpha, was held tight in the grip of one of the Wild Grizzlies or the Hell’s Wolves. Some of them were nursing wounds that looked extremely painful. One of the Fangs was white with pain as Carla worked to strap what was clearly a broken leg to a piece of wood she had found somewhere. He snarled as she worked, but he didn’t reach out to stop her.
They had beaten the Fangs, and beaten them soundly.
With no deaths, the fight was over.
She shifted back into her human form and ran over to stand beside Owen. He had an arm around Damon’s throat and looked ready to start choking him. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” His eyes were warm with concern.
“You’re bleeding.”
“We can deal with that in a minute.”
“You went before you were supposed to.”
“We can deal with that later too.” He jerked his head back toward the Fangs’ alpha, who was still in wolf form, hackles raised and watching the two of them.
Fiona turned back to him. “Are you ready to deal?” she asked.
He inclined his head.
“You walk away,” she said. “We walk away. You get off our land and out of the state of Montana, and you don’t come back. You can go to a hospital before you leave, if you’d like. We’ll allow that. But if you’re still here by morning, we’ll track you down. Do you doubt that we can?”
He shook his head. His eyes cut sideways to Damon, as if asking a question.
“Take him with you,” for all we care,” Owen said. “We don’t want him.” He released Damon and pushed him back over toward the Fangs’ alpha.
Another one of the Fangs—the second, if Fiona had to guess—spoke up. “We don’t want him either,” he said. “We let him stay because he gave us information, but it was never a long term arrangement.”
“Whatever,” Fiona said coldly. She turned to Damon. “You’re not welcome in Montana either. We don’t care if you’re with the Feral Fangs or not, but you can’t stay here.”
“You don’t speak for my pack,” Damon said, his voice a growl.
“Sure she does,” Owen said. “You got Joel killed, Damon. You sold us out to a pack that wanted to hunt us down. Fiona fought at our side, and so did the rest of the Hell’s Wolves. Who do you think we’re going to side with now?”
“We’re family,” Damon protested.
“Not anymore,” Owen said firmly. “That’s over. When you turned on us, we turned on you.”
“I THINK EVERYONE KNEW what was up when you said they could stay out late tonight,” Fiona teased Owen.
“I don’t care,” he growled, lifting her and tossing her gently onto the bed. “We’ve never done this indoors before, and I intend to enjoy it. If that means everyone else knows what we’re up to...well, it’s a small price to pay. Actually, it’s no price at all to pay. Nothing good was coming from keeping it a secret.”
“I agree with you there.” She smiled at the warmth of his skin against hers. It was very different, being naked together inside, where they could control the lighting, where she was surrounded by blankets and pillows instead of tree bark and dirt, where it was warm and there was no wind and no ambient noise of birds and squirrels.
It was so human.
They had taken the time to dress each other’s wounds, and Fiona had given fervent thanks for the quick healing shifters benefited from. By the time they’d gotten home, Owen’s injuries hadn’t been bleeding badly at all, and she had been comfortable wrapping his torso in bandages and forgoing the idea of stitches. She had lain facedown on the bed and allowed him to treat her own wounds, enjoying how gentle his hands could be.
They had always been so urgent with each other before. So rough. Now it felt as though they had all the time in the world, and Fiona luxuriated in it.
She closed her eyes as Owen kissed his way down the line of her jaw, up and over the rise of her breasts, and on down to the curve of her hip. “You almost got us killed today, you know,” she said softly. “Jumping out like that.”
“I saved us, too,” he murmured, his voice muffled by the flesh of her thigh. “I saved you. He had gotten the best of you. It’s thanks to me that the battle stopped when it did.”
“It’s thanks to everyone.”
“Mmm, no, you didn’t see it. The tide turned when I got the upper hand against Damon.”
“Mmm-hmm. Sure.” She rolled over him gently, pulling him up into a seated position so as not to put weight on his injuries. “I’m sorry you had to fight him,” she said quietly. “I meant to avoid that. I would have taken him, if things had gone according to plan.”
Owen shook his head. “I wanted him.”
“That must have been hard for you. Fighting your own packmate.”
“He’s no packmate of mine. Not anymore.”
“Still—”
“Stop talking about Damon and fuck me already,” he said, his voice a deliciously low growl.
She nodded and took him inside her, rocking her hips gently against his, resting her cheek against his shoulder. Their lovemaking had always been so intense, so frantic, but tonight it felt calm and comfortable and safe. It felt like coming home.
There were still unanswered questions between them, question about what the two packs would do now,, how they would move forward. There was still the baby to think of. Fiona badly wanted her child to have his or her father.
And I want him too, arching her body against Owen’s to take him deeper. I want him with me. I want us to be together. We fought a war together. Maybe it’s not too much to hope for that we might be able to live together in peace now that the war is over.
Her thoughts dissipated as Owen got his knees under him and began to fuck her harder, lifting her away from the mattress with every thrust. Soon she was gasping, head thrown back, as he gripped her hips tightly, holding her in place.
“Fiona,” he moaned.
“Don’t stop.”
“I love you. I fucking
love you.”
It should have been a surprise. It should have been a big deal, that moment. But she felt as if he was telling her something she had known all along. “I love you too,” she breathed against his ear, as every muscle in her body tightened.
And then his teeth were at her throat, nipping at her, then biting down, firm but careful. “Mine,” he mumbled, licking the wound carefully. “You’re mine.”
Fiona could barely breathe for wanting to come. She grabbed his hand, drew it between them, and rubbed against his palm. A moment later, his fingers went to work, stroking her deftly until she thought she would lose her mind.
She buried her face in his shoulder.
She made no conscious decision to act, but a moment later she tasted the tang of his blood on her tongue and knew she had marked him, just as he had marked her. She had left her alpha claim on his body, and he had left his on her.
They belonged to each other now. It was permanent, irrevocable.
And as this thought occurred to her, she bucked against him and came, her body trembling. “Owen,” she gasped, shuddering, clutching at the hand that continued to work her through her orgasm. “Owen!”
He groaned, and she felt him throb hard as he came too, his thighs clenching beneath her, his hand—remarkably—still at work—and then she was coming again, barely able to keep from screaming with the sheer pleasure of it.
She returned to herself several moments later, lying flat on her back and staring at the ceiling. Owen was stretched out on his stomach beside her, his cheek resting on his hands, watching her as she came down from her high.
“Are you all right?” he asked quietly.
“All right? Fuck. That was amazing.”
He smiled. “I think we’re going to have to stay,” he said.
“You are?”
“Yeah. I think we’re going to have to try to be a blended family.” He laughed. “If you’ll have us, I mean.”
Fiona smiled. “I can’t think of anything I’d like more.”
Chapter Nineteen
OWEN
Months later, Owen couldn’t quite believe how easy—how seamless—the transition had been.
“We’re staying, aren’t we?” Angus had said when he’d appeared at the breakfast table the morning after the fight. He’d been sporting an untreated scratch along his right cheek—a battle scar—and the mark from that scratch was still there. Owen supposed every time he looked at his brother, he would be reminded of the day it had been earned.
Percy, who had been spreading jam over a waffle, had looked up. He’d sought Fiona’s eyes for confirmation.
But it had been Owen who had given it. “Yes,” he said. “That is to say, I’m staying. Fiona’s having my baby, and I’m staying here to be a father to it. The rest of you have a choice. You’re my pack, my family, and I want you with me. I always will. But if you don’t want to stay, I’m not going to force you.”
“Of course we’re going to stay,” Dusty said. “None of us are Damon.”
“There’s a middle ground between staying here and selling us out to an enemy,” Owen had pointed out. “You could go back up north to the cabin there, if that was what you wanted to do. I trust everyone around this table,” he added, including Fiona’s wolves in his gaze. “I know that if anyone says they’re leaving, they’ll be doing so to make their own way, not to cause harm to our pack.
But the others were shaking their heads. “We’re staying,” Angus said. “We’re not going to abandon our alpha.”
“Riley? Nova?”
Riley nodded. “Us too,” she said. “There’s going to be a baby. We don’t want to miss that.”
Percy got to his feet. “I’m pretty sure I speak for everyone when I say you’re welcome here,” he said. “I know we didn’t all get along at first, but we’ve fought together as brothers now. We owe our lives to each other. I consider all of you a part of my family.”
Fiona had tears in her eyes. “You really mean that, Perce?”
“I just wish you would have said something about all this earlier,” he scolded. “We could have saved ourselves a lot of trouble.”
“Sure. Because you took it so well when you heard I was pregnant.”
But the two of them were smiling at each other. Everyone in the kitchen was smiling. And in that instant, Owen knew things were going to be all right.
Carla had delivered another stack of waffles to the table, and Owen had begun handing them out. Leo and Dusty had grappled over who was going to get the biggest one, and Wes and Angus had debated the merits of powdered sugar versus syrup. And suddenly, beautifully, the room had felt full of the warm energy that Owen was used to feeling when he sat down to meals with his pack.
With his family.
He hadn’t realized until that very moment how much he’d missed that feeling.
THEY HAD BEEN TO A doctor exactly once, early in the pregnancy, just to make sure the baby was healthy and there weren’t going to be any surprises.
But there was a surprise. A big one.
Owen supposed he should have expected it. After all, everything else that had happened since the day he had met Fiona had been surprising. Why should their pregnancy have been any different?
But when the doctor told them that Fiona was expecting twins, he felt his mouth drop open in shock.
They didn’t discuss it between themselves until they were back home, isolated in the bedroom they now shared. “Twins?” Owen said. “That’s unbelievable.”
“Oh, that’s unbelievable?” She raised her eyebrows. “That, but not the fact that you and I conceived in the first place?”
“I just mean...it seems so unlikely.”
“It seems completely likely. Lots of shifters have multiple births.” She cocked her head at him. “I’m sure some members of your pack were part of a litter.”
“Yes, okay, obviously. I was part of a litter myself,” he said. “But in order to carry a litter, you have to be an omega. An alpha shouldn’t be able to do it.”
“Well, it’s not a litter, she pointed out. “It’s just a plain case of multiples. Regular humans do it, so I definitely can. I probably have a little more propensity toward having multiples than humans do.”
“You’re really taking this in stride,” he said.
“I can’t believe you’re so shaken up by it.” She came to his side and wrapped her arms around him, and he could feel the way her body was beginning to change. Her stomach had swollen, and her breasts were larger. He thought her hips were widening too, though he was less sure about that. “Aren’t you happy?” she asked. “We’re going to have two babies.”
Owen imagined it. Two babies. Twins. One for each of them to hold in their arms. It would be more work, certainly, but it would also be twice as much fun. He thought about the joy of watching them grow up together, the little world they would create and inhabit together. He thought about how they would almost certainly become each other’s best friends and closest confidantes, and how one day, when they were old enough, they would lead a pack of their own.
That thought gave rise to a question he hadn’t thought of yet. “I wonder whether they’re going to be bears or wolves?”
“Wolves,” Fiona laughed. “Definitely.”
“What makes you say so?”
“Because the wolf gene is the dominant one. I’d think that the past several weeks with me would have taught you that much.”
He growled playfully at her. “You still think you’re dominant over me?”
“Think,” she scoffed. “I know I am.”
“That’s not what you were saying last night when I had you naked on the floor.” He grabbed both her wrists in one hand and pinned them above her head, and Fiona lost her breath to a gasp.
“Who’s dominant?” he asked her.
“I am,” she breathed.
Keeping her wrists carefully pinned, making sure not to hurt her even as he held her in place, he slid a hand down the front of her pa
nts. Two fingers found their way inside her, and he pressed the heel of his hand against her. “Who?”
She keened, rocking against him. She had been so sensitive lately, her body so primed to respond to his every touch. It was insanely hot.
“Who’s dominant?” he asked her once more.
“You,” she sobbed. “You, you.” She bent her knees to gain more friction and soaked his hand as she came.
EIGHT MONTHS HAD PASSED since that moment, almost to the day.
Owen came upon Fiona in the kitchen, making a sandwich. “You’re supposed to be in bed,” he scolded her lightly, taking the bread from her and wrapping it up to put away in the cupboard. “You’re supposed to be letting me know if there’s anything you need.”
“I know that’s what you think,” Fiona said lightly
“That’s what we agreed on.”
“Well, we didn’t agree so much as you said it and assumed I was going to go along with it. I don’t need to be on bed rest, Owen.”
He sighed. “You’re not going to let me take care of you at all, are you?”
“Why do you think I need taking care of?”
“Look at you.” He turned her in his arms. It was difficult—the pregnancy had left her absolutely massive, and he could hardly get his arms around her anymore. He ran his hands up the sides of her belly instead. “I don’t know how you even walk around without falling over.
“Impeccable balance,” she grinned. “Now will you please let me finish making my lunch?”
“Go back to bed. I’ll make it and bring it to you there.”
“You’re not my alpha, Owen,” she reminded him. It was something they’d taken to saying to each other, half in jest, every time one of them tried to boss the other around. “You can’t tell me what to do.”
Owen wasn’t in the mood for their usual game. “I’m not telling,” he said. “I’m asking, Fiona. Please go back to bed.”
“Why? I’m really fine, Owen.”
