My Alphas: The Complete Series (32 page)

When Cass found out Kale died protecting her and so had at least nine other Arctos pack werewolves, she’d been wracked by guilt. Kale, who she’d been friendly with but at the same time hadn’t treated as a true friend because Nia and her were always at each others’ throats. Making that guilt worse was the fact Cass only had a passing knowledge of the other werewolves who’d died. They’d been background faces looking at her as she crossed the den, hunters who provided the food she ate, werewolves who sacrificed themselves for her and the pack.

It was a bitter lesson to learn about family and to find
you
were the one surrounded by walls, keeping their love and affection out.

And so in the days and weeks following the battle, Cass had gotten to know every werewolf in the pack. Once she took on the role of Pack Mate, her confidence grew and the awkwardness she’d felt vanished. It had only ever been hers and the werewolves merely reflected it back at her.

Time moved on swiftly after that, Kita returning from Hinton a few weeks later and reporting Werewolf Safe World had virtually collapsed. They had been using Carcer and he them but as soon as they found out he was dead, they panicked. To add to their problems, Edon delivered the phone to Sheriff Harmony personally and he soon took action, arresting a pilot and three members of Werewolf Safe World for flying over the den and taking photos. The bald-headed militia leader fled and so did many of the fools that were following him, including “Melanie” who had vanished without a trace. Kita wisely delayed enacting Edon’s pre-thrall instruction to kill the militia leader (saying she hadn’t got to it yet rather than being outright disobedient). Werewolf Safe World still existed, the hateful men who supported their genocide of werewolves still around but there was no way they’d ever be brave enough to march a militia out of Hinton again. Not with armed werewolves ahead of them and an angry Sheriff behind them.

Cass felt the baby move and she sighed in relief, finally able to pee.

After the battle and the quick collapse of Werewolf Safe World, all the bullshit had stopped on a dime. No more dead humans being dumped on their land. No planes flying over. Even the game came back (the humans had been poisoning them in an effort to starve the werewolves out). Like all grand conspiracies, there were still giant holes. When had Carcer allied with the humans? What was his grand plan? Just to kill Arctos and take the land? Who were the eight werewolves who’d first attacked them? Were they kidnapped from some other area and forced to fight? It was clear some had gotten away with doing bad things but at the very least it had finished.

People still came wandering out into the wild to find werewolves but they weren’t armed and they certainly weren’t spies. They were the same as Cass had been. People who didn’t fit and wanted to fit somewhere else.

Cass finished, cleaned up, and hoisted herself up off the toilet. She took one step before a warm trickle of liquid ran down her leg and another Braxton-Hicks contraction hit her.

“Oh no,” Cass said aloud.

The contractions were real.

The baby was coming.

*

Edon paced, breathing heavily.

He and Rey had been banished to an adjoining room after six hours of being by Cass’ side. Both Alphas were there to help but they had little idea what that entailed outside giving her water. Generally they were getting in Vara’s way, snarling at each other and she’d ordered them outside, threatening to crack their heads together.

Now they were stuck in this side room together, hearing Cass groan and sometimes yell, feeling like there was a battle going on but having no enemy to attack, no action to take.

It was driving Edon insane.

“Stop walking around like that,” he muttered at Rey, who was pacing as he was.

“I don’t obey your instructions,” Rey replied with a growl.

Both of them kept pacing, keeping an eye on the other.

Edon glared at Rey, wanting to smack him one just for existing.

Since Carcer’s defeat, life in the pack had been a type of wonderful. The Turo pack stayed away and so did Utson. Huri had healed and was still Alpha but there was gossip amongst the scouts that his time might soon be up. The Utson pack had seen their Alpha put to the ground and so his authority was fraying. The human threat receded and they had their beautiful little Pack Mate to take to bed as often as they could. Game returned and life took on a werewolf perfection: hunting, fucking, Pack Mate and pack, peace and happiness.

The only thorn in Edon’s side was Rey’s refusal to speak of the day when the cub was born. It could only belong to one of them and Edon wanted it very clear no matter what, they would both be its father and the next cub would belong to the other Alpha. But Rey wouldn’t agree nor talk about it on any level and Edon secretly held the belief he was hoping the cub was his and then he could try to ensure the next one was too.

“What will you do if the cub is yours?” Edon asked, his voice bitter but not caring enough to stop it.

“Then the pack will have a new cub,” Rey replied.

“And if the cub is mine?”

Rey stopped in place and turned to face Edon.

Edon tensed, looking at Rey, waiting for the telltale muscle twitches that indicated he was about to leap.

But he didn’t leap.

“Then the pack will have a new cub,” Rey said.

Edon went to say something else but then the pitch of Cass’ cries rose up and she called out to them.

“Alphas!”

They ran for the door.

*

All Rey could smell was blood.

Cass’ legs were streaked red and she was sobbing, her head to the side and face pressed up against the pillow.

“What is happening?” he demanded.

He saw Vara moving with a bundle of bloody towels. She unfolded them on the end of the bed and Rey saw there was a tiny body wrapped up in them.

A girl.

Purple.

Not breathing.

He saw her chest move but she took no breath nor made no sound and he knew instantly what was happening. The same thing had happened to one of his step-sisters.

“She has flesh in her throat,” he said, pushing Vara aside.

He reached down and into the baby’s mouth with the tip of his little finger. There, a string of something, amniotic sac or something else, stuck. He moved it and the small body coughed and choked and a tiny clot of red came flying out.

The baby took an enormous gasp of air before letting out a piercing wail. Within another breath she was pink rather than purple.

Rey picked up the girl in his hands, Edon standing by his side and together they looked at their daughter.

“Is she okay?” Cass asked from the bed.

Rey moved around the bed and laid the screaming girl on Cass’ chest. She quieted and then made a crawling movement, toward her breast.

“We have a daughter,” Cass whispered.

*

Eight months later…

“Da-da-da-da-daa.”

“Mama. Ma-ma. Mama,” Cass said. “Say mama, Elise.”

Elise looked from father to father and then pursed her lips.

“Dada!” Then she laughed and hit her chubby hands on the grass.

Cass saw Edon smiling as he watched them.

“You think it’s funny do you?”

She looked across at Rey who was lounging on the grass on the other side, making faces at Elise.

“How about you?” Cass asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Dada!” Elise said.

Cass ducked her face down to Elise’s. “Ma-ma. Say it once. Try it out.”

Elise looked around and then blew a raspberry.

Cass smiled and looked away from her daughter and over at the cabin. It had taken a long time for this moment to come along and she supposed she should be watching it but somehow even what could be a momentous step forward for werewolves everywhere was less interesting than her daughter and her two Alphas.

The inspector came down the steps and then waved at them. He knew better than to approach two Alphas, their mate and their cub without explicit permission. Cass waved him over. The two Alphas ignored him.

He stopped six feet away.

“It passes the checklist. So did the one over on Turo pack land. Congratulations. I’ll put it in and then you can take it from there.”

“Thank you,” Cass said sweetly. She then nodded to Nia who came walking across stark naked. The inspector’s eyes nearly fell out of his head.

“Please take him back to Hinton now,” Cass asked.

“Certainly Pack Mate,” Nia replied and then gave an over-the-top wink at Cass. It was a three-day trip back to Hinton and Cass made sure the inspector would see (but not touch) plenty of beautiful naked werewolf on the way back. Every little bit of pressure helped.

She turned to Edon.

“We’re almost there. The territory is close to being declared for werewolf only and not human.”

Edon smiled back at her but didn’t reply.

It was too beautiful an afternoon to worry about legal documents and claiming land. Yes, her idea of convincing Javcer to also build a cabin on his land and make the same applications had worked, amazingly so. The government couldn’t ignore it and finally, seventeen months after Cass first found out she was pregnant, they were closer than they ever had been before to taking possession of the land.

There was still a long way to go, Cass knew, between a checklist and a formal declaration and there were still many humans opposed to werewolves altogether.

She had an idea about that too but it could wait.

Elise yawned and reached forward, trying to grab Rey’s arm. It was just out of reach and she made a frustrated noise and then sat back. Vara had told her most werewolf cubs shifted by the time they were eight months old so it wasn’t long now and it usually came because their human form still hadn’t learned to crawl. They’d get frustrated and then shift.

Cass picked up Elise and stood up, brushing grass off her legs.

She was happy for her baby to stay on two legs for a little longer. Yola and Jara were mischievous little cubs who she absolutely loved but they were crazy. The idea of chasing around another cub who no doubt would be getting into everything could wait.

“Ready for bed, miss?” she asked her daughter.

Elise yawned and looked down at her fathers.

Cass suspected they had pledged not to reveal which of them was the biological father (annoyingly). They’d claimed they couldn’t tell, that Elise’s scent was all her own. Cass trusted them but kept looking at Elise and then Rey and Edon, trying to work out which features belonged to which Alpha. Some days she was convinced she was Rey’s (like when she was kicking and screaming and generally making a fuss for no reason) and other days she was sure she was Edon’s.

Cass figured eventually some genetics would kick in properly and she’d know which Alpha was the biological father.

Not that it mattered at all. They both were fathers and having grown up with a terrible dad, Cass had no concept of how good it could be until she’d seen how they behaved. They doted on Elise, each with their own style, absolutely in love.

Cass looked down at Edon and Rey, both lounging on the grass.

“I’m putting the daughter to bed,” she told them before walking away to the den.

“Then I’m putting myself to bed,” she called back over her shoulder, feeling the bottom hem of her dress swishing against her legs.

After a moment she heard the Alphas’ footsteps behind her.

***

The End.

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Hi, I’m Emily Cantore.

I worked for years as a writer and editor doing all those writing things people don’t notice (packaging text, blurbs, websites, catalogs). Then one day eReading exploded. Soon every big business out there was selling eBooks and authors had a new way to reach readers - all without anyone standing in their way.

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