Filed To Story: Secret with Betas Daughter: Skylar Story Series
We still don’t have the pups here, but Gwen checked in with Kyle yesterday and said they were training hard, keeping the warriors on their toes and are ready to prove they can come home and help keep the pack safe. It made us laugh to hear some of the things that they are getting up to. I miss all of the little voices playing, yelling and just consuming the pack in their laughter. We finished the dorms first since it is the most centrally located, it’s housing everyone who is working for us and we can feed and care for them more easily. It was also the most simple to build and furnish. Martha has returned to her diner which is surprisingly, still standing. She won’t let any of us in yet, not even to help. She wants to wait until the ‘whole pack has returned.’ We just laugh at her, but no one messes with or crosses Martha. It’s fun to see the pack returning to life.
After a long day of building and moving more people into their new homes I showered and changed into comfortable clothes. Waiting for my mates to get back from the jobs they have all taken on, I am just lounging in the hammock that Oliver set up for me on the beach staring out at the water. He built it big enough so I could lay out here by myself, but more importantly, with any one of them and they would fit much better than ‘the tiny little one’ I had in Ava’s garden.
I am totally in love with this beach house. I don’t think I am going to share it with anyone but my mates when everything is all said and done. It’s only downside is also it’s upside. It is so far from everyone else. love having the guys all to myself and the sound of the ocean in the background is perfect. It helps me feel calm when my mind starts to wander and I remember I am only seventeen, just a kid. Some of these pack members were around when I was born and now I have to help lead them and keep them safe and happy. I am supposed to help teach and guide these people, help make decisions that affect all of them, and that is a scary thought. Am I ready? Are any of us ready?
I rub my eyes. This pup thing is going to make me a little bit crazy too. I know that my friends are just giving me a hard time, but the rest of the pack members that are here just assume that since I am mated to the guys that we will start popping out kids any day now. I have had to get creative with diverting those conversations when they come up. What they don’t know is my family’s history with pregnancy and how really very serious and scary it is. I need to have a good long conversation with Uncle Reggie about it, but that just seems super weird. So, Elena and Gentry have been my go between with him so far which makes the conversations about pregnancy and delivery so much less awkward. It will need to happen eventually. I need to know firsthand what to expect so I can prepare. That seems to be the consensus in the women who lived through the delivery. The witches are coming up with a plan that sounds completely plausible with spells and herbs. But I haven’t even had my heat yet and I hope the Moon Goddess hears me and will just let me be for a little while longer. After all the recent problems and what happened to my mom, I think Mateo is just as afraid of me having pups as my mates are. They still don’t like to talk about what the first female goes through.
“What are you thinking about so hard out here, Bitty?” I heard his footsteps, but he still manages to startle me.
“Can you hear my inner thoughts going crazy as much as my emotions?” I giggle as Oliver picks me up and lays in the hammock with me sprawled on his chest.
“You have a look, that’s for sure, but sometimes your more intrusive thoughts reach out to me. What’s up?”
I rest my stacked hands on his chest, propping my chin on the backs looking up at him. “I was just thinking about how young we are and we are supposed to be responsible for all of these people. And wondering if we are ready?] leave out the part about having pups. He gets quiet for days when we talk about the risks. It has also been a huge topic with Jena and Sierra running around hormonal and showing. Any pack member anywhere will talk about pups all day long if you let them.
“I don’t know if anyone is ready for this, really. Even if you are born into it like Cam and Kota. At least they knew what the expectation was. I know I was planning on being the next Gamma, protecting the Luna and maybe, hopefully, becoming one of her best friends. I didn’t plan on falling in love with her and then getting lucky enough to be one of her mates.”
My breath caught. “You were in love with me before we were mates?”
His rumbling laugh shook my whole body. “According to everyone else it was obvious. Apparently I was only good at hiding it from you. I thought you might be mated to the twins, that match seemed pretty cut and dry. So I figured when I found my mate it wouldn’t be a problem because that part of my focus would belong to her. Turns out the Moon Goddess likes me a little and gave me to you along with the twins.”
He wrapped his big arms around my waist, holding me close.
“When did you know you had feelings for me?” It’s been years and he never said a thing. I guess I understand why, kind of.
“We all thought that maybe the attraction was because you were the only other female in our group since Sam and Sierra hit it off immediately. You were one of us, it wasn’t about status for you. Then the trials came and that was seriously the second worst experience of my life. I broke one of the chair handles in the Alpha’s box.”
“What?! What do you mean?””
He laughed again. “Yeah, none of us did well watching you go through trials even though we knew what was going to happen. Lucas gave us a heads up right before the trial started. Now, I think it was to keep us in our seats and not to try and jump in to save you. Then the threat came and you had that scare in Ava’s room. I knew the moment I kissed you I was f*cked. There was going to be no other girl for me.”
His stormy eyes swirled with emotion, looking at me but not seeing me. “Then the night of the mating ball happened. That was the absolute worst moment for me, for all of us really, but I got to you first.”
He took another deep slow breath and it shuddered out, but didn’t look away from me. “You couldn’t open your eyes and there was blood everywhere and you told me… told me to… to just let you die…”
tears rolled out of his eyes as he took a shuddering breath under me. “I almost didn’t get to you in time.”
He squeezed my hips and pressed me tighter to him, like he was back in that moment and couldn’t let me go.
I sat up quickly, straddling his torso. Cupping both of his cheeks in my hands, I forced him to look at me. “What was your response to that?” I raised my eyebrows.
“Never.”
It was almost a whisper.
“You did get to me in time and you are the reason I am still here.”
I give him a gentle kiss putting all of my feelings for him into it. But I don’t linger, he needs to process this too.
He growls low, pulls me back in, and he deepens the kiss, but it isn’t hurried or dominating like usual. I want him to feel what I feel for him through this kiss. I have no idea how he feels my emotions, but I think about opening that pathway and my wolf is reaching out to his, strengthening their bond. Soon the kiss turns from sweet to needy.
My hands rake through his thick hair as his hands run under my shirt up my back. I gasp and pull away. I can’t help it. My scars are a part of me. I’m not ashamed of them anymore, but something about them being touched pulls me out of whatever moment I am in. Then a thought dawns on me.
“Why did you never know what Kaley was doing to me? Since you seem to be in tune with my more extreme emotions.”
He doesn’t pull away or drop his hands. He actually starts to trace them more. “Actually, I did, but I didn’t know what was going on at the time. Do you know why I started getting tattoos in the first place?”
I hesitate. “No.”
“Shortly after we shifted for the first time, I got these. I never knew why. I think I do now.”
“What are you talking about?” He takes my hand and places it on his bicep where an ornate tribal tattoo wraps around. He continues to glide his other hand up and down my back.
“This one,” He moves my finger so it traces over a triangular shaped scar toward the back of his arm, while he finds a similar pattern on my back. “Came first. Then this one,” He traces two identical lines that have slight curve, both with my hand on his arm and his other hand on my back. “Showed up a few days later. And then these were the last.”
Six little jagged slashes about two inches long each. I remember this one, because it felt like they used a barbed tip on the end of the whip that time.
New Book: Returned To Make Them Pay
On her wedding anniversary, Alicia is drugged and stumbles into the wrong room—straight into the arms of the powerful Caden Ward, a man rumored never to touch women. Their night of passion shocks even him, especially when he discovers she’s still a virgin after two years of marriage to Joshua Yates.