Page 81 of Outnumbered

She laughed and nodded. “I do understand where you are coming from. I think once you move out to your land and have your tasks to perform out there that you’ll feel better. It should only be another month before the house is ready.”

With the pack having property now, I could sell my land and use that money wisely. That was the perfect idea!

“Do you know a real estate agent?” I asked.

She smiled wide. “I’m married to one, why do you ask?”

“What? Who is the real estate agent?”

“Fox. He got his license because he was bored and occasionally helps people find houses that are moving out of the pack areas.”

“Well, I was thinking about selling my property,” I explained.

Her eyes widened and she leaned close to me to whisper, “Are you planning to agree to be mated to the four gentlemen who have been courting you?”

“I am planning to live on the pack lands,” I said instead of answering her, but gave her a wink.

She squealed, jumped to her feet, and started dancing around in a circle.

“What’s got Mom so excited?” Caleb asked.

Grabbing my hand, she dragged me inside of the house and upstairs to her room. “Okay, if you’re going to do it, you need to do it in an epic way.”

“They haven’t talked amongst themselves yet,” I reminded her. “Two of them haven’t confirmed if they want to be mated to me.”

She scoffed and rolled her eyes. “I can tell you with one thousand percent confidence that all four of them want to be mated to you. Now, how are you going to reveal it? When? Where?”

“Um, honestly, I was going to wait until we defeated the H.E.”

“That could be years from now, Ember. You can’t let enemies ruin your personal life.”

She did have a point. “What about next month?” I suggested.

“Is next month an important date of some kind?” she asked.

“It’s the one-year anniversary of meeting Caleb and when we are supposed to move into the pack house,” I explained.

She gasped. “A year already? Wow, it felt like so much less time. Okay, that’s actually pretty perfect. I’ll drop a hint that it’s your one-year anniversary and find out where they plan to take you. Then, we can come up with the plan on how you can reveal it to them. Oh, man this is going to be so much fun! We should include Leona, too. What do you think?”

“I’d love any help you two are willing to provide me. I’m a bit out of my depth when it comes to this. I was just going to tell them that I’ve decided to accept them,” I admitted with a shrug.

“Oh! Oh, I need to get you a crown made. Oh, man. It’s got to be even more epic than the one Nico was designing for me.”

“A crown?” I asked, eyes wide.

“You’re going to be Queen of the Hybrids, remember?”

My throat dried up and I stared in wide-eyed horror. “Um, no,” I squeaked, “I hadn’t remembered that part of this.”

She patted my hand. “It’ll be okay. You’ll adapt quickly.”

“I can’t be a queen,” I said and stood, pacing in front of her bed. “I’m not queen material.”

“You are going to be a perfect queen, Ember. All you have to do is support Caleb and look out for your people, something you already do.”

“Queen?” I squeaked. This was absolutely insane. I was just a nobody. A random discarded girl her parents didn’t want.

Jolie set her hands on my arms, stopping my pacing. “Deep breath. Listen to me, you’re not going to be thrown into this blindly. You’ve got me and you’ve got the acceptance of all of the kings already. We all view you as our daughter already, so you’ll be fine. Okay?”

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