Page 59 of Possessive Mate

“Rise, Elena, as one of the pack!” Jack ordered, and Elena followed the instruction of her new alpha, rising to find that Hanson had moved to stand beside her. “Rise and meet your mate! May you share many long, happy years together and help our pack grow in number!”

Again, the pack began to howl, and this time Elena added her own voice to it, howling louder than she ever had before as she fell into Hanson’s arms.

Never in her wildest dreams had she ever believed that life would ever feel this good again. The small stone of guilt she felt lying heavy in her stomach as she remembered Jason and their child was growing smaller by the day.

She would always love them, she would always miss them, but somehow, she knew they did not begrudge her the life she was building for herself now. It was as if she felt them walking beside her even now as she was welcomed by her new pack.

“Are you okay?” Hanson asked, stroking her cheek with his thumb, and it was only then that she realized she was weeping.

For once, she smiled and said, “Yes. I just never in a million years believed I could be this happy!”

Hanson’s own eyes brimmed with tears then as he cupped her face in both his hands and kissed her for all the pack to see. Their howling only grew in happiness, welcome and excitement as they looked on. And when their kiss ended, Elena found she was crying harder than ever.

“I think this calls for a pack shift!” Jack called, and voices were raised in fast agreement. All around her, the members of the pack began to strip off their clothes. Likely it would have been a strange sight for the eyes of a human, but to Elena, it was yet another sign of welcome. To be so vulnerable, to shift before each other in such a way, was a sign of trust that she would cherish all her days.

“Shall we?” Hanson asked, taking hold of her hand to give it a squeeze. He smiled at her with clear love and affection in his eyes, even as he used his free hand to begin unbuttoning his shirt.

“Nothing would make me happier,” she assured him, and was surprised when she felt hands at her back, undoing the knots of her dress for her.

Glancing over her shoulder, she smiled at Bonnie and said, “Thanks.”

There was no greater honor than to be helped by the mate of the alpha. It was a shock to the system to realize that not only had she found a mate in Nightstar, but she had also found a friend—more than one, in fact, as Layla was also awaiting her, standing naked close by as she waited for the shift.

Together, as one, the pack transformed, taking on their wolf forms to streak into the woods, dancing and playing and acting like pups. Only those too old, too young or too weak to shift remained behind, but with an entire pack of shifted wolves on the loose, there could be no danger in Nightstar tonight. There was only to be celebration.

And Elena let go of all the pain and stress of the last few months as she shifted, chasing her mate into the woods, for once, without a care in the world.

6 months later

It was pure agony. There was nothing else like it. Birthing a werewolf baby was excruciating. Humans had it bad enough, but with a mother’s hormones still coursing through an infant’s body and the threat of their being able to shift inside her, it was terrifying, agonizing, and long.

By the time the first twin entered into the world, Elena was so bone-weary that she didn’t think she could go on any further.

“Come on, Elena, you can do this,” Bonnie assured her, wiping her head with a damp cloth as she had been doing religiously since the labor started. That was whenever Elena wasn’t fighting her own shift, her own wolf’s need to protect itself from the pain. “You have a healthy baby girl, Elena, now you just need to gather all of your strength and push again!”

Elena wasn’t sure she had any strength left to give. Glancing around the room that had been practically stripped bare save for the mattress to lie upon, Elena searched for her strength, unable to find it.

“Where is Hanson? I need Hanson!” Elena screamed. Men were useless. They were never around when you needed them.

“We have sent for him,” Layla assured her as she appeared at the side of the mattress with a cup in hand. “He’ll be here soon, I’m sure of it.”

“Why, why did he have to go on patrol today of all days?” Elena growled through gritted teeth as she felt another contraction coming on. “I can’t do this without him!”

“You already have once,” Bonnie protested, gripping Elena’s hand tightly. The scent of blood filled the air, not only Elena’s, but also Bonnie’s and even Layla’s, too. The two she-wolves were utterly against leaving her alone. No matter how many times she lashed out at them with tooth and claw, no matter how much she ordered them out of the room, they remained by her side.

“Drink this,” Layla urged, holding the cup towards her lips. “It’ll help give you a little extra strength.”

“What is it?” Elena growled, glancing down into the cup. There was a foul-smelling liquid inside, one that made her gut churn.

“Does it really matter?” Layla asked, cocking her head.

Elena knew she was right. In that moment, she would have given anything to see her second child safely into the world.

She grabbed the cup from Layla’s hand and drained it, trying hard not to gag on the sour-tasting drink.

She dashed the cup away, glad that it was plastic and not glass as it bounced off the nearest wall.

“Oh, I can’t do this!” she said as her claws elongated once more with the contraction that was trying to eject the baby from her womb. The moment it started to pass, she glanced to the baby already wrapped in its blanket on a pile of pillows across the room, as far from her as possible in order to keep it safe from her lashing out. “Is she alright? She has not cried!”

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