Page 28 of The Alpha Warrior's Mate

And spoil Dean, they did. By the time we opened all the presents, I was pretty sure we had enough diapers to last a decade. We also had more adorable outfits than the local mall and so many cute stuffed animals. It was too much and yet somehow simultaneously perfect.

“Cake time!” Jack announced.

I thought he meant the cake on the table—the one that said, “Welcome Dean” with little blue bears and wolves around the edges. But the next thing I knew, he was putting a cake shaped like a Pop-Tart in front of my mate, who nearly fell out of his chair laughing.

“You made me a Pop-Tart cake?”

“Yep.” Jack grinned.

Hammer put a little cake in front of me, shaped the same way. “This is for little Pop-Tart. Only probably you should eat it, Clay, since you’re the one providing him his food—it’s almost the same thing.”

I wasn’t going to argue with any logic that gave me an entire cake.

Everyone took huge slices of the big cake, while we ate our personal ones, and I looked around, so amazed by the family I’d found here.

I met the most amazing alpha in this world, the one I thought held my whole heart. Funny how fatherhood changes you. When our son was born, the two of them carried my heart together and it had somehow grown, the love I had multiplying.

And I had friends—friends who loved me more like a brother than just a random person to hang out with. The people in this room, they were more my den than the actual den I’d grown up with, and I couldn’t be happier about it.

“I love you, mate.” I leaned into his side. “Thank you for stumbling into my office that day.”

He kissed the top of my head. “It was my best wrong turn ever.”

Epilogue

King

One of the things we made sure to do on a fairly regular basis was to bring the omegas from the warehouse to the shelter Jack ran. Plans were in the works to extend the building to accommodate more omegas. As great as the warehouse was, it didn’t really have room for everybody to shift, and that wasn’t fair to anyone.

My lion hated to be cooped up, and some of the omegas had beasts significantly larger than mine. We had quite a wide array of shifter varieties between the two places. On days when we all shifted, it looked like a mass zoo escape.

Today was one of the days we all gathered together to eat, shift, and catch up on life. I’d spent the first part grilling hot dogs with Hammer. Each of us picked a different part of the meal to make. Hammer and I called dibs on grilling first because, well, it was easiest.

Mav picked salads, Tyrus picked breads and condiments, and on and on it went. We didn’t want Jack and the people working with him now to feel like they had to do everything, so this worked. And honestly, it was kind of fun.

One of the best parts about working the grill was that I got to interact with everybody because they all wanted food. Today it was especially great because it helped keep my mind busy and distracted—focusing on something other than the fact that I needed to leave for a mission soon. As in another hour or two.

Jeremy had tried to take the mission himself, saying it was only right, but I laughed so hard. He was the first to jump in and say fathers shouldn’t be the ones doing the jobs, and yet there he was attempting to take over again.

“You’re the one who’s a new dad. It’s time to step aside. Let me do it.”

He didn’t love it—that wasn’t who he was—but he agreed. We were the only ones who knew what was about to happen.

I suspected that with all that went down recently, we’d been discovered for our double-crossing. But nope. Jeremy using his fake name worked significantly better than anyone could’ve imagined. We were lucky the baddies were also too lazy to dig beyond surface level. At least that group had. Who knew what I was walking into.

We’d said we would be more open, not hide what we were doing and, in theory, that was the best plan. But this mission was pretty cut-and-dried and of the variety that it was best to keep it on a need-to-know basis. At least, that’s what I told myself as I lied to pretty much everybody. The only reason Pop-Tart knew anything was because he got the call too. I wish he hadn’t. This was a burden better carried alone.

Now that the hot dogs were done and I was eating one of the thousands of cookies on the buffet, it was starting to feel real and almost time to go. I didn’t love what I was going to have to do, but better me than anyone else.

“Can you hold him for a second?” Clay held baby Dean in his arms.

“Absolutely.” I set my cookie down and grabbed my nephew.

“Thanks. I gotta pee.”

That had been Clay’s new joke ever since that night. There was nothing funny about that evening—it had been terrifying for all involved—but if making little jokes helped him process that trauma, I was here for it every single time.

He jogged away, and I looked down at the sleeping nephew in my arms.

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