Page 78 of Instant Bond

In that moment, it felt as though everything from my past that had been chaining me down and holding me back evaporated into the air like steam on a hot day. Whatever either of us had been, or whatever had happened to us just wasn’t important anymore. I wasn’t an orphaned teen dad who’d had to wait tables just to barely make ends meet anymore. I was Karter Morrison’s mate. We had one beautiful, amazing kid together, and pretty soon we’d have two. To start, anyway.

I pulled his face down to mine for a long, deep kiss. He wrapped his arms around my waist, pulling me into him. We both forgot where we were, lost in the feeling of each other, until I heard a disgusted noise from behind us. I whipped around to see Ty making a melodramatic expression of repulsion.

“Can you guys puh-leezehurry up!? Mrs. Farrah says we can’t open the cookies until you come back!”

I giggled, biting my lip. “Sorry, baby. We’ll be right in.”

He sighed the sigh of a child who valued cookies far more than kissing, before marching off.

“We better go back inside before he starts an anti-kissing crusade,” Karter remarked, grinning.

“Sounds like it,” I said. Part of me, a big part, wanted to stay out for just a few more minutes, wallowing in Karter’s love and affection. But I threaded my fingers through his and let him lead me back in. It was only fair.

After all, we had the rest of our lives for that.

TY

WARM RAYS OFsun beamed down on my skin, and the sounds of kids’ laughter and splashing flowed into my ears. The tangy mineral scent of sunscreen wafted around in the air, right up into my nose.

Summer was awesome for everybody, but I was pretty sure it was more awesome for me than most. Basically every aspect of my life was more awesome than it was for most. Not a flex, just a statement of fact.

My final year of high school was done and over with, and I’d already been accepted to my first choice college. It was close, so I wouldn’t need to live on campus, a huge relief to my clingy, hovering parents. Most of my friends were scrambling to attend college out of state, but I had nothing to run away from. A lot of their parents had pushed them to go into certain fields, but mine had never pressured me.

I’d nab a bachelor’s in biology, and throw in zoology courses for good measure. I wasn’t exactly sure yet where I would go for my doctorate in veterinary medicine, since I’d need to find somewhere that offered avian treatment curriculum, but I’d cross that bridge when I got there. Eventually, when I was old and worn out from a trillion hours of schooling and internships and residency, I’d open my own private practice. In other words, I would be a veterinarian for exotic fowl. Ducks and geese.

“Ty?” My omega dad waved a hand in front of my face to get my attention. “Did you hear me?”

“Ah, no, sorry,” I apologized, grinning. “I was kind of spacing out, sorry.”

“I asked if you want a glass of this lemonade.”

“Yeah, I’ll take one.”

Our pool was huge, built into a giant deck with tables and chairs shaded by umbrellas and an actual bar my parents kept alcohol and fruit and stuff in to make cocktails or juice drinks while we all lounged out here.

My alpha dad, or Pop as I’d gotten into the habit of calling him after my sister had started as a toddler, stood behind him as he sliced up a lemon. His muscular arms were around my dad’s waist, but his attention was on my sisters in the pool. They were great swimmers, but he was pretty protective of us.

When my dad hissed and dropped the knife, letting it clatter to the surface of the bar, my pop’s attention was yanked down to a small cut on his finger. A tiny droplet of blood surfaced there.

“You’re hurt?” He asked in a demanding voice, as if my dad had accidentally sliced his arm off with the tiny paring knife.

“Not really,” Dad answered him with a light laugh, wiggling his still intact fingers as proof. “It’s just a little nick.”

“I’ll get a bandage for you,” he insisted. “Ty, watch your sisters.”

“Yeah, Pop,” I agreed, but knew I would only glance over to them every once in awhile. Their constant shrieks of laughter were a pretty good indication they probably weren’t drowning. Once he was in the house, I tilted my head with a grin. “Should I call an ambulance?”

My dad giggled, shaking his head. When he laughed like that, he looked really young. “You know how he is.”

“Yeah, I know.”

When you were a kid, all adults were big. I’d never really understood how small and delicate my dad was, until I’d hit puberty and presented as an alpha. Now at 5’11, I was alreadymore than half a foot taller than him. It hadn’t occurred to me back then, when it was just the two of us, how scary it must have been for him to do everything all alone. But if he had been scared, he’d never shown it to me.

I didn’t remember a lot of my childhood from before my pop had come. But I remembered everything getting way better after that, and my dad pretty much never being sad anymore. They were inseparable now, and hardly ever argued about anything.

I hoped that when I found my fated omega, I could make them as happy and secure as my pop made my dad. Not that I was really in the market or anything. As nice as it seemed, I kind of wanted to have a life first before all that.

My dad sighed as a cool breeze whipped through, stirring his bangs. “We should have a barbecue soon. We’ll invite everyone.”

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