Page 76 of Reclaiming Home

Rian and I stood in the yard, examining the space we had to use.

“I think a two to three car garage with doors that way,” he said, gesturing, “with the other end of the building acting as a large storage shed and a chicken coop could be doable. What do you think?” He looked at me expectantly.

I walked the area where the barn had stood and nodded slowly. “I think it would be easier to have the coop attached to the garage like that. Keeping the chickens warm in the winter and all that. Of course if we were to build it in the back somewhere, that’d work too, but this way we wouldn’t need to figure out the electricity for a separate coop for heating.”

“That’s what I was thinking.”

I glanced up toward the roof of the big, imposing house that no longer intimidated me in the least like it had when I first saw it. “Alpha? You there?”

Rian grinned.

“What’s up?” Brodie asked from somewhere out of view.

“Big garage with storage shed and chicken coop, yes or no?”

“Where the barn was?”

“Yeah.”

“Sounds good to me.” Then, a couple of beats later, “Lina says her dad might be able to fit it in his schedule in the spring.”

“Awesome!” I called back and high-fived Rian.

Our first full moon as a whole pack was tomorrow night, and this evening, Brodie and Holden would be going to visit the Ramirez pack forty-five minutes away from our land.

They shouldn’t be gone for long and they wouldn’t stay there for dinner, so we were still going to eat together when they got back. Holden was invited to stay with us tonight, but Brodie wasn’t sure if he would.

Tomorrow, he would ask Holden, Ben, and Max to be his betas in a more official capacity. There wasn’t any ceremony or anything, just a question and an answer, normally during a full moon evening to give it all a bit more weight, Brodie had told me.

The happiness that had been swirling around Brodie ever since the guys came back was palpable still. His happiness made me elated, lighter somehow.

“You know how we went shopping this morning?” Rian asked.

He and Carys had gone on a spree and I wasn’t going to touch the whole thing with a thirty foot pole.

“Uh-huh,” I replied as we started toward the backyard.

“I bought us some more protection. Brodie okayed it.”

I stopped. “What did you buy exactly?”

“Rian!” Brodie called from the roof. “Get the first aid kit!”

We burst into movement, retracing our steps as quickly as we could. Rian practically vanished behind the corner while I ran after him on my human feet. Damn vampire speed.

By the time I made it to the kitchen, Brodie was sitting Lina down on the island where the best light was right above.

Her temple was bleeding, and she looked annoyed as fuck, but also a bit startled at the attention, maybe?

“What is it with this house and head bumps?” I asked casually.

Carys grinned, but she seemed shaken. Lina noticed and reached a hand behind herself, which Carys took.

“It’ll be fine,” Rian said, sounding a bit absent as he fiddled with the first aid kit. “We really need a suture kit here.”

Before I could ask, Brodie explained, “Rian is a doctor.”

“Iwasa doctor, about seventy years ago,” he corrected.

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