Page 5 of The Brotherhood

CHAPTER 2

Surprise-Surprise

The small boat cut through the murky waters, the hum of the motor the only sound besides the steady splash of the current against the hull.

The swamp stretched wide around them, moonlight catching on the thick mist rolling low over the surface. Fetch sat near the back, one hand steady on the tiller, the other curled around his phone.

His little Lucy sat beside him, curled into a ball under the oversized jacket he’d wrapped her in. She was quiet, her little fingers tracing patterns along the seat, eyes flicking between the water and the stars overhead. Comfortable. Safe.

Fetch exhaled slowly and brought the phone to his ear. The line rang twice before Rowan picked up, her voice bursting through with relief. “Ah, love! Thank the saints! We been worried sick! How are ye? And Fathom and Fin? Rosalie and Elenore been wearin’ holes pacin’ the floors, prayin’ and weepin’ and gnashin' their teeth like the world’s done ended.”

His grin and cock both grew with every cute word. “My human missed me.”

“Bloody hell,” she cried. “Don’t be soundin’ surprised about it and piss me off. I missed ye more than the damn air in me lungs.”

Fetch’s eyes rolled shut as her decadent words lit up his neurons. “I have missed you, wife,” he whispered, bringing a sudden silence on the line.

Her shaky breaths filled his flourishing humanity. “I missed ye more,” she said, her tiny choked words erotic licks.

“Did you,” he whispered, desperate to see her face beneath him in their bed.

“I did,” she assured back, still crying. “Now…what’s this souvenir ye done went and got me?”

He resisted a sigh. The looming error, according to his brothers. “Yes,” he said, glancing at Lucy and finding her fast asleep. He stroked her little forehead, still convinced his sweet Rowan would feel exactly the same as he did. And yet… He exhaled slowly. “I possibly should have asked before I obtained my gift.”

A brief pause, then light scold. “Husband. What is it?”

For the first time, Fetch experienced something in his humanity he hadn’t before. “I’m faltering,” he mused, grinning at the paradoxical growth glitch.

“Ye are!” she cried. “An it ain’t like you!”

“I adopted a child.”

Instant silence.

“I didn’t plan on it,” he quickly added to her processing. “Her mother and father and brother were all killed, and she had nobody and needed…somebody,” he finished, even though it had been him she’d needed.

Rowan suddenly gasped. “You mean right now! Like... you have a whole child with you this second!”

He had to laugh. “A whole child, this second, yes.”

Another gasp. “A bloody child! How old is she? What’s her name?” she demanded, her excitement making him grin.

“Lucy is her name. I think she is five.”

“Five!” she shot out, choking on breaths. “Bloody hell, you bought us a… a child!”

“Brought,” he chuckled.

“Right! Right, duh, you don’t buy people, oh my God, Fetch,” she gasped. “Where are you? Are you on your way?” she panicked.

“Ten minutes from you.”

“Bloody hell!” she barely screeched. “I need to get ready, does she know about me? What does she think, is she happy about this, is she sad, what? I need to know so I can prepare. Oh! We can clear out that office and make her a room, I think? Does she have clothes? Bloody hell, I’m thinking that’s a negative given the poor state of affairs this world be findin’ itself in, yea?

Why ye laughin’ at me?”

“Because you give me unfathomable power without even trying.”

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