Page 6 of Claimed for Eternity

“Judging by the number of children our mateship has produced I don’t think anything really gets in our way for long,” Barry smirked at me, and I melted a little bit. He made it so freaking hard to be afraid of the future. Curled up with him and surrounded by his scent while he looked at me like that made the future brighter. Wars would come and go. They always had. People would come and go but as long as I had him and our kids, I’d be okay. Well, I didn’t want to lose my brother and his mate either, but I didn’t want them in the room right now.

“Ormund thinks Dern is going to die,” I said, cutting to the chase. “And dead mates are usually spot on about these things. I know Dern is old and I know I don’t even know him that well. I’m just…”

“Tired of people dying? Of people leaving? Of everything being in a constant state of change? You’d freeze time if it was within your abilities?”

“You got all that from my thoughts?” I laughed.

“Some from my own,” he shrugged. “Seriously, turn over here. I want to see that beautiful face while we talk about it.”

Wiggling around, I rolled over in his arms and he captured my lips in a soft, lingering kiss. Ancestors above and below me, I could kiss this wolf forever and ever.

“Change is inevitable but uncomfortable,” Barry said.

I opened my mouth to say I knew that. I spent so much time talking with the dead that I knew that as well as anyone could but sometimes you just wanted things to stay the same for a while.Ineed them to stay the same for a while. For everyone to calm their tails and let me have a minute to breathe in the moment we stood in.

“We’re here in this moment,” Barry whispered. “Right here together and I’m not going anywhere.”

“I know. I just…” I wasn’t sure how to explain the bundle of emotions growing inside me.

“Is this about Mori?”

“A little bit. I know our other kids have found their mates but Mori and Preston…”

“You expect trouble to follow them when they do. Especially Mori, huh?” he grinned.

“Yeah. A lot of trouble. You remember when we first met. The world tried to kill us.”

“But it did not succeed and we got Colton as a bonus too. Whatever comes for the kids will have to go through us and we’re still pretty damn scary, I think.”

“We are but they’re not going to stay around here. I could advise Mori not to go. I could tell him I’m wrong and that he was right about staying here. He’d probably even listen but I can’t do that. If Teddy Moonscale is his mate, he has to go meet him. If Dern is meddling to get them to meet, he really has to meet them.”

Barry said something under his breath, and I laughed. It was a mishmash of two elven words only a syllable apart. That was his way of reminding me that in his elvish tongue the words for wisdom and meddling were only separated by that syllable.

“My dad meddled for us.”

“But you already knew who I was. You knew what we’d be for each other. I don’t think Mori knows. I think if he did, he’d have let it slip to someone by now.”

“He’d have told me,” I frowned. “I know not every magic user is like me or Liam Moonscale and know ahead of time but sheesh! It would make my life easier if he did. You don’t really think Teddy Moonscale would be a bad mate do you?”

“No,” Barry shook his head. “I still don’t care all that much for Fred. Can’t say I’m sad that he’s living on a different planet across the universe but I don’t think Teddy will be a bad mate. Though, I have heard about how much he gets around. I’m not one to slut shame but….”

“Mori isn’t a virgin,” I reminded him. “I know that’s not something you like to talk about but ….”

“I know he has a love life, mate,” Barry chuckled. “If Teddy or anyone cheats on Mori and breaks his heart, I’m going to catch a case somewhere.”

“Stop it,” I laughed. “Really, stop it. I get it. They’re omegas. I know that. You know that and they sure in the name of all of Juda’s little babies know that but stop it. Believe me, I wouldn’t want to be the one who cheated on Mori or broke his heart. He’s our kid. Not to mention Ni would probably hex them or something too.”

Chapter Four

Barry

We didn’t make love that night. Instead, we lay awake in front of the hearth and talked for hours like we did when we first met. We talked about the past and what the future might hold. We talked about what Mori and Othoni would need for their trip and who we still knew besides Dern who lived in the Appalachian Wolf Pack Territory. Eventually we dozed off all wrapped up together.

The next morning, I woke up with a ‘knowing.’ It wasn’t the spiritual or psychic sort of knowing that my mate and other seers often woke with. It was the knowing of a healer who had delivered more babies than he could count and had to stop and count up his kids when asked how many he sired.

Moving carefully, I slid away from Xenos and circled around him on my hands and knees. I lay down again face to navel with his belly and sniffed. His shirt blocked out some of his natural scent but there was enough of him there that I was ninety-three percent certain that my knowing was spot on. I pressed my ear against his belly searching out the tiny tell-tale thumping, but he pushed my head away.

“You can’t do that out here, alpha,” he mumbled in his sleep. “I’m too tired for that anyway. Come back later after Stephie’s at day camp. Then you can….” Xenos’s words trailed off as he dozed off again. I leaned in for another listen. He mumbled something about cave-alphas trying to lick everything but didn’t shove my head away this time.

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