Page 17 of Claimed for Eternity

“I do. I work with the dead every day,” I squared my shoulders.

Martha, the living one, made her way over to our table with two huge platters of samples.

“Enjoy,” she grinned and bowed her head before leaving.

Her scent was pure joy. Knowing you’ll soon meet your true-mate has that effect on you. Doubly so once you know their name.

“Is this the last thing you need to move on?” Barry asked, fighting off the urge to rub the bridge of his nose.

“Yes!” Dead Martha nodded fast and hard. “My last baby will be taken care of. Then I will go rest.”

“No more requests after this,” he said. “Not one. Not a little one. Not half a favor or anything else.”

“Alpha!” I scolded him. “Stop it. She’s a parent. What if I were in her spot? What if this was our kid’s bones laying out there in the woods all alone for all this time? Wouldn’t you want someone to bring him back home?”

I teared up and hated it. Barry couldn’t say no when I cried and when my hormones got the best of me it always felt like I was cheating. I wasn’t crying on purpose but the tears meant I won the argument. He reached across the table with one of the cloth napkins that came with our samplers and dried a tear away that rolled down my cheek.

“Of course, we’ll go. I just don’t want this to turn into one of those things where her list grows. I don’t want you to work our entire vacation. I don’t want us to get stuck away from home because this takes too long. I want to feed you cake and take you for massages. Maybe give you a few so I can practice them.”

I blushed redder than the carpet in my dream.

“I didn’t mean to---”

“Cry?” Barry finished my sentence for me. “No, if it’s bad enough to make you cry we need to fix it. Just know, that if I go before you and my body is in some dangerous spot, don’t think I want you to get me back. I won’t be in it. Let the elementstake it as they’ve taken my wild brethren since time began. Don’t endanger yourself for me. Don’t send anyone else into the line of fire either.”

“You’re not allowed to die,” I said and fought to keep my bottom lip from quivering.

Dead Martha had disappeared while Barry and I discussed whether or not we’d help her. So, I circled around the table and slid into Barry’s lap. A few heads turned to glance in our direction, but no one said anything. One woman silently slipped one of those fancy foil packages with morning sickness gummies onto the table and nodded her silent understanding before slipping away again.

“See, you’re one of us,” Barry whispered and kissed my temple. “Now, are you in the mood to eat all of this still?”

“I’m always hungry,” I said, and wiped away another tear.

Chapter Twelve

Barry

It was three days before we saw Dead Martha again. For three glorious days she left us to our own devices. We explored all the little shops VILLAGE had to offer and got a couple’s massage every day. I’d almost forgotten about her when she showed up one evening and knocked on our door. Whatever SLEEP used to keep sounds separated must’ve kept out the dead too. That or she was just kind enough not to walk in on two naked men about to make love.

“Let’s ignore it,” I whispered in Xenos’s ear.

He was curled on his side, belly propped against a pillow while I kneeled over him, lining up our bodies. We were so close to coming together again. Everything inside me ached for him. To sink into his warm, welcoming body and forget the rest of the world for a while. For a long while. Soon we’d return to our real lives and as happy as I’d be to have the family back together, real life was a course of obstacles keeping us from finding time alone together – not just for romping or mating but for those million little smiles, touches, and whispered conversations.

“Uh… I think it’s Dead Martha,” Xenos groaned and hid his face in the pillows.

“She can wait a few hours. A romp and a nap and…”

Knock! KNOCK! Knock!

“Her son isn’t going to be any more dead later, is he?” I groaned back at him.

“Asshole!”my wolf sounded off in my thoughts.

“No, but she’s probably itchy to move on,” Xenos sighed and rolled onto his back. “We promised we’d help her. We promised that we’d help our baby lay his past life to rest. You know howmuch trouble Star had when Mel kept showing up inside his head. It was him but wasn’t the current him. I don’t want our kid to go through that. I love Star and Mel was freaking fantastic. He’s an elf and a friend worth remembering for everyone who knew him and loved him or even just heard about him but let’s get Jarl laid to rest properly so in his next life he’s not plagued by his past self, okay?”

I blew out a long, slow breath and told my dick to calm down. As much as I hated to admit it, Xenos was probably right. My mate usually was about these sort of things. How our trip to VILLAGE turned into a working vacation was beyond me but I couldn’t go anywhere until I calmed down.

“I think I’m going to hit a cold shower to settle down,” I sighed, slipping off the bed.

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