Page 42 of These Little Heirs
“No, they won’t,” he sighed. “Come on. Either knock the door down or let’s sit down. Your choice. That’s the perk of being an heir. A little property damage isn’t a big problem. Now, do you want to be like me and knock down doors or do you want to drink some coffee and come up with a statement for the publicand your group. Do you want Patrica’s head or do you want to ensure Morvan doesn’t go after it.”
“Don’t let her kill him too!” I roared and somewhere in the kitchen something glass shattered.
“Don’t concern yourself with the staff. They are receiving hazard pay today, Teal,” Clarence said, guiding me to a booth. “So, you don’t want Patrica’s head? Just so we’re clear.”
“No,” I said, sitting down and pressing my face against the table.
“And you want Morvan alive and well?”
“Yes,” I groaned.
“But you don’t support what happened?”
“Am I a hypocrite?” I asked.
“A little but we all are. You don’t support the group turning on each other but Patrica didn’t turn on anyone. We let Torvan out of jail for a reason and it wasn’t because Morvan wouldn’t wash his balls,” Clarence sighed and a man in a suit brought a briefcase out to us from the kitchen.
“Thank you, Seaie,” Clarence nodded as the briefcase was slid onto the table before him and opened. “We took advantage of both brothers being away from home to go through Torvan’s personal affects and online life. He was always going to kill Morvan to inherit everything. He even had a date set on the calendar for next year. I was the one who passed the information along to Patrica.”
Clarence slid me a laptop. “You can see for yourself.”
My thoughts imploded. Torvan had hired a hitman last year before Moonscale Meals was ever considered a viable option. Me and the rest of our group were the only obstacles in the way of this hitman he hired. Moonglow wasn’t an accident. He wanted to scare us off and he had succeeded.
“No, he didn’t,” Grandpa sighed, picking up my thoughts over the family link.
“Grandpa,” I started but he shook his head.
“Protecting children is rather important. Protecting the family is too. That is why I made the call to Patrica. That’s why Morvan was locked out of the warehouse. She compared working with me to fucking the devil in a bed of cacti but we had the same enemy. You didn’t run. You made a strategic move. It just happened that your move helped me make mine as well. Teal, deciding things like this is difficult. You would’ve never made the call to have him executed. So, I did. I took that off your shoulders and saved Morvan in the process. He might not be your best friend come morning but he’ll be alive to make that choice and sometimes at the end of the day that’s all that matters.”
“He was going to kill the brother who’d have done anything for him,” I said, more dumbfounded than ever.
“Now more than ever I understand why your carrier and his brothers did what they did. I do have my suspicions after years of pondering about who came out of their egg first but I officially don’t want to know. Teal, you three grew into wonderful young men and I hope that we all live and prosper long enough for me to see you grow into grandparents and great grandparents. When it is time for Medwin and I to go, I know that our dragons – our people – will be in good talons. Just don’t die for a dumbass in the meantime and pass that message onto your brothers too.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Cobalt
Having a baby was an all-night affair. We hadn’t gone to bed because Indigo and I had wanted to finish the nest and had been working on it when Odie’s water had broken and the whole trajectory of the night had morphed. As tired as I was, a reserve of unknown energy floated around the room bouncing from person to person and Odie became a superhero in my eyes. He’d never been weak. Even at his most anxious, he managed to push through life and make it into something. During childbirth, his strength shined brightly.
Ambry and I took turns breathing with him while Dad kept Indigo busy with running around grabbing things we might need. I think Dad just wanted one of us to have our legs warmed up to run in case we needed to run for Dara. None of us said Teal’s name again as Odie pushed and heaved Baby Steel into the world. Somewhere along the way the baby shifted in the birth canal into his pup form. Relief washed over my mate as his pain lessened, and our baby was ushered into the world. Baby Steel was a tiny grey wolf pup whose eyes weren’t opened yet. He made tiny whimpering sounds, rooting around my hands for a teat as I washed him clean under the careful eye of my carrier. He was tiny and furry and perfect, and I couldn’t stop my eyes from misting over as Ambry worked on the umbilical cord. We waited until all the life sustaining blood in the cord had made its way to Baby Steel and the meat of the cord ran white before we clamped it off.
“He’s so tiny,” Odie said, his wide eyes overflowing with mirth.
“He weighs nothing,” I grinned. “Literally it’s like holding a feather.”
A howl broke out through the town and Odie ducked. Ambry laughed and then Odie joined in. The town always howled when healthy babies were born, and our little one had let out his first whine over the pack link.
“Someone feed that baby,”Bobby, the pack alpha, muttered over the pack link as the sun peeked into the grey-white early morning sky.
“Steel,” I cooed when Ambry finally cut the cord and I passed off our tiny pup to his carrier who kissed the top of his damp, soft, furry head. Baby Steel rooted around Odie’s chest until he found his nipple. He whined against his skin even as he ate as if he couldn’t get to his first meal quick enough.
“You did it!” I whispered into my mate’s ear as everyone else cooed and awed about the baby. “You did it. You’re so strong. You kicked labor’s ass.”
Odie let out a tired laugh as the front door opened.
“Cade?” Dad called out.
“It’s us!” Clarence’s voice called back.
