Page 65 of Bred Mate
“I want her here! I want to have pancakes with my mom!” Connor starts stamping his foot.
“I have to be somewhere,” she says, diabolical as always. “Would you rather have me here, administrating my erstwhile husband’s estate where you can see me, or would you rather not know where in the world I am?”
“I would rather you were at the bottom of the ocean,” Karl growls. He’s fiercely protective at the moment. I think it is an instinct thing. Anybody looks at me the wrong way and he is ready to lose his shit, so the fact that a baby-eating werewolf just raided his fridge is clearly pissing him off.
She smiles, wickedly calculating.
“You should be more careful,” she says. “If you send me away now, I promise I will make you pay.”
I am about to intervene, because this does not sound good.
“Get out of my house,” he says. “Get out of my city. And get out of my state.”
“Very well,” she says. “You want to do this the hard way? We will do it the hard way.”
“No! Don’t do things the hard way! Mom!” I try to intervene, but the baby decides to sucker punch my diaphragm.
She turns on her heel and leaves the kitchen. Connor runs after her, eager to spend more time with the woman who gives him absolutely everything he wants.
“Baldwin, make sure she doesn’t run off with him again.” Karl says.
Baldwin follows, and there is more bickering as he confiscates a child-sized machete from my mother. Connor is losing his mind about the unfairness of it all and loudly declaring how he is more than old enough to have his own weapon and how he won’t do anything stupid with it, he promises.
“He’d cut off his own foot off within five minutes,” Karl says, deeply unimpressed.
“She’s tormenting us,” I sigh. “We’re never going to be rid of her. And the threats about making us regret sending her away aren’t idle. She’s going to do her best to fuck everything up. I guarantee it.”
“I need to be able to stab people!” Connor shrieks from the hall.
“Every good story needs an evil witch,” Karl says, surprisingly salty and sassy for a man who used to show his aggression primarily through the medium of murder. “Don’t worry, sweetheart, I’m going to ensure we have a happy ending.”
“I’ll give you a happy ending,” I grin, reaching for my favorite food at this stage of things—a sleeve of plain crackers.
“It’s not fair! I never get to kill anyone!”
Connor is pissed, but Baldwin is handling it with his usual diplomacy.
“Would you like some toaster strudel, young master?”
“Yes,” Connor says. “Assuming I get to use a knife with it. God! I’m not allowed to do anything!”
He’s immediately entered his obsession with weapons era, thanks to my mother’s influence. She knows exactly where to put pressure and it is making me extremely wary to know that she wants to be part of our world.
I yawn.
I’m so damn tired.
Karl ushers me back to bed with some electrolyte juice as a special treat, while the baby breakdances on my bladder.
CHAPTER 14
Ellie
Our baby is born in the spring. The birth is a relief in general, because it means the interior of my body stops being a gymnasium for the world’s most active infant. She emerges into the world fighting, and immediately punches the doctor.
Everybody laughs. Except me, because my insides are quickly becoming my outsides. Once my body stops being confused about where the various parts are supposed to be, I get to embrace and see my daughter for the first time.
She’s beautiful, with dark hair and dark eyes. She looks just like Karl with just a hint of me. I’m told that’s normal, that all babies look like their fathers when they are born.
