Page 43 of Rogue If You Want To
Larkin was sitting with Auden and watching Oak as he devoured a cookie the size of his head that was covered in frosting… navy-blue frosting. His face was now blue, and he was having the time of his life.
“Sorry I was late, Alpha.” I bared my neck.
Alpha Creven gave me a look.
“Sorry, I was late, Creven.”
“That’s better.” He wasn’t one for all of the protocols, and I was still stuck with them being automatic. I was getting better, though. “Looks like River’s gonna miss his first pack run.”
Sure enough, he was asleep, the baby carrier doing exactly what it was designed to do, helping him feel snug and safe against my body.
“I can stay with the kids today.” That had been my plan, anyway.
“Or I can stay with River.” Torin pointed to the baby carrier around his waist too. He wasn’t one of those alphas who didn’t want to have anything to do with “omega” things. He was a 50/50 father. “You haven’t shifted on a pack run in a while.”
He was right. The further my pregnancy went, the less I wanted to shift. And even though otters could shift through most of their pregnancy, that wasn’t happening for me. I was happy keeping my skin and having a snack as I watched my mate’s wolf in action.
“Do we have a lot of pack business tonight?” I asked.
Creven shook his head. “No, probably talk about a couple of old barns we acquired that we have to take apart for the lumber, and if we want to add a playground closer to the buildings. Not much.”
I hadn’t seen pictures of the land before we got here, but even in the short time I was here, it had really come a long way.
“A playground would be nice.” Shifter children tended to be climbers, so might as well give them something fun to climb on.
Creven shooed us away for dinner. It was nice sitting with other families, everyone here having a story of their own. We didn’t eat by the river very often, but when we did, it was always special. Something about the running water made it less formal. All of the best stories were told here.
We didn’t have a collective pack history, going back generations, but we had something better. Because unlike people in my Bevy, and from what I heard from others here in packs and dens across the state and other steads as well, we all chose to be here and took it seriously.
“Do you want another deviled egg?” my mate asked.
And of course, I nodded. I couldn’t believe there were still any left. Usually they were the first things gone.
“Larkin made an extra dozen today,” Auden said, and that explained that.
Torin came back with some eggs, which I quickly devoured, and Creven called us to the meeting.
When he brought up the barns, I didn’t quite get it. Like, why would you want a raggedy old barn to tear apart and rebuild? But then he talked about how great reclaimed wood from the older barns was and how much we could do with it. By the time he was done talking about it, I was ready to say, “Let’s cut this run short. We can all go get it now.” Obviously, that wasn’t a good idea, but it got my mind churning… all the things that were possible.
We might not have had the large sums of money that some packs had, and we didn’t have the manpower either, but we had creativity. Who would have thought to go to a book sale in the next county to fill the library? To build common eating areasusing a lot of supplies we already had and repurposing them? To offer to take down barns in exchange for the wood? Not very many, but we did, and I was really proud of being part of this.
“Do you want to run?” Torin asked, and he meant it too. He’d be happy as could be to stay here with our son, but so was I. He could watch him next run.
“No, I’m gonna sit here. He’ll probably wake up soon and want to eat. But can you do me a favor?”
“Anything for you.”
“Can you come back with a rabbit?”
He chuckled. His wolf loved when I gave him tasks. And while rabbit stew wasn’t my all-time favorite meal, I did love it. And we were collecting quite a collection of pelts to make a liner for this winter to put in the wagon for when we took River out and about. He’d probably be in the carrier most of the time, but having a project was nice.
He agreed, kissed me goodbye, and then everyone who was shifting shucked their clothes and followed Creven into the woods.
It shouldn’t have come as a surprise to me that my mate was back in less than ten minutes with a rabbit. But then he took off like a shot again. Four more times he returned, four more rabbits.
“Your mate understood the assignment.” Auden chuckled.
“He does love to spoil me.”
