Page 71 of Tossed into the Mob
Lua glared at everyone eating her food, and Grandpa kissed her and told her he’d make more. Now that she was eating solid food, I was grateful to him for stocking the basement freezer.
“The pea and mint one is so refreshing.” Matt licked his spoon.
“That’s my favorite,” Dad agreed. He’d arrived last night for a visit.
“It's like a fancy restaurant appetizer,” Odell told him.
Dad asked if he could hold his granddaughter, and Treyton and I leaned on the counter while the Durand family chaos and frantic activity whirled around us.
“Hard to believe this is where we are.” He smooched my shoulder and set my body on fire.
“Brock.” Flint was on the opposite side of the kitchen taking the lid off a jar for Kendric. “Can I talk to you and Treyton for a minute?”
Even knowing I was truly one of the pack because I had a wolf inside me, my belly tightened. With a quick glance at Lua, my mate and I held hands as we went onto the terrace.
“How are you adjusting?” Flint asked. There was no need to ask what he was talking about. My revelation was the talk of the pack for weeks, and he asked the same question whenever I saw him.
His question sent me hurtling back to that day when Treyton put me to bed and I clutched our daughter, not wanting to let her go.
Dad brought tea and nibbles,thinking I might be in shock, but I worried he was reeling because of what he witnessed. So the four of us huddled under the covers. Treyton held me and Lua. He said he’d answer my questions as best he could but pointed out I now had a secret weapon. He whispered that I was amazing and that Lua would grow up knowing how I’d saved her.
I expected to sleep, but my mind whirred, and my wolf, having found his voice, couldn't stop talking. I asked Treyton if there was an off switch, and my beast replied,I heard that.
My mate called Flint. Though he would have preferred the family to wait until I’d accepted my new reality, Alpha disagreed. He and his brothers, along with Rudy and Grandpa, arrived, and Treyton told me Flint arranged for the bodies to be burned.
But it was Grandpa who knocked on my door and asked to come in. I agreed but couldn’t let a sleeping Lua go. Treyton had to brief Flint, so he and Dad joined the others outside.
“I missed a lot of signs.”
“Mmmm, like how you healed so quickly after being shot and you have an almost invisible scar?” He patted my knee.
“You knew?”
Grandpa took my hand. “No. But Flint suspected. For someone who’d never fired a gun, you hit Riggs’s wolf in the heart. And I told him how you’d caught that jar that Niles knocked off the counter. And you saw and heard things, plus I pointed out about your wound.”
Flint had maintained I was human, but he probably couldn’t have said, “I think you have a wolf inside you.”
“How did Treyton not know?”
He shrugged. “We often don’t see what is right in front of us. It’s only people who are a little apart who pick up on things.”
The next few weeks were spent getting to know my wolf and seeing the world from his perspective. Treyton rarely left my side, and now more than ever I was grateful his touch calmed me. It had the same effect on my wolf.
My wolf! I had a wolf.
It was a huge learning curve, and Flint refused to allow me to shift on a mission until he was satisfied I could control my beast, which I hadn’t as yet.
That was a process, but we were getting there.
His reasoning for why my wolf appeared when he did was paternal instinct. Gasper and his crony had threatened my daughter. Treyton wasn’t upset that my beast hadn’t made an appearance when he was fighting Riggs. He understood I was still grieving and couldn't sense the unbreakable mate bond.
“I know you would give your life for Lua, as I would. She comes first.” My mate nuzzled me as he did repeatedly before and since.
Treyton’s phonebeeped and brought me back to the present. He apologized, saying it was work, and moved down the garden to answer it.
His mobile clinic for pregnant omegas had been operational for a month, and I was so proud of him. He’d worked so hard, staying up into the wee small hours, but was always available for me and our daughter.
“You’re not the only one who’s changed.” Flint followed my gaze. "The work he's doing with the mobile clinic is exactly what the community needs."
