Captured - Cara Wylde Page 0,64

since I’d met the Woodward brothers. It was so hard to believe that so much had changed since then. They’d started out hating me, treating me as their captive. But after that, they’d rescued me, in more ways than one. The memories of that horrible night I’d spent with the Redwoods were already beginning to fade. Mama Rose had assured me there would be no side-effects from the drugs the nomad wolves had given me, and that the magic in the lake had become dormant once again. The Pale One had returned to its slumber and hopefully wouldn’t be disturbed anytime soon.

Looking back, I didn’t think I regretted what had happened. As horrible as it had been, it had showed me something important about my lovers, and it had brought us together. It had given us something precious beyond belief. Until this year, the only family I’d had were people I hated, killers who didn’t care about anything and anyone except themselves. But that had changed. I was carrying the first litter of the Woodward family, and it was amazing. Some days, I still couldn’t believe it myself.

The sound of Jax’s familiar voice startled me from my thoughts. “Isabel? What are you doing, gorgeous?”

I turned, only to see my lovers coming up to the house from the village. Jax was carrying some extra firewood, while Thorn and Reid were bringing in food.

“Oh, nothing important,” I told him. “Just taking in some air. Thinking.”

Thorn frowned at me and eyed me from head to toe, a shadow of concern sweeping over his face. “You’re not sick again, are you?”

I shook my head. “No, I’m fine. No morning sickness today. The litter’s being nice and quiet.”

As if in response to my words, one of my babies chose that exact moment to deliver a werewolf-style kick. I jolted and let out a short laugh.

“Cancel that. It looks like they heard you.”

My lovers relaxed, but I knew better than to believe they weren’t concerned. It was just in their nature to worry. They were convinced that, as a human, I was going to keel over and die any moment now because of the pregnancy.

Mama Rose had assured them we were completely compatible with one another, and humans were perfectly capable of carrying werewolf babies to term. It wasn’t anything new, and plenty of women had done it before. But the brothers were still stubborn as hell. They hated leaving me alone in our cottage, and they’d only done it this morning because they’d had to stock up on necessities and talk to some other pack members.

It came as no surprise when Jax decided to dump the firewood next to a nearby tree and made his way to my side.

“Come on,” he said as he picked me up. “Let’s get you to the cabin. It’s still a little chilly at this hour. I don’t want you to catch a cold.”

That wasn’t going to happen. If I hadn’t gotten sick while I was crawling on the ground in the storage cells, I’d be fine now. But I decided not to say that. That episode was still a sore subject for them, especially since it was a reminder of what they’d lost. Instead, I wrapped my arm around Jax’s neck and shot him a quick smile.

“Are you done with everything you had to do?”

Jax nodded. “We’ve made the last arrangements for this month’s full moon. So far, it doesn’t seem like there’s any other pack coming, so we’re home free.”

“Does that mean I have you all to myself today?” I asked.

“That’s our line, sweet thing,” Reid teased me. “We’re going to spend as much time as we can spoiling our beautiful bitch.”

A comfortable warmth rushed over me at his comment. Once, I’d deemed the word “bitch” insulting, but now, it had become much more than that. When one of them called me their bitch, it meant something different. It meant “mate”. It meant wife.

Because that was what I was to them – their wife. We might not have had a piece of paper to make a note of that, but we’d exchanged vows truer and more powerful than any human could understand. And I was very happy whenever they chose to show me how serious they’d been in their promise.

Jax carried me into the cottage we now shared and made a beeline for our bedroom. This cabin was larger than the individual homes they’d had before. They’d built it together, shortly after I’d officially become part of the