pack, preparing us for the day when we had more than five hundred in numbers.
My lips curved at that prospect as I leaned down and placed the bag on the worn platform at its base. I didn’t want to bury it like instructed, and was hoping this would work.
When nothing happened, I pulled a face then, cupping Knight’s head, I reached down and plopped the linen covering onto the footwell instead.
Relief hit me when the magic of the totem surged into being, whipping it away like it was nothing. No burying required.
“Thank you, my child.”
The words had me swallowing. I hadn’t expected to hear from her, not when I communicated with Berry who, I knew, was my direct line to the Mother, but to hear her now?
It felt like a blessing.
But it was her next words that floored me. As a surge of magic swept around me, I felt it encompass me in what was, essentially, a hug.
“You will bear many children for the mates I gifted you. And I promise you this, you have lost too many in your life, too many who owned a piece of your heart. Never, I vow to you, shall you lose another as long as you live.”
The promise had my entire being shaking.
“Thank you!” I gasped out, my arms and legs tingling as adrenaline set in. But there was no answer.
No answer she could give me that was worth more to me than the promise she’d settled on me.
My fear for Knight, for the future children I’d carry and hold in my arms, it wasn’t needed.
She would keep them safe for me.
I’d never have to lose—
My throat grew tight, and when I burst into tears, I wasn’t surprised when my men gathered around me, huddling close like we were on a football field about to start a play.
I shuddered, shared the promise with them, and I felt their bewilderment too.
We’d been honored, and I knew all four of us were just as perplexed by it.
Why we were so lucky, I’d never have the answer to, but I didn’t need it.
We made our own luck, settled our own futures in stone, and we were blessed for it.
Sabina
The next evening
“Well, that was irritating.”
I hummed under my breath. “What was?” If I wasn’t focusing all that much, I figured I could be forgiven.
I was tired. It was nearly eight PM, and before Knight, that had been early. Now, it felt as late as midnight.
Daniel had only just gone to bed after far too much homework for me to help him with. I had a baby now, and I’d only given birth a few days ago. I needed one long nap that would last a year, and I figured I’d be set.
Sadly, whenever that nap looked like it was going to happen, Knight would start screaming for milk.
My lips twitched, though, when I thought about how wonderful it was to nurse, and I sighed with joy, even as I rolled over and saw that Eli was leaning against my bedroom door with his arm on the jamb, his features carved in a cocktail of confusion, annoyance, rage, and concern.
Oddly enough, it was the concern that had me arching a brow at him—not the anger. I was used to that now. He wasn’t as controlled as before, and when you had a pack as large as ours? Anger was always at our fingertips.
“What is it?” I asked softly.
With that question, I was not only inquiring why he was angry, but also why he was hovering there like he didn’t have as much right to this bedroom as any of us.
We’d long since stopped having separate rooms. Instead, Eli’s bedroom and mine had been ripped through, and we’d carved out space for us all.
Ironically enough, the bed we shared?
A queen-size.
Nothing massive. Nothing awesome in stature. Why? Because when we slept, we all slept in a frickin’ pile.
I woke up sweaty and sticky, but fuck, I slept well.
And when it came time to join? The other two tended to watch, but mostly, we mated by the totem. Before I’d gotten too big to do anything other than waddle around, not a night passed where the circle didn’t witness kinky stuff it probably wished it didn’t need to see.
The bedroom was about the size of a house now, but we each had our own space.
Austin’s place was in front of the fire. He had a massive armchair that he watched TV on, which hung above the fireplace.