world's in chaos," Riley said, his lips brushing her own as his hands pressed her flush against his muscular frame.
"Hmm." She was rapidly losing interest in the conversation, far more -
"Get a room!"
Chapter 46-47
Chapter 46
Mercy released Riley to turn and face her middle brother as he lounged in the doorway. "You have something to say, Herb?"
"I can't believe you're smooshing faces with a wolf," came the acerbic comment. "You really that hard up?"
Growling low in her throat, she ran toward him, aware of Riley's bitten-off curse as he followed. Sage, the idiot, had taken off through the house to come to a standstill behind their mother's petite figure. Mercy skidded to a stop on the kitchen tiles and pointed a finger. "Wuss."
Sage stuck out his tongue from behind their mother, wrapping his arms around her waist as she stood shredding lettuce into a salad bowl. "That was so easy, Mercy. You must be seriously hormonal - ouch!" He raised a hand to rub at his left temple - where their mother had reached up to pull his hair. "What was that for?"
"For being a brat," Lia Smith said without stopping in her task. "Sometimes, I think you're all still in short pants."
"Only when we come here," Bas drawled from the back doorway. "It's like I enter this house, and boom, I lose twenty years."
Mercy, adrenaline lowering now that Sage had gotten his comeuppance, found that she'd somehow ended up leaning against Riley as he stood with his back to a wall, his hand a rough warmth along her arm. He was petting her, calming her. Doing what a mate did.
Awash in bittersweet joy, she looked at Bas. "Where's Grey?"
"Right here." Her youngest brother came in through the kitchen doorway with her father. "Hi, Riley."
"Hi."
Her eyes narrowed when no one bothered to introduce themselves. Even her father just gave a curt nod and kissed Mercy on the cheek before going to his mate. She looked at Bas. "Did you four gang up on Riley?"
Absolute silence in the kitchen except for her mother's exasperated breath. "Michael T. Smith, I told you to leave the boy alone."
The "boy" held her tighter against him, obviously not the least bit worried. "I'm fine, Mrs. Smith. And I have a sister, too."
Lia turned her gaze on Riley. "Good God, Mercy. You brought another one into the family?"
And Mercy knew it would be a good night, no matter the worry that continued to pierce her heart.
Sascha stared at Tamsyn in the rosy evening glow. "You're sure?"
"Sascha, darling," Tamsyn said with teasing patience, "it's a pregnancy test, not rocket science. Even if it wasn't positive, the fact that Lucas says you are is gold - you're probably around two weeks along. That's when males tend to pick it up."
"He told me my scent's changed, that my body's already shaping itself to accommodate the new life in my womb." His eyes had glittered with protective emotion, his soul there for her to see.
"A mate always knows," Tammy said with a gentle smile. "The rest of the pack will begin to pick it up now that he has."
"How?"
"Something happens when the male member of a pair knows - it's like his protectiveness coats you, and your own scent changes with it, to something unique, something that speaks of life newly begun."
Life. Sascha laid a fluttering hand over her abdomen. "I still can't quite believe it." A soft warmth lay curled in her belly, a presence that she sensed with every empathic sense in her. It was a spark now. No, a tiny fraction of a spark. So tiny that she had to focus all of her power to feel it. "I never expected to be a mother." Perhaps that's why she hadn't understood what her body had been trying to tell her.
Tamsyn looked surprised. "Really? But you love children."
"Yes." She reached out for Tammy's hand, wanting to share the depth of her joy. "But when I was in the Net, when I thought I was flawed, I swore I'd never submit a child of mine to that kind of an existence."
Tammy leaned forward to kiss her lightly on the cheek. A gift. A comfort. "You're not in the Net any longer."
"And," a deep male voice said from the doorway, "you were never flawed."
She raised her head to look into the face of the panther who was her heartbeat, and now, the father of their unborn child. "You were supposed to stay downstairs."
"Yeah," Tammy said, even as she released Sascha's hands