Peigi. “Well, I will have no trouble signing this document. Pegs?”
Peigi’s fingers trembled as she read. While Peigi and Stuart have alone time to form the mate bond, the six current cubs, and any subsequent cubs, will be taken out for pizza and ice cream by Aunt Nell or Uncle Shane.
“It seems fair to me,” she managed to say.
Donny and Noelle high-fived each other, and the four littler ones exchanged hugs. They’d been worried, Peigi realized, that she and Stuart would be angry with them. Noelle must have had to talk long and hard to get them to go along with the plan.
“I used to be in a family,” Stuart said.
The cubs ceased celebrating and blinked at him. Peigi was surprised as well—Stuart rarely spoke of the family he’d lost, only saying that they’d been killed, nearly every member of them, before he’d been ejected into this world.
“We didn’t always get along. We fought about a lot of things, and not only in words. My brothers and I … we could fight harder than anyone I knew. With swords and all. But in the end—we were family. We knew that when all was said and done, we had each other’s backs. And we did, right up until the end.” Stuart’s voice caught, and he cleared his throat. “What I’m trying to say is, you are my family. You six, and Peigi, whether she accepts the mate claim or not. I couldn’t ask for a better one. I know you’re worried that without something like this …” he touched the paper Peigi held … “we’ll fall apart, but we won’t. We’re in it for the duration. Together.”
Peigi’s heart squeezed to a point of pain. “We are,” she agreed. “All of us.”
Living in this Shiftertown, protecting these cubs from the world, with Stuart at her side, had given Peigi a reason to get up in the morning. She could have easily succumbed to despair when she’d first moved here, knowing herself safe but forgetting how to live.
The fact that none of the rescuers had truly known what to do with the motherless cubs had made her angry, and from that anger had sprung her compassion, and then love.
They’d saved her life, they and this man sitting beside her.
Peigi drew a breath, laid down the paper, and reached for Stuart’s hand, clasping it between hers.
“Stuart Reid, under the light of moon—wherever it is behind all the rainclouds—and in front of witnesses, I accept your mate claim.”
For a moment all was silence. The cubs stared, open-mouthed. Stuart looked at her, stunned, his dark eyes at last letting her see into them.
She read shock in him, fear, hurt so profound she couldn’t understand it—far beyond anything she’d expected. A longing for happiness, coupled with Stuart’s realization he might have found it, and great fear he’d have it taken away.
Then the room erupted in noise. Six cubs vaulted at Peigi, knocking her to the floor. Hugs and kisses followed, love pouring over her in waves. The cubs hurtled from her to a laughing Stuart—he went down like a father lion with cubs crawling all over him.
They bounced up, Patrick and Hannah doing a jerking dance that involved fingers pointing at the sky. Noelle whooped, arms in the air, Donny gyrated in place, Kevin imitating him, and quiet Lucinda twirled and twirled, her ponytail in a graceful arc.
Stuart leapt to Peigi and sent her to the carpet with him on top of her, his mouth seeking hers in a long, hot, and frenzied kiss.
Peigi woke in the morning, her body light, the urge to sing at the top of her voice strong. She didn’t know any current songs, so she sang ones from her childhood. That should have the cubs curious.
She was alone in her room, had gone to bed alone. She and Stuart had shared the passionate kiss on the floor and then had realized they needed to make dinner for the cubs. Six little ones in the house was a good damper for mating frenzy.
Peigi showered, dressed, and combed her hair, singing all the way.
The happiness pouring over her startled her, the back of her mind wondering what was wrong, when the other shoe would drop.
But she realized as she charged out her bedroom, on the way to the kitchen to start another meal, that she was no longer afraid.
Peigi halted in the middle of the hall, dazed. She felt about in her mind for the sensations she’d been living with for years. The daily