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I held his hand and told him how wonderful he was and how we’d be a family of three in just a little while. The view out our window of showed a wintery landscape, bare deciduous trees among the evergreens that made up the backbone of our ancient forest. My mate fixed on the view while I counted his breaths and urged him to relax in the brief seconds between pushes. And within an hour of my fetching Melinda, she cried, “One more good one and you’ll be dads.”

“I can’t.” Tyler panted, shaking his head.

His acknowledged labor had been short but those two days of back pain had worn him down and I kicked myself for not catching it sooner. Then Melinda caught my eye. Message received. “Of course you can push one more time, omega. You’re not giving up now.”

“It hurts too much. They’ll just have to stay in there.”

“Omega, what if it’s a bear? Think of how big they’ll be in six months, a year… You sure you want to raise our baby inside you forever?”

He laughed then, at the preposterousness of my comment. “You’re evil. Big baby just like their daddy. You’ll have to carry them from the time they’re six months old because they’ll be bigger than me.”

And so it was with laughter from all three of us that our child slid from my mate’s body and into the waiting hands of our midwife. I hoped that was a sign they’d have more joy than sadness in their life.

In his life.

Fortunately for our state of readiness nobody extra was hiding inside my mate. His huge belly was the result of a foxshifter carrying a bear cub. Anyone could tell that from looking at our chubby, stocky little son.

“I want to call him Sasha,” Tyler said.

“Sounds like a great name to me.”

“And his room theme is cartoon bears.” My mate sighed. “That will be perfect.”

Epilogue

Tyler

“Next time we fly.” I was leaning over the car seat, holding a paci for Sasha. He was good and done with the whole traveling thing. I was too, but I was happy for the destination.

We did test runs with him in the car before even contemplating the trip. Driving around town, an hour here or an hour there, and he did great. He did great on this trip, too—the first day. But today he was struggling. Not to the point where we had to pull over, only to where daddy-guilt was hitting me hard.

“Agreed,” Dimitri said from the front seat. “At least we are almost there. Just about to pass your old motel.”

It hadn’t actually been mine, but it was where I was living and working when we met. Now it was under new ownership. I wasn’t sure what had happened behind the scenes, but when Karma and Warren said they would take care of it, they meant business. The old owner and his brother were gone—that much I knew because they hit the news, something about embezzlement and fraud.

“Hey, it looks like it’s being cleaned up,” I said when it came into view. As much work as I had put into it, it was never obvious from the outside, but now? Now it looked much better.

“We’re still not staying there,” Dimitri grumbled from the front seat. He’d never been impressed that his mate had been living like that. I was hard pressed to be upset about my time there, not when it led me to him.

Sasha was just about asleep when we pulled into Animals. If I played my cards right, I’d be able to get my carrier on and settle him inside it without too much trouble. At least, that was my plan—one thwarted in the best possible way when Karma met us in the parking lot, snatched him up, and held him close.

“Look at you. Not a fuss. Not a peep.” She giggled, looking down at him. “We’ve been waiting for you.” She looked over her shoulder. “You two also.” And walked inside.

If anyone else had done that to our son, I’d probably be upset. No, not probably. I would be. Very. You don’t just randomly take people’s babies. But with Karma, it was the best—the absolute best.

“We’re staying in our old apartment?” I clarified as I pulled out the huge baby bag from the back.

“Yeah.” Dimitri grabbed our suitcase and our smaller baby bag.

Once inside, we saw Karma showing Sasha off to everyone and took it as a sign to dump our bags. It felt kind of good to be back. It wasn’t home. I saw now that it never could’ve been, but it was family and always would be that.

Dimitri brushed a thumb across my cheek as we moved through the corridor. “You okay?”

“Just…remembering.” I leaned in to his touch.

We dropped everything off, repacked the small diaper bag, and went to join the others.

“I don’t think we were missed.” I linked my hand with my mate’s hand took in the scene before us. Everyone focused on Sasha, who loved every minute of it.