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But life is also far too short not to.

“Yes,” I say, breathing in the spicy, masculine scent of him.

He pushes me back to look at me again, this time with more assessing eyes. “How far along? When did you find out?”

“This morning,” I answer, excitement thrumming through my veins. I’d been feeling off for a few days, but when I couldn’t hold down my breakfast, I knew. “I can’t be more than four weeks along, which could mean…”

Understanding sparks in his wide eyes. “You think?”

The week Wicker and Pace spent at the tourney in Northridge was hectic for me and Lex. We’d fall into bed at night deliriously tired, doing a quick video chat with his brothers before settling in for sleep.

But sleep never came immediately.

Every night, he’d push inside me, amber eyes locked on mine as we fucked, sweet and slow, or hard and fast. We played it loose, never getting back on birth control. It took a couple of months last time, and I figured the next one would be the same, but apparently, Lex at full strength was more potent than we’d realized.

He cradles my face in his palms, staring at me with awe. “You’re saying it could be mine,” he realizes, voice thick and ragged.

“No, Lex. I’m saying it is.”

He presses his forehead to mine. “You haven’t told the guys?”

I smile so big that it hurts. “I wanted the dad to know first, but I figured we could tell them after the throning.”

I’d think this would crush Wicker’s plans about tummy time, but nothing makes my men hotter than a baby, even if it is faster than we thought.

“They’re going to flip out,” he says, and we both look over to where they’re standing, laughing with guys from the hockey team.

“Good flipping out, or bad?” I ask, suddenly unsure.

“Both,” he admits, pressing his hand to my stomach, “but this is what we do, Verity. This is who we are and building a family is our priority above anything else.”

A year ago, I never would have dreamed that I'd want to someday transform a group of hurt, angry boys into men. I never would have thought I'd want itso much, and so achingly, and so impatiently. It wasn't just because I became a woman in this beautiful, haunting place. It wasn’t even because I became a mother, and then a Queen.

It was the fierceness of Lex's soul, the blaze of Pace's devotion, and the ferocity of Wicker's heart that made me a creator.

And ours will be a legacy of hope.