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For the first time in he didn’t remember how long, he got excited.

About the idea of having Yule together with a pack with children, with his mate.

This was a dream—an odd, amazing dream.

He leaned back. Just listening to Rory and the alphas plan and plot. This was his life. This was going to be his life.

He wished his sister had been here to see it.

Chapter

Seven

“What the hell are you talking about?” Rory’s brother Liam did not sound amused.

“I’ve mated with one of the wolves.” There wasn’t any easy way to put this. Maybe he wasn’t a wolf. Nobody was saying he was a wolf. Well, okay, Fen was saying that he was a wolf.

But he wasn’t saying that. He was just saying that he was staying, which everybody down at the trading post knew. He’d built himself his own home. And he had settled in and…mated.

“You do know that’s impossible?” Liam asked. “You’re human.”

“Don’t start. Are you going to help me bring the stuff to the pack or not?” Rory wasn’t gonna argue about this. Not with his brothers, not with the alphas, not with anybody. Fen and he were together.

Rory needed to get Fen his tools. Hell, Fen needed a coat, clothes, shoes. Things. His mate needed things. A hairbrush of his own. His own pillow. Books. Wood to carve interesting things out of.

Timothy had come to the house and had supper, and he and Fen had hit it off immediately. The huge, rough woodworker with the ready smile had immediately taken to his mate. It was a joyous thing to see.

“Of course I’m going to help. Just because you’ve lost your mind doesn’t mean that I’m going to slack on my job.” His brother clapped him on the shoulder. “Look, if you want to go native, go native. I don’t mind. You’re happy up there. You make it easy, and it helps with communication. I can’t wait to meet him.”

Liam’s words went a long way to relaxing the tension inside of him. “Thank you, I needed someone to understand.”

“Oh, I didn’t say I understood. I absolutely do not get what you’re talking about. And I do not care to know about anything intimate between you and anyone. Human, dragon, wolfen, male, female—I don’t care. You are my little brother, and I don’t want to know. Fair?”

“Yeah.” He could go with that. He didn’t wanna know anything about Liam’s…whatever either. “Sweet.”

“So tell me what you need, bro.” Liam sat with him, and they started making lists.

“So, you need all this by Yule?”

Rory nodded. “I need the basic foodstuffs ASAP, and then the baking materials at least a week before. And the bedding, clothes, and personal items I need with the food. Fen came with nothing, not even a pack. He was in wolf form and on the run.”

“That sucks, Rory. It really does.”

Rory nodded, his shoulders creeping up around his ears when he thought about Fen’s life before he’d been shot. “And then the banished pack shot him.”

Liam’s lips pressed into a hard line. “You sure it was them and not a hunter or something?”

“I’m pretty sure. He says he was up by the tree line. Where the dragons used to—” Rory sighed. “It’s so weird, huh?”

“That they’re gone?” Liam nodded. “Yeah. I mean, the pack is great, but I miss those guys. It’s a weird hole in time, you know?”

“I do.” He grinned, though. “I just hope, wherever they are, that they can fly.”

“Yes. I believe that they can. I have to.” Liam shook his head and sighed. “I used to feel special, like you know…like they wanted us. They needed us. Not any other humans, just us. Now I feel lost. It sort of sucks.”

Rory nodded, a little shocked that his brother would be so honest with him, but he got it. Before, they’d been these very important people who negotiated things between werewolves and dragons. Rory didn’t feel like he wasn’t important, but he did feel like they’d lost something huge with the dragons going away. “Niall says that everything’s going to be fine. That the dragons are great.”

“I never see him. Loyal, yes, but not Niall.”