Page 227 of Broken Bonds

“Todd!” I scream, the cake plate in one hand and holding on to the back of the lounger with the other.

Everyone turns and looks at me, suddenly surrounding me, I’m yanking my plate away from whoever is trying to take it from me because there’s still frosting on it I want to lick off, and people are trying to get me moving. Todd shows up and scoops me up, and next thing I know, Alizée’s driving my SUV with Mom riding shotgun, and Todd and I are in the backseat, and…

Oh, shit! I’m about to have a baby!

“It’s too soon!” I gasp between contractions.

“No, it’s not,” Alizée reassures me while it feels like she’s hitting every fucking pothole between the ranch and the clinic. “You’re both shifters.”

“You said she probably won’t be a shifter!” I argue.

“Baby, breathe,” Todd says.

“No!” I yell. “I’m arguing, here!”

“The baby of two shifters,” Alizée says, “even if it’s not a shifter, is usually larger and born sooner than a human or only part-shifter baby. Honey, she was almost eight pounds at your last scan two weeks ago. I’m going out on a limb and saying she’s probably overdue at this point.”

I want to argue more, but then another contraction hits, and fuck that hurts!

I grab the front of Todd’s T-shirt and pull him in. “Swear jar doesn’t count in labor.”

He laughs. “Whatever you say, baby.”

“And you’re having the next one.”

He grins. “We’ll talk about that later.”

Well, later is only an hour later. Because then I’m in my hospital bed cradling our daughter, who didn’t even give me time to get an epidural before she made her entry like a less lethal ass-burster right out of Alien.

And she was eight pounds five ounces, thank you very much.

The moms and Alizée are in the room with us, and I don’t mind at all. This is my family.

It feels good to be able to feel good about saying that.

Hey, I just pushed out a baby sasquatch or something, I’m allowed not to make sense.

But she is beautiful, perfect, all fifteen fingers and seven toes.

Kidding! She is beautiful.

“Todd was over ten pounds when he was born,” Iris says.

Mom gulps. “Goddess, I thought Mal was big, and he was seven.”

“That’s big?” I ask.

“You were the biggest,” she says, and only a little melancholy flashes across her face.

Lately, I’ve noticed that she only talks about my brothers up until the age Dad managed to get his hooks in them and turned them into mini-assholes.

“What are you naming her?” Alizée asks.

Todd and I have been trying out countless names over the past few months, and there’s one I keep coming back to for her first name, although I haven’t told him. He wants me to make the final decision, and he’s told me some he absolutely doesn’t like, and promises that if I pick a name he hates, he’ll say so, and we’ll work on it.

“I’d like Kylen for her first name,” I say.

Both he and Iris freeze, their gazes wide. “Really?” Todd whispers.