Page 96 of Mated to the Werewolves

“Yeah.” Sebastian curls himself around them, lying on his side. “I won’t say I’m not freaking out, but wedidcheck, and youcanfly to Italy tomorrow.”

Emma bursts into tears. She leans forward and buries her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking, her breaths coming out as huge sobs.

I shuffle closer to her and join the tangle of limbs on the bed, needing to be there for her.

“Hey.” I take her hand and squeeze her fingers. “Are these tears happy or sad?”

Emma lowers her other hand and peers up at me, her face splotchy and red. “Can you be happy and terrified at the same time?”

“For sure.” Sebastian puts a possessive hand on her still-soft belly. “I can’twaitto meet our kid, but at the same time, I’m already thinking of all the things that can go wrong. Brains are assholes like that.”

Emma laughs through her tears. “True. That’s how I feel, too. I just wasn’t expecting…” She trails off and shakes her head in clear disbelief.

“That we’d get you pregnant the moment you took off your charm necklace?” Troy unearths the pendant and chain from between the sheets, where it must have gotten lost earlier when I’d put Emma to bed. “We had a lot of practice, so we knew exactly what to do.”

Emma takes the necklace and holds it thoughtfully in her palm. “This must be a hell of a charm. If it kept me from getting pregnant for more than a year, I mean.” Then she sticks out her hand again, offering the pendant back to Troy. “It’s such a pretty piece, and I loved wearing it, but I won’t need it now.”

I make a mental note to replace the pendant with a similar one, only without the charm. If she thinks it’s beautiful, I’ll make sure she has something equally nice to wear every day.

Troy takes it from her, then stands and puts it in a drawer. “You might need it again someday.”

“Yeah, when we’re done making babies.” Sebastian stretches out, his eyes closed. “How many do you think you’ll want to have?”

“At least three,” Emma muses, curling up next to him. “Maybe more if you guys are up for it. I want a big family.”

Troy spoons Sebastian and reaches for Emma, one hand resting on her hip. “I want as many as possible. I’ll start drawing up plans to build an extension to the house as soon as we returnfrom Italy. We can add four rooms to start with, maybe an additional one just to be sure?”

I set the alarm—we don’t want to miss our plane tomorrow—and lie down behind Emma, completing the pack huddle. It hits me that soon, we’ll have a baby right here with us, and whether it’ll be born human or wolf, I’ll love it the same, with all my heart.

“We’ll plan everything when the time is right,” I tell them. “But right now, Emma needs rest because she’s carrying our first baby. We’ll start with one, and everything else will fall into place.”

I put my hand over Troy’s, and for a long moment, our rings all pulse in sync, our heartbeats overlapping perfectly.

And I know we’ll be okay, no matter the challenges life throws at us. We’ve got each other, after all.

The End.