Page 99 of Ruthlessly Mated
“You’ve been putting the port back together, haven’t you?”
“Yes. But that’s not all we have been doing. We’ve been ensuring an ongoing income, a safe home, and destroying threats. Eradicating vampires. Ensuring that nobody fucking dares to suck blood within a hundred miles of this place.”
“When were you destroying threats?” I cock my head to the side. “I would have wanted to destroy threats.”
“Well, you were eating cake mostly. And destroying the furniture.”
“I’m sorry. It just felt right.”
“To rip open the bed?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’m glad you did it,” he says simply. “Can I hug you, or are you going to bite me if I try?”
“You can hug me,” I smile.
He draws me into a deep, loving embrace, and I feel his care rushing through me.
“I am going to look after you, no matter what,” he says. “And you are going to be safe. Trust me.”
I’ve never trusted anybody, but in this moment, hearing those words, something in me tells me that I can trust him. He means it. This is going to be safe. I am going to be okay.
EPILOGUE
Conroy
“Benson! Bailey! Inside! Now!”
Two black and brown streaks tear across the lawn, not paying the slightest bit of attention to their mother’s cry.
Damon grabs one of the pups by the back of the neck. I snatch the other one up and wrestle him against my chest as I carry him back for dinner.
These two are precocious shifters. Just five years old and already able to run faster than a human in their animal form. They’re also feral as all hell. We don’t know which one of us is the father, but there are times they remind us of all four of us.
Kita steps out onto the porch, her belly full and round with another two pups. She has baby Talbot on her hip, and our two-year-old is spy-crawling out the kitchen door before she is scooped up by Tailor.
“Enough, Casey,” he says to the curly-haired, blue-eyed girl who giggles with glee.
“We’re going to be outnumbered when these two are born,” Kita says. “You know that, don’t you? We’re not going to be able to stop them from doing absolutely terrible things. Benson, put the knife down!”
Benson has immediately grabbed the biggest knife he can off the kitchen counter, because he’s tall and drawn to sharp objects.
I grab his wrist and remove it from his hand. He kicks my shin.
Our eldest boy is going to be trouble.
“Go to your room,” I growl.
He goes with a flick of his head that reminds me intensely of his mother. This house is always busy now, always full of life. The twins have started school, the port is even more busy than it used to be, bringing in real legitimate business, and Kita has become quite the homemaker.
She is just as effective at raising pups as she was at stealing vampiric artifacts. It’s surprising how many of the skills are transferable.
Kita
Someone is kicking my ribs from the inside. This is a problem because the other one is jabbing an elbow into my spleen. I’m happy to have healthy, active babies, but there’s not one of these kids who isn’t two seconds away from starting a gang. I amsitting on the deck in a rocking chair, enjoying what passes for a moment of peace these days.
Dinner is almost ready. Damon hunted the meat and Tailor is cooking it up. He’s a great cook. He also makes clothes for the kids, which is good because they grow out of them literally every five minutes.
Conroy still mostly concerns himself with the port, but he is good at playing with the kids and keeping everyone in line, including me. Our family works. It’s like it was designed to work by some omniscient being. Seems to me that nature might abhor a vacuum, but it loves a happily ever after.
I never really planned to be happy. I never really planned to have a family. I never planned anything besides vengeance and death. I’m glad life surprised me with these mates, and I’m glad it keeps surprising me, both with my babies already born, and the ones practicing martial arts inside my body.
“Kita! Time to eat!” Tailor calls for me.
Conroy comes out, wet towel slung over his shoulder from giving baths. He helps lever me up from the chair, drops a kiss on my lips, and leads me into the rest of my life.
The End