Page 74 of Venom Island

I don’t think I’ve ever seen Joseph smile.

“You must be Hel,” he says to our little one.

She doesn’t respond, instead clinging to her dad like he’s her anchor in life.

I understand because I see him as mine, too.

He runs a calming hand down her back. “This is your Uncle Joseph,” Enrique murmurs. “Do you recognize his scent? It’s kind of like mine.”

He also looks like you,I think. They may be fraternal twins, but they have the same dark hair and matching irises. Only Joseph’s eyes have a haunted gleam to them that I suspect will never go away.

Hel tilts her head back to sniff the air, her little nose scrunching. “Why?” she asks.

“Why does he smell like me?” Enrique rephrases, ensuring he understands what she’s inquiring about.

“Yeah,” she says. “Why?”

“Because he’s my twin brother,” he explains. “You know how Daddy keeps saying he wants Mommy to give you a sister or a brother?”

I narrow my gaze and ensure he can feel my response to that via our bond.

His lips twitch, but he doesn’t otherwise acknowledge theabsolutely notvibrating within me in response to more children.

Not yet, anyway.

Hel is a handful.

Plus, I don’t know that my heart can take having another. I love Hel and Enrique so much that I’m not sure there’s room for more.

But Enrique is convinced there is.

Fortunately, he’s not pressuring me. He’s just making sure I know he’s very open to creating more pups.

And lots and lots of knotting.

“Yeah,” Hel murmurs, answering Enrique’s question. “But Momma says no.”

“That she does, little hellion. That she does,” he muses, winking at me over his shoulder.

“Momma isn’t changing her mind either,” I reply.

“We’ll see,” he murmurs.

“No. No, we won’t.”

He just looks at me with one of those smoldering looks that make my knees weak.

I try to glare at him. But I’m pretty sure it comes across as something else entirely because his nostrils flare in response.

“Do your mommy and daddy do this a lot?” Joseph asks as he squats down to put himself closer to Hel’s level.

She nods jerkily, her little hands still clinging to Enrique.

Joseph nods with her. “It’s because they love you very much.”

Hel scrunches her little nose. “Yeah?”

“Yep,” he tells her. “I can tell by the way your daddy looks at your mommy. It’s how I used to look at my mate.”