Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 77952 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 390(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77952 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 390(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
“Is this our life now?” she says, barely containing her giggle.
“It sure looks that way.”
Scarlet glances at me, eyes shining, and my heart aches at the hope that’s so clear in her pretty eyes.
Once Ahya’s fresh and clean, we tuck her back into the basket. Scarlet curls up next to me, and I sling my arm around her, pulling her close.
“She’s so perfect.”
“You both are.” I kiss her temple, inhaling her scent that relaxes me to the core.
She turns her face to me, forehead resting against mine. “Do you think it’s weird?” she asks. “That I’m already this bonded to Ahya?”
“No,” I say. “I think it’s fate.”
She presses a soft kiss to my lips, then lets her head rest on my chest, melting against me as the baby settles nearby. The house is still again, full of possibility and growing love. Full of questions, truths, and complications, too.
“We need to talk tomorrow,” I say gently. “All of us. My brothers should be there.”
She looks up, searching my face.
I cup her head and pull her to my lips, pressing another kiss to her temple, unable to get enough of the sweet scent of her hair. “Don’t worry. It’s good. The best. I promise.”
She rests against my chest, wrapping her arm across me. “You ever think about what you really want out of life?”
“You mean like… hopes and dreams.”
“Yeah.”
“All the time,” I admit. “There are things I want, and things I know I need. They don’t always fit together.”
“So what do you do when they don’t?”
I exhale slowly. “You make a choice. Sometimes you give up what you want to keep what you can’t live without.”
I think about the furniture I’d build if Nixon didn’t need me at the lumberyard. The places I’d travel if my wolf weren’t a liability in unknown territory. The family I lost, whom I’d trade every dream to see again.
She sighs. “I think our generation believes we can have it all. And in chasing everything, we let the important things pass us by.”
“What do you want, Scarlet?”
She doesn’t answer right away. When she does, her voice is too practiced. “I love my life.”
But then her mask cracks.
“The truth is… I want to be a momma.” Her words are a whisper.
Maybe she fears that admitting the truth too loudly might shatter something inside her. “Maybe it’s because I can’t have children. Maybe if the choice hadn’t been taken from me, the need wouldn’t burn as much as it does.”
I gather her into my arms, holding her as tightly as I dare, as if I could shield her from the ache, as if my touch could rewrite the years of heartbreak and grief she’s buried beneath that quiet strength.
My gut twists, my chest hollowing with the weight of what she’s been denied.
And beneath that pain, my wolf awakens, howling to give her what she craves. To fill her with my seed. To claim her. To heal her. To breed her.
This desire to plant our legacy deep in the woman fate carved for us is primal.
She’s ours.
The doctors were wrong. Her body was waiting for the right mate. She was meant to be ours all along.
And we can give her everything she thinks she can’t have.
This may be the key to making Scarlet our willing mate.
27
SCARLET
The morning unfolds in a cascade of new roles. Ahya's cry carries through the silence, a tiny whimper that crescendos, and in a heartbeat, I’m awake. She needs a bath, but Nixon suggests we use the shower. The water is tepid on his skin and mine as we gently soap Ahya’s fragile frame together. Her surprise is endearing as the water trails through her red curls, slicking them to the gentle curve of her head. She blinks wide-eyed, then relaxes, lulled by the warmth. Gentle laughter drifts between us, me at how startled she is and Nixon at how perfect she looks with her hair teased into a mohawk. She’s so tiny that, clutched against Nixon’s broad chest, cradled by his huge hands, she seems impossibly small.
Reed dresses her in a powder blue onesie and Finn mixes her formula to her liking. They head out soon after, Nixon and Reed to the lumberyard, and Finn to his workshop, leaving me cradling our little miracle. I’m more complete than ever.
Ahya is the sweetest little thing. She listens, entranced, when I softly sing the lullabies I remember from childhood. When I lay her on the rug with a tiny plush toy Goldie packed for us, she kicks with delight. When her eyes flutter shut, she fusses only briefly before curling into me and slipping into a deep, peaceful sleep.
Before I realize it, lunchtime arrives, punctuated by the rumble of the truck and footsteps through the front door. Nixon and Reed enter, bags of tacos and sodas in hand. Finn is right behind them, carrying more.