Bearly Dated (The Enigma Shifters) Page 11

  "I didn't see anything. But I can feel something." She turned to Savannah. "What's wrong?"

  "Why are you asking me?" She tried to play it off, but we knew each other too well. It was easy to see that something was troubling her.

  Jax pulled her attention back to him when he spoke. "It sounds like your powers are growing stronger. If you'd like me to put you in touch with my friend, she might be able to help you. Or at least answer any questions you might have. She's pretty much our only connection for information on their clan even though she was outcast from it quite a while ago"

  "I would love that. I have five billion questions these days."

  "It's true," Carter smirked. "She does."

  "Also..." Jax hesitated as the waitress came back with our drinks. Once she was gone again, he continued. "I had a conference call with members from the councils that rule that region. It's complicated, but in a nutshell, there are three councils out there, and as long as they have a peace treaty, they tend to cooperate. As of right now, they are on our side. There's an order out for Richard the asshole right now. One of the enforcers is looking for him."

  "He's missing?" Carter asked, his face going hard instantly.

  "Not missing per se. He's on vacation. Recovering. They'll find him soon enough."

  "So what's the problem?" The hair at the nape of her neck had stood on end and goose bumps erupted across her arms, prickling her skin.

  Jax glanced at Savannah, who still sat quietly looking down at the napkin she kept twisting between her fingers.

  "No! Violet jumped up, unable to sit still another second. "They can't do that."

  In that moment, the diner went silent and Carter stood, pulling her into the safety of his arms. "Shhh. It's okay. Let's hear him out before we jump to any conclusions. We aren't going to let anything happen to any of you. I promise."

  She let Carter's heat soak into her. He was so protective and as much as she thought she'd never need a man like that, it had turned out that he was totally perfect for her in every way.

  "We should have met somewhere private to discuss this," Drago interjected.

  "No. No. I'm sorry. I'll be fine." She retook her seat, but clung to Carter's hand across the table to keep her level. He was her perfect balance. "Keep going," she insisted.

  Jax cleared his throat and then did exactly that as she braced for whatever bad news he might deliver. She had to keep calm. "As long as Savannah doesn't exhibit any signs of oncoming powers, nothing has to be done. The councils have all agreed that as a half human they would prefer her to stay where she is. Those clans don't share their space with humans and don't have the infrastructure we do for maintaining the peace."

  She wrinkled her forehead in confusion. Those sounded like pretty words, but there was a darkness underlying them. They were not friendly toward humans. "They don't want us anymore than we want them." She whispered the words, but all of them heard her.

  He nodded. "It's true. Part of the reason we moved away from them many decades ago was because of that attitude. Their attitudes towards human go beyond old-fashioned. So as long as Savannah doesn't pose a threat, they'd rather we keep an eye on her here."

  "They sound like a bunch of assholes."

  Violet wholeheartedly agreed with Jami. What a nightmare. "Do these councils have control over your clan?"

  "Hell no." Jax insisted. "I mean we try to cooperate when we can, to keep the peace, but no way in hell would we ever pull the shit they do. Fortunately and sadly, there are a lot of people who agree with us, and if something doesn't change soon, war among the clans might be inevitable."

  "Savi are you okay?" She still wasn't talking, and it worried me. She usually had some sarcastic quip on any subject. This kind of silence wasn't like her.

  "Oh, I'm fine. I've just been listening to this misogynistic bullshit and planning my escape."

  "Savannah!"

  "Don't look at me like that, Jami. You and Violet are all set. No one's going to come for you." She glanced around the crowded table and then the diner. "I have got to get out of here." But she was trapped in the middle of the booth and no one moved to let her out.

  "Let me out." Her words were low, but deadly.

  Violet could feel her sister’s panic attack coming on. She jumped from the booth and Savi scooted out. Both she and Jami followed her out into the street. Jami gestured to Drago to wait, and Violet just knew Carter would know what to do.

  They weren't out in the street for ten seconds before Savi let out a frustrated scream. "This is ridiculous. How can this bullshit be our lives now?"

  They pulled her farther away from the diner and into a green space that thankfully had almost no one around. "We aren't going to let anyone take you, and you know that."

  "That's not the point. We shouldn't have to fight for our lives like this. It's downright barbaric. And crazy, right? Please tell me you agree that this is all crazy."

  They both nodded, but what were they going to say? It had been easier for us to accept because of Carter and Maxim. If they were in her shoes, they'd probably be screaming in the streets too.

  "It's beyond crazy. But I swear, I'd rather fight it than give in, wouldn't you? What other choice do we have?"

  "We could run. Get the hell out of this bear town and leave the country. There are plenty of places we could go where none of them would find us."

  Violet doubted that. Every day, her bond with Carter grew stronger and tighter around her heart. If she left with her sister, it would certainly drive her back here, if it didn't kill her first. At times, it did feel like total bullshit, and others nothing short of a magical miracle. Magic or not, though, she was going to do whatever it took to save her sister. If that meant she had to leave this world behind to make it happen--she would.

  Those were the strong words of a desperate sounding woman and that bothered her. Where was her sunshine and positivity when she needed it?

  Savannah shook her head and turned her back. "I figured as much. Neither of you want to leave."

  "That doesn't mean we don't plan to do everything in our power to protect you. That clan is not touching you, I swear it," Jami cried.

  "Me too. Plus, you aren't showing any signs of psychic power. You may not get them."

  Savi flattened her lips into a grim line. Nothing they said seemed to make a difference.

  "I'm still going to leave. I can't sit around here and wait for something to happen. This isn't what I want for my life."

  "Savi," she started.

  "No. Seriously. Just like Jami left us behind in Texas when she felt compelled to come here, I feel the opposite thing. Some instinct is telling me that I need to go. On my own."

  Jami looked at Violet, and she saw the same doubt she felt on her sister's face. What were they supposed to say? Jami had left, and they'd let her go. Was it their responsibility to let their sister go and find where in the world she belonged as well?

  "I don't like the idea of you being out there with no one to protect you."

  Savi snorted. "Since when have I ever needed someone to take care of me? You know me better than that."

  She smiled as the first tear splashed onto her cheek. The idea of her sister leaving to embark on her own, was both sad and inevitable. They couldn't live in each other's shadows forever.

  "Knowing you can take care of yourself and knowing no one has your back if you need it aren't the same thing," Jami offered as the three of them grabbed each other's hands, forming what they'd named the sacred circle of triplet-hood.

  "I know you both have my back. But I really can't stay here. I just can't. If I need help, you're just a phone call away. And Jami has a dragon that can get her halfway around the world at a moment's notice if need be."

  They all laughed. "It's true," Jami said. "The dragon flying thing is a really cool perk."

  "We are going to miss you, but we'll let you know if anything changes here. I imagine Jax and Carter will continue to keep tabs on the situation." Every tim
e she had to let one of her sisters go, it felt like a piece of herself went missing, and it never got any easier.

  They dropped their hands and embraced each other in a tight hug. "Promise you will call us often," Jami said, the sound of near tears in her voice.

  "I will, I promise."

  Before their emotions dissolved into a mess of tears, Savannah broke free and walked away from them. It was only then she realized that Carter had walked up next to her, and he took her hand.

  "Everything okay?" he asked.

  She shook her head. "Not really, but it will be."

  He lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed her fingers. "Anything I can do?"

  She squeezed Jami's hand one last time before she turned to her new mate. A word that still sounded foreign to her. Jami obviously felt the same way because she had insisted that she and Drago actually get married, and she called him her husband. How she would address Carter in the future remained unclear. She didn't feel the need to conform to traditional standards of marriage. Not when she could feel the bond that already existed. That seemed far more important than a legal piece of paper.

  "I know we just got here. But can we go home? I don’t feel like being sociable anymore.“

  He wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her into his side. “For you, my love, I’ll do anything.”

  The pinch of tears burned in her nose and her eyes. She buried her face in his chest to hide them as she worked to get her emotions under control. The idea that this man would do anything for her humbled her. She only hoped that she could live up to that kind of devotion.

  "Thank you," she whispered.

  "Don't thank me," he said. "Taking you home means I get you all to myself again. Which means I can use all the tools in my arsenal to take your mind off of this. If you know what I mean."

  She laughed. She certainly did. The man had talents she couldn't believe. The idea he had more piqued her interest. Something about this bond seemed to make them both insatiable.

  "Let's go," she urged, feeling some of the melancholy lifting.

  "Where is she going?" Jax walked up to them and looked in the direction of Savannah in the distance.

  "Wherever she wants," she and Jami said in unison, followed by a giggle.

  "Come on," Carter steered her in the direction of where he'd parked her SUV and she waved to her sister, who now had Maxim by her side where he belonged.

  "Well, shit. Where are you going?" Jax asked.

  "I'm taking my mate home. And before you say anything, I'm taking some time off from work, too. We've earned some time alone, so keep the crazies at bay until I get back."

  Jax grumbled something under his breath before he gave us a mock salute and took off in the opposite direction.

  "I like it when you call me your mate," Not that he couldn't have figured that out from the way she smiled like a loon.

  "That's good, because you're it for me, babe. And you may not be ready to hear this yet, so don't freak out, but I'm falling head over heels for you."

  She stopped in her tracks. "What?"

  "You heard me. But maybe I just need to show you. Let's get you home and I'll show you all the different ways I can love you."

  Epilogue

  Four weeks later

  “Come back to bed. It’s too early to get up.”

  Violet looked over at a sleepy Carter and smiled. With his tousled hair and bare, muscled chest he looked good enough to eat. Lord have mercy on her, but she could barely resist jumping him yet again. Last night, they’d celebrated finishing the renovation on the cabin with steaks on the grill, dancing under the moonlight on the back deck overlooking the water, and driving into town to buy a pregnancy test.

  “I can’t. I’m too nervous.”

  He rubbed his eyes and looked her up and down. She was dressed only in his t-shirt with no bra and barely there pajama shorts, and his gaze lingered when he saw her nipples poking through the soft, thin fabric.

  “You need to come back to bed.” That dark bedroom voice of his almost convinced her.

  Almost.

  “You take that test yet?”

  She nodded. “Just waiting on the timer.”

  He shot up and the sheet covering his groin fell away, revealing the marvel of his penis, which had gotten her in this situation in the first place.

  “Why didn’t you wake me?”

  “So you could hold my hand while I peed on a stick? No, thank you.”

  Before he could respond with something smart, the timer on her cellphone chimed. He made a run for the bathroom.

  “No, not yet!”

  “C’mon, sissy. You know you’re dying to know as much as I am.”

  She was, but she wasn’t going to encourage him. He was already practically beating his chest and foaming at the mouth to shout to the world that he got his mate pregnant in record time.

  “What if we’re not ready?”

  “We are.” He disappeared into the adjoining bathroom. How he’d managed to carve out space for a second bathroom in the small cabin still blew her mind. For someone whose job had nothing to do with building houses, there wasn’t anything he couldn’t do.

  He reappeared in the doorway with the stick in his hand, no tell-tale expression on his face.

  “I peed on that stick.” She said, laughing.

  He shrugged. “I’ve touched worse.”

  She screwed up her face not wanting to know what he might be referring to. “Please don’t ever say that again.”

  “Anyways,” he drawled. “Do you want to know how you did on your test?”

  She almost rolled her eyes. The man was crazy, and she was crazy about him. She did want to have a baby with him, she just wasn’t sure if she was ready to share him yet. As protective and possessive as he could be, she found she felt pretty much the same way about him. And they were having so much fun together.

  “Maybe,” she joked.

  He dropped the stick and lunged for her, and she just barely slipped out of his grasp. “No!! Don’t touch me with your pee hands.”

  "If you can't handle a little pee, how in the world are you going to change diapers when this baby arrives?"

  "I'll let you do the diaper cha—" She froze. The way he'd phrased that question finally sunk in. "Are you saying?" She couldn't say it out loud. Not yet.

  "Come here, babe."

  She shook her head. "Go wash your hands."

  "Okay, squeamish weirdo." He disappeared back into the bathroom and she inched forward to look at the stick on the floor. Conveniently, it had fallen face up, and the word pregnant showed in the little screen area clear as day.

  Oh boy.

  Or girl.

  She could already picture a little boy replica of Carter. A grumpy little hellion who would keep his mommy and daddy on their toes.

  As she stood there trying to wrap her mind around this turn of events, Carter came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her middle, his hands settling on her stomach that would not be flat for long.

  "I can't wait to see our baby grow inside you. I didn't think you could possibly be any more perfect than you already are, and then I dreamt of you, just like this, but with your belly swollen with our child. I don't know if it was a premonition or wishful thinking, but I'm so thrilled."

  "I had that same dream, last night." This wasn't the first time they'd shared the same dream in the last few weeks, and she believed it was her power and their bond making it happen. She'd also had a dream she'd yet to share with him.

  "I think I know what we're having." She placed her hands over his as they rested against her.

  "Another dream?" he asked.

  She nodded. "The dreams are getting really vivid. I'm starting to question if they're actually just dreams anymore."

  "It wouldn't surprise anyone if they were more. The meager information we've been given supports all kinds of visions that are basically premonitions. Have you been writing them down in the journal Jami gave you, so that
we can track their progress?"

  "Yeah."

  "Good. So are you going to tell me?"

  He had changed the subject back to the baby as quickly as she'd changed it away. "I don't know. Do you really want to know now and ruin the surprise? I would have enjoyed the surprise, but my brain has its own plan for me now that I don't have total control over." She laughed. "It's a little freaky, if you know what I mean."

  "Yeah, I can imagine. Just know that I'm here to support you any way that I can. We're in this together. Now stop trying to change the subject and tell me about my baby.”

  He was behaving like a child on Christmas morning, begging to open his gifts. It was adorable and disarming.

  She smiled to herself. A boy or a girl would have been perfect, but if she had to share her mate this soon, she figured it might as well be with a replica of him who would probably drive him crazy.

  "It's a boy."

  He stilled behind her. It didn't even feel like he was breathing. After a few tense moments waiting for him to react, she turned in his arms, and wrapped her arms around his waist.

  "You okay?"

  He grabbed the sides of her face and stared down at her. The look in his eyes and the sheen of tears making them shine took her breath away. It was no wonder she'd fallen so hard and so fast. When a man like him turns all of that on a woman like her, there was simply no way to resist.

  "I'm not okay, Violet. I am the luckiest man on the planet and I'm about to explode from it." He covered her mouth with his and took her in a kiss that robbed all thought and common sense. Her body heated as she melted against him, taking everything he had to give her. Lips, tongue, and teeth all collided in a kiss so gentle and sweet, yet hard and frantic, she never wanted it to end.

  "Carter," she moaned, scrapping her short, but still sharp nails down his bare back.

  "I know. Me too. I love you so much. But if I don't get inside you in about thirty seconds, I'm going to go crazy."

  She wholeheartedly agreed, but couldn't say so over the bruising kiss he'd renewed. Instead she wrapped one leg around his back, and pressed harder against his rock hard erection. "Do it," she urged against his mouth.