*-*-*-*
“You’re not going anywhere,” Drew said, praying that he never had to see that panicked expression on her face again.
He knew her well enough to know that she would run if it meant keeping their child safe and as much as he hated to admit it, he could understand. Not only was Kara impure, but she’d gotten pregnant before her first real heat was over, which told him that the odds of the baby being born human were very high. Most mates would be fucking furious at the prospect of having a human child, especially an Alpha, but not him.
He wanted this baby.
He didn’t care what it was as long as it was healthy. This was their child and he would not give it up for anything in the world. He knew that their children would end up being a target for other Packs, but also from members of his own Pack. The fear of being led by a human one day or having one of their children mated to an impure would terrify them into doing something stupid.
He’d hire every fucking demon and Packless shifter that he could find that only cared about money and would do whatever it took to keep his family safe. His Pack could go fuck itself, because his mate and child came first.
Always would.
Then again…
He probably didn’t have much of a Pack anymore, not after Kara’s grandmother’s declaration and the fact that he may have massacred an entire Pack with his bare hands probably already had them fleeing to other Packs, looking for protection and if they found it, good for them.
The ones that had been rejected would probably come back, begging him for protection, but he wouldn’t give it, not without making sure that they knew exactly what was expected of them now that he had a child on the way. From this point on, anyone that wanted his protection was going to have to pay a price. They were going to re-swear their loyalty to him and understand that the protection of his mate and child was now their sole responsibility.
He would continue to protect those who needed him, but it was no longer going to be a free ride. All Packs had a purpose and his had gone soft a long fucking time ago. That was his fault, but he would take care of it. He would make sure that they knew from this point on that they had to earn their fucking spot in his Pack.
Anyone who failed would be punished, severely.
He’d pampered them for too fucking long and that ended now.
Now they had a purpose, protect their territory and protect his family. It was a Pack’s job to protect its Alpha and its family and he was going to make sure that they started to pull their own fucking weight or he would treat them like dead weight and he get rid of them.
“You’re not leaving, Kara,” he said softly, but his tone told her that he would hunt her down to the ends of this world if she tried to leave him, because at this point he wasn’t sure that he could live without her making his life a living hell and he wasn’t ready to find out.
Chapter 39
Boston, MA
“May I ask why you won’t let Kara off your lap?” Ryan asked with a frown as they sat in the living room.
“No,” Drew said firmly as she continued with her wild squirming in an attempt to get off his lap, but just as he’d done for the past ten minutes, he ignored her and simply kissed the back of her nape as though she hadn’t seriously threatened to kick his balls into oblivion.
“Umm,” Ryan said, pausing to clear his throat as he gestured helplessly towards her, “because it kind of looks like she wants to get off.”
“She’s happy right where she is,” Drew, the large bastard, said as he condescendingly patted her on the head.
She’d never even got the chance to say that she would run away if she had to save the baby and the bastard was punishing her for it! Just because he’d guessed correctly that she would do just that in order to keep their baby safe didn’t mean that he had the right to punish her. She’d never even got the chance to commit the crime!
Ever since that moment in the hotel he’d refused to leave her side, or rather, refused to let her out of his sight or more than an inch out of his reach. Bossy, manipulative bastard, she thought as she finally gave up on trying to squirm out of his hold, crossed her arms over her chest and sat back against him, making sure to look pointedly off in her own form of retaliation.
It was sad, but it was really all she had at the moment. That, and she was actually pretty tired. So, while she sat in her mate’s arms against her will she decided to use the large bastard as a mattress and catch up on a few minutes of sleep before she woke up and was forced to kick his ass for the right to use the bathroom without the jerk trying to follow her.
*-*-*-*
“Told you that she was happy where she was,” Drew said smugly, keeping his eyes locked on his Beta as he rewarded his mate with a few kisses against the top of the head since it pleased him immensely that she’d stopped squirming on his lap.
Not that he ever wanted to discourage her from squirming on his lap, because God, he loved it when she squirmed on his lap. It felt so good to have her generous ass rubbing against his needy cock, but not when his beta was in the room, watching them with a little too much curiosity.
Normally he’d tell his beta to go fuck off so that his mate could commence with her angry squirming, but unfortunately he needed to know how bad the damage was.
“How many defected?” he asked, deciding that there was no need to play any games and decided to get to the point. He needed to know how many Pack members he had to protect, but mostly, he needed to know how many shifters he had at his disposal to help keep his mate and child protected.
Ryan grinned hugely as he said, “None.”
Drew stilled. “None?” he repeated back not sure that he’d heard him correctly.
“None,” Ryan said back, sounding very pleased with himself.
“How the hell is that possible?” Drew asked, knowing that there was no way that this was true. Not only should they have been sent running when they found out that he was mated to an impure, but he’d also killed off a Pack, which in their world meant that he’d declared war on all of the ice bitch’s allies.
And he had no fucking clue who her allies were, which should have sent his Pack running, but for whatever reason they were staying. He wasn’t sure they’d feel the same way once they realized that the free ride was over. If they wanted his protection, then they were going to earn by risking their asses for a woman that they hated.
Ryan chuckled. “They feel safer knowing that their Alpha would rip their enemies apart,” his Beta explained, which almost had him pointing out that the safety of his Pack had been the last fucking thing on his mind the other night. But, since it worked in his favor for them to believe that he would lose it like that on their behalf, he decided to just go with it.
“Do we know who her allies are?” he asked, deciding to get right to the point so that he knew what to expect.
Ryan shook his head as he reached for his drink. “We’re not sure yet, but we do know that she wasn’t liked very much because of her brutal methods.”
Which of course meant that every Pack and Master that supported the old ways would automatically come after them just to protect their way of life. That was just fucking great…
*-*-*-*
“Maybe we should poke her?” Ryan suggested, which immediately earned him a heavy sigh and a slap upside the back of his head.
“Ouch!”
“Stop saying stupid shit,” Drew said, although he had been thinking the same thing, not that he would admit it.
With a look of outrage, Ryan gestured towards Kara, who was happily curled up in Drew’s bed, snuggling his favorite pillow and making little happy sleepy sounds every few seconds. “She’s been sleeping for the past week!”
Drew turned his glare on his Beta. “I. Know,” he bit out.
“That’s not normal!”
“I know that too, asshole,” he said tightly, returning his attention to the woman who hadn’t so much as opened an eye in the last week.
He knew that
pregnant women tended to need more sleep, but a week was fucking ridiculous! He tried to wake her, tried to talk to her, offered to make her as many “Drew Specials” as she could handle, but nothing he said or did was enough to make her open her eyes and tell him to go to hell.
“What are we going to do?” Ryan asked as though this was their problem and not just Drew’s, which he’d have to admit gave him a little comfort.
There really wasn’t much that they could do. They couldn’t bring her to the hospital, because she wasn’t exactly human. The Pack had a few doctors, but they’d never dealt with an impure before, and besides, he didn’t trust any of the bastards to put their hands on his mate. His Pack might be eager to get on his good side right now, but that didn’t change the fact that there were traitors in his Pack, waiting for the right moment to strike, and what better way to strike back at him then to kill his mate and unborn child?
No, he might be willing to risk having the Pack watch his back and protect his mate, but it was at a distance. He didn’t want anyone that could benefit from his downfall anywhere near Kara. That left only him with one choice, and it wasn’t one that he would make lightly.
“Call the Sentinel Compound and see if they can help us,” he said, wishing that there was another way to do this, but he couldn’t risk Kara or their baby.
Ryan blew out a curse. “Are you sure that you want to do that?”
He knew what his Beta meant. Any ties with the Sentinels could be seen as a betrayal to their kind. It also meant that he would owe the Sentinels and he knew that they wouldn’t hesitate in calling in the favor. It didn’t matter if it was tomorrow or three hundred years from now, they would never forget the debt that he would owe them.
“I don’t think I have any other choice,” he said, glancing down at his Beta, “Do you?”
“Some of us are trying to sleep!” the extremely crabby woman in his bed suddenly announced with a vicious little growl of warning that had his Beta stepping back and Drew sighing with relief.
“Thank fucking God,” Drew whispered hoarsely, realizing something very important.
His mate was fucking exhausted and if they didn’t get out of the room within the next few minutes, she was probably going to go for their balls.
Deciding that letting his mate catch up on her sleep was probably the way to go, he pushed Ryan out of the room as he backed out and quietly closed the door behind them.
Grabbing Ryan by the scuff of the neck, he dragged him towards the stairs.
“Why the hell are you dragging me?” his Beta demanded, struggling to keep up with him.
“Because you’re a loud bastard and my mate’s trying to sleep!” he explained as he continued to drag his Beta behind him and down the stairs, deciding that perhaps it would be a good idea to make sure that his kitchen was stocked with plenty of food waiting for his mate after she was done resting. If there was one thing that he’d learned about pregnant shifters over the years, it was that they could get a tad crabby after a nap and the only thing that seemed to calm them down was food, and a lot of it.
Chapter 40
“Do you want anything else?” Drew, once known as “the prick,” and a self-centered male-whore asked with a kind smile as he placed another plate in front of her, this one stacked high with thick buttermilk pancakes.
Clearing her throat, because she was honestly a little terrified of all the attention that he was giving her, she mumbled, “No, I’m good,” and continued to take a sip of her chocolate soy milk, the only thing that she seemed to be able to hold down right