Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 137004 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 685(@200wpm)___ 548(@250wpm)___ 457(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 137004 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 685(@200wpm)___ 548(@250wpm)___ 457(@300wpm)
“Congratulations, you have a baby boy!”
“I always said it was a boy. Didn’t I say it was a boy, Trey?”
“Yes, baby, you did,” he said with a choked cry.
At that point, everyone outside the room started jumping up and down and making loud celebratory noises. Jaime just knew that this kid was going to get spoiled rotten by the entire pack.
Her old pack hadn’t been like this one. Although everybody had looked out for each other, they hadn’t been so close and tight-knit. Baby Coleman would want for absolutely nothing.
It wasn’t until twenty minutes later that the door opened and Trey stepped out holding a tiny little bundle wrapped in a blue blanket, pride and awe written all over his face. “Everyone, this is Kye River Coleman.” Tao immediately tried to take him, but Trey shook his head. “Later. I only brought him out so you could all see him for a second.”
Jaime leaned over and lightly ran her fingers over his head of soft blond streaks. “Aw, he is too cute.”
“Trey, he looks just like you when you were a baby,” Greta told him. “Except for the blond hair. But we can cut that off, it’s fine.”
“You go near my son’s hair, you senile old witch, and I’ll finally shave that lip of yours!” called Taryn from inside the room.
Greta’s mouth twitched into a self-satisfied smile that had Trey sighing and shaking his head.
“You couldn’t wait until later before trying to irritate my mate?” Greta just shrugged unapologetically and went to take the baby. “You can all hold him later.”
“Please, just one little tiny hold!” pleaded Jaime.
He thought about it for a second and exhaled heavily. “Just a few of you. And quickly. You want his head in the crook of your elbow and then wrap your other arm around him,” he told her stiffly, as if repeating what he himself had been told.
Carefully, Jaime took the baby from Trey and smiled, marveling over just how gorgeous he was. Even all wrinkled and scrunched-up, he was too cute for words. Best of all was his smell. She had never smelled anything like it before. There was truly nothing to compare it to. It was just a sweet, earthy, divine, addictive scent that made her melt. It called to her on a primal level and made her consider things she hadn’t before, making her feel slightly off-center and exposed in a way she couldn’t explain. Instead of making her want to hand Kye over to someone else, it made her want to keep him right there where he was. Her wolf, too, had an urge to keep Kye close—an urge Jaime didn’t understand but didn’t question.
Dante watched Jaime holding Kye with a smile of pure delight on her face and felt a twinge in his chest. Suddenly and unexpectedly, he imagined her holding their baby. The picture was so clear in his mind that a lump actually appeared in his throat. Maybe it was the wonder of the moment, he wasn’t sure, but suddenly every wall he had fell away. Every fear and doubt was pushed to the back of his brain, and he felt stripped bare.
Going by the way Jaime was swallowing hard and biting on her lower lip even as she was still smiling down at Kye, Dante guessed that the same thing was happening to her. And then she looked up at him, flashing him a smile, but as their gazes met, a knowing so primitive and absolute hit him with a force that almost hurt. As her eyes widened, he knew the same knowing had hit her, and he was sure that the wonder, shock, confusion, and recognition in her eyes would be reflected in his own.
“She’s hogging him. Move out of the way so I can get to my great-grandson,” Greta complained as she tugged on the back of his T-shirt. Feeling in some kind of daze, he stepped aside.
As Jaime awkwardly handed Kye to Greta, he saw she was in that same daze. As she looked back at him, he saw another emotion on her face. Sheer panic.
No. The word continuously raced around Jaime’s brain. Her mate. He was her mate.
She didn’t need to ask herself how she hadn’t realized this before now. How would she have known? She could recall asking her mom about mating bonds when she was a little girl. Her mom had explained that a mating bond was like a frequency; if it was jammed by something—fears, mental barriers, doubts, an imprint bond, a reluctance to mate—the frequency couldn’t be picked up.
By caging her wolf and building so many walls, there was no way Jaime could have sensed it.
Dante was no more open than she was. He had walls of his own, not to mention a total aversion to finding his true mate. And what with her having that same aversion, neither of them had had a hope in hell of sensing it.