Chapter Four

Ciudad Vaquero, capital city of Harp, aka “the city”

Amanda Sumner de Mendoza stood on the balcony of her house in the city, one hand braced on the rough bark of the wooden support post, the other rubbing her swollen belly where two tiny shifter babies were just learning to drive their momma nuts. She’d never thought of herself as particularly maternal, but now, as she tried to persuade her two little hooligans to sleep a while, she knew a fierce protectiveness that eclipsed anything she’d ever felt. She’d never thought of herself as having much of a voice, either, but apparently the twins didn’t care about her voice or the words she sang. Mostly she simply hummed along with the song she heard in the trees, and that seemed to calm her two little shifters better than just about anything. Just about. Their daddy’s presence, his touch on her belly when he spoke to them, that was the sure thing. The kittens knew their alpha.

She smiled, thinking that her darling Rhodry had better not get used to that kind of obedience from his offspring. Because these babies were hers, too, and she’d had a thing against authority figures for as long as she could remember.

But for right now, they were peaceful, drinking in the ageless calm of the endless Green, the soothing rhythms of a forest in springtime. The Green always lived up to its name, but this time of year, the vast forest belt went wild with new life and growth amidst the amazing varieties of flora and fauna.

She rocked slightly from foot to foot, knowing she’d have to sit soon. She could almost feel her ankles growing puffier, the skin tightening, her feet aching. She heard Rhodry’s footsteps approaching from inside and stepped back, intending to sit on the well-padded chair he’d arranged for her, when suddenly…everything changed.

She staggered, crying out in pain, as the forest screamed its agony.

“Amanda!” Rhodry was there the next instant, his powerful arms surrounding her, holding her on her feet when she would have fallen. He turned, placing his body between her and the forest, but they both knew there was no threat from that direction. Whatever was happening, it wasn’t in their backyard.

“Aidan,” Rhodry whispered, and she looked up at him in surprise. “Something’s happened to him. Christ, I can’t—”

“Shhh.” It was her turn to be the protector, to soothe all three of the men she loved, because her babies, too, had reacted to the pain in the forest’s song, something they could hear every bit as well as she and Rhodry. She sorted through that pain now, trying to make sense of it. “He’s alive, Rhodi. That’s what matters. And the others will have felt it, too. They’ll be on their way. Don’t go alone.”

“I’m not leaving you, acushla. Who knows—”

“Am I not a member of the Guild, de Mendoza? Did I not pass the trials, same as you did? I’m pregnant, not paralyzed. And it’s not like you’ll be leaving me all alone. There’s an entire city full of people just waiting for these two little terrors to show up.” Their twins weren’t the first on Harp, but they were the first twin shifters. The few shifters previously born as part of a twin pair had all been the male half of a male/female set—with the female twin being born a “norm.” Only males were shifters on Harp. In fact, the shifter trait was sex-linked, which meant the male offspring of shifters were always born shifter, while female offspring didn’t even carry the gene. “We’ll be fine,” Amanda assured him.

Rhodry’s arms squeezed tighter, and he shook his head.

“Rhodi, go. We’re perfectly safe.”

“You’re right. The cousins will have heard the same thing we did,” he insisted. “They’ll already be on their way.”

She pushed away from his chest and gazed up at him, this man she loved more than she’d ever thought possible. “Your cousins are more than capable, but Aidan will need you. There’s no one he trusts more.”

Rhodry’s golden eyes had gone completely cat. They were always beautiful, but there was a wildness to them, a predatory calculation that wasn’t there when he was in full human mode.

He nodded, then dropped to his knees, his hands big enough to span her growing belly as he pressed a kiss to it. “Take care of your mother, you little heathens. And be good until I get back.”

Amanda would have sworn she felt the babies stiffen to attention at their alpha’s command. She threaded her fingers through his long hair and laughed, her hand trailing down his broad back as he stood up. “You be good, de Mendoza,” she whispered. “And come back to us.”

“I love you,” he growled and took her mouth in a passionate kiss that made her forget all about her swollen ankles and battered bladder.

“Love you, too,” she whispered. “We’ll be here waiting.”

He gave her one final, hard kiss, then stepped back, stripping off his clothes as he moved. A moment later, he leaped first to the top of the bannister, and then off into the air in a swirling storm of black and gold. A huge, black hunting cat hit the soft forest floor, pausing to look up only once to where Amanda was blowing him a kiss, and then, in a haze of speed, he was gone. She heard the soft scrape of heavy claws on bark in the distance—but only because he’d let her—and then nothing.

“That’s your daddy,” she murmured to her twins, love in every syllable.

A soft knock prefaced the opening of a door in the room behind her. She turned, unworried, already knowing who it was.

“Cullen,” she greeted him warmly. “You could have gone with Rhodry, you know. We’re fine here.”

He gave her a faintly insulted look. “I’m right where I need to be, lass. Aidan will have plenty of help. You only have me.”

She reached up and gripped his huge shoulder. Cullen was the youngest, and biggest, of the many Devlin cousins. Rhodry had asked him to look after her when they’d first returned from their harrowing journey off the glacier nearly two years ago. They’d both been betrayed by people they should have been able to trust, and Rhodry had needed to report to the Ardrigh about just how bad things had gotten. He’d only been gone a few hours, but Cullen had taken his bodyguard duties to heart, and he was still here. Still looking after her.

She started to say something, to thank him, but a sudden movement rippled over her belly and she gripped his arm instead, her other hand pressed to the little foot stretching her skin as clearly as if she held it in the flesh.

“Amanda?” There was a note of terror in Cullen’s voice that made her laugh. This giant shifter would face the hounds of hell for her, but not a pair of lively babies.

“Don’t worry,” she said a little breathlessly. She eased herself down onto a chair, punching the pillows until they supported her belly. “We’ve plenty of time before these two little troublemakers arrive.”

He drew a deep breath of relief. “Right. Do you need anything? Water? Food?”

“Just some rest in the sun. The twins like it out here on the porch.” Her eyes drifted shut, and she felt a soft blanket fall over her a moment before sleep claimed her.