“I WANT TO kill the Consortium,” Mercy muttered after reading the e-mail Lucas had sent out to all the sentinels about the kidnapped BlackSea changeling. “Chop them into little bits and throw them into that canyon we visited in Arizona.”
“The falcons might object to all that rancid meat in their territory,” her mate said mildly from where he stood beside her, reading a message from his own alpha.
“Hmm.” Mercy placed her phone on the nearest flat surface, then leaned back against the porch railing of her old cabin.
Given her need to be closer to the DarkRiver healer with the pregnancy this far advanced, she and Riley had made the decision to move down from their usual home a week earlier. They’d requested any open cabin on DarkRiver lands, but the packmate currently living in Mercy’s old cabin had cheerfully offered it to them for the duration.
All Rina had asked was that they spill the beans on the number and sex—or sexes—of the pupcubs so she could win the betting pool. When Mercy had threatened to shoot the young soldier instead, Rina had laughed and taken off—but not without hugging Mercy first with the wild affection of a packmate who knew her touch would never be rejected.
The memory had her smiling as she said, “Rancid meat is pretty bad. And the falcons are our allies.” Though unlike with the wolves, the DarkRiver-WindHaven alliance was still a work in progress, not in the first stages, but not far past, either.
“I know.” She snapped her fingers. “I can dump the pieces on SnowDancer land. Wolves have no sense of taste so no one will notice.”
Her gorgeous wolf mate growled at her.
Laughing, she ran her fingers through the thick chestnut silk of his hair. He was leaning forward over the railing, eyes on his phone, while she leaned back against it. “Hawke?”
Riley nodded, shifting slightly so that she could pet him more easily, those incongruously pretty lashes of his beautifully visible in this position. “He’s called a lieutenant meeting at five today. We’ll probably be discussing the BlackSea situation.” Sliding away his phone, he rose to his full height, a broad-shouldered man with chocolate-dark eyes that looked at her as if she was his everything.
Woman and leopard, every part of Mercy adored him.
Nuzzling at her, making her smile, Riley placed his hand over her belly. “How are you feeling?”
Heart mush because her mate was petting her, she said, “Like I’ve been pregnant forever.” According to her three hooligan brothers, it was closer to twenty-seven months. According to the SnowDancer and DarkRiver healers, it was just past eight months.
Looking down at her belly, Riley’s right hand strong and warm on the curve of it, while he used his left hand to massage her nape, she spoke to their pupcubs in her best “behave” tone. A tone she and the hooligans had heard often from their own mother during childhood. “You’re meant to come out early,” she said to the babies she already loved beyond life. “Multiple births always come early.” Likely so the mother wouldn’t burst or tumble headfirst right onto her belly.
Riley nibbled at her ear.
Purring, she snuck her hand under his shirt to play her fingers over the ridged lines of his abdomen. God, her mate revved her motor. “Sex could make the babies come out,” she said, kissing his throat.
Shuddering, he began to slide his hand up to cup her breast, then suddenly blinked and shook his head. “You just made that up.” It was a narrow-eyed accusation.
Baring her teeth at him, she began to undo the buttons of his shirt while he was distracted. “Your children are driving me crazy.” Changeling multiple pregnancies never went full-term. Never.
Apparently, the pupcubs hadn’t got that memo.
“Is that how it’s going to be? They’ll be my children each time they’re naughty?”
“Of course.” Pushing off Riley’s shirt, she kneaded at his muscular shoulders in bone-deep pleasure, a purr building inside her. “My children will be angels,” she said when they both knew she was the one who’d brought in the hellion genes. Then again, the Kincaid family did boast Drew. “Though, the kidlets have given me spectacular breasts.”
Riley’s gaze fell, his breath catching. “Your breasts were always spectacular.”
Sinking her teeth into her lower lip, she crooked a finger. “Come kiss me.”
Her mate didn’t try to resist. He shifted to cup the side of her face with one big, rough-skinned hand and then his lips were on hers and her entire body was aching for him. When he slid that hand down to touch her heavy breasts, her purr turned into a moan.
Those breasts were a pain in the ass when she wanted to run patrol—not that she’d been able to do that after her balance became that of a drunken goat—but she had to admit they were kind of fun. Especially when Riley did that. Shuddering as he just pushed down one shoulder of her loose top and the bra cup on that side to replace his hand with his mouth, she wove her fingers into his hair and held on for the ride.
Thank the heavens the cabin was deep in DarkRiver territory and surrounded by the forest, giving them endless privacy—because Mercy did not want to move right now.
“God,” she whispered huskily at some point after Riley had stripped off her top and bra to leave her clad only in a pair of shorts. “Wolves have all the moves.”
He chuckled, his pupils surrounded by a ring of wolfish amber when he looked up to meet her gaze before he claimed her lips in a possessive kiss that made her squirm. “I want you inside me,” she said, her hands fisted in his hair.
He grazed the side of her breast with his claws. “Be good, kitty cat.” A nip of her lip. “You’re—”
“Pregnant and in full pounce-on-my-mate mode.” Changelings were known to be sexually active all the way through a pregnancy, but her overprotective mate had been obdurate this past week, worried about causing inadvertent harm to her or the pupcubs. “I hurt from missing you.”
Yes, she was shameless.
A growl rumbled in his chest. “You can’t play me that easily anymore.”
Nipples aching from the vibration, she petted his nape exactly how he liked . . . then smiled her most sinful smile. “If I could reach over my belly, I’d take care of it myself.”
His eyes heated. “Witch.”
“Your witch. Now be with me before I die from want.” She petted his amazing shoulders, his incredible chest. His body made her want to bite and claw and climb all over him.
“Mercy, what if—”
Hearing the worry in his tone, she ran her fingers through his hair and stopped playing to hold his gaze. “Nothing will go wrong.” They were no longer talking about sex. “I’m as healthy as an ox and so are the pupcubs.”
Her mate had lost his parents, all but raised his siblings, then had his sister kidnapped and tortured by a monster. As for Drew, the damn blue-eyed wolf kept getting shot! The fact that Brenna was healed and happy and Drew had promised not to get shot again didn’t erase the scars her mate carried on that huge heart of his.
Stroking her hands down to cradle his face, she spoke to wolf and man both. “Any sign of a problem and I’ll be at the healer’s.” She let him see her sincerity, feel it through their mating bond. “I’m awful at being pregnant, but I want to be a mom so bad, Riley, and I want to see you being a dad. I’m not going to put that at risk, no matter what.”
He took a shaky breath, bending to press his forehead against hers. “I know. I just . . .”
“I know, baby.” Kissing and nuzzling at him until he was no longer trembling, she surrendered when he took control of the kiss. That kind of surrender didn’t come instinctively to either part of her, but if SnowDancer Senior Lieutenant Riley Kincaid could let her see his fear, let her hold him, then DarkRiver Sentinel Mercy Smith had zero problems giving him the control he needed to love her right now.
He was far more gentle than they usually ever were, but that was fine, because gentle or rough, her mate always had her moaning in a matter of minutes. That record wasn’t in any danger of being broken today.
They finally made it inside and to the bed, where a certain wolf drove her to distraction, then bit down on her shoulder in a possessive hold as he thrust into her slow and deep and oh-so-hard.
Despite their delicious exertion, the pupcubs stayed smug and stubborn and happy inside her body, exactly like the hellions they were.