Chapter 31 - Byron

"Uncle Byron," Bubba says, pointing to my head. "What is that ?"

"It's a boo-boo," I say, just as Veronica says, "it's a laceration, honey."

I straighten up and raise an eyebrow at her.

"What?" she says, as Bubba tries to repeat the word laceration and fails miserably. "He'll need to learn it someday."

"He'll need to learn the word laceration someday?" I ask, laughing. "Why would he ever need to know that word."

"Because he's going to be a doctor someday," Veronica says, leaning down and pinching his cheeks. He squeals and wrestles to get away from her, and she smiles, watching as Araya and Kaila come around the corner, absorbing him into their game of tag.

"I thought we agreed we weren't going to be cheek-pinchers," Percy says, appearing behind Veronica and hooking an arm around her neck. She smiles, turning her chin up to meet his, and they instantly melt into their own little bubble.

"I agreed to no such thing," she murmurs, leaning in for a kiss, and I roll my eyes, turning around. Seeing them being lovey-dovey together may be gross, but it also instantly makes me yearn for Olivia. I find her on the other side of the party, holding a glass of eggnog, which she almost spills several times during the course of her story.

"—way he was that big," Aris says, shaking his head.

"Bigby?" Olivia says, turning to the man, who clearly wanted to be left out of it. "Come on, man, back me up!"

"Olivia, come on, now—"

"He was bigger than whatever she is describing to you," I say, standing beside her and nestling her close to me. Next to Aris, Linnea's eyes shine a little brighter at the sight of it. I can't wait for the day that people stop being charmed by me and Olivia interacting like a couple, and instead are grossed out by it, like I am with Percy and Veronica. "I almost shit my pants when I saw him."

"No way!" Aris says, his voice joking, but something hidden deep, deep under the layers there. I study him closely, taking a sip of my eggnog. As the Alpha, it's his job to keep this pack safe. But he also constantly runs the risk of someone challenging him for the position. It's how his father fell to Varun. Most packs don't adhere to the old ways of doing things—that the old Alpha must die in order for the new one to take over—but if a shifter did murder Aris to take his place, it would be difficult to prosecute them, at least within paranormal society.

That means that, if a shifter like the commander showed up here, in his massive wolf form, and Aris couldn't defeat him, he wouldn't keep the Alpha position. Also, because Linnea is blood-bonded to him, his children would lose both of their parents, in addition to the pack losing its Alpha.

I don't envy his position. Not at all.

"Okay," Bigby relents, "he was big! But size isn't everything, come on Aris, surely you know that—"

Aris punches Bigby in the arm playfully, and Linnea leads the conversation in a different direction. As stealthily as I can, I pull Olivia away from the crowd and tug her along, up the stairs, until we're standing in a different wing of the house, in the hallway between two bedrooms.

"What are you doing?" she giggles, still holding tight to her eggnog.

"This is where it all started," I say, taking her drink and setting it on a table beneath a large portrait of Bits the Pig. Olivia giggles again when she sees it, and I settle my hands on her hips, pressing her against the wall. Her laugh dies in her throat when I drop my mouth to hers, and just like that, her body is pressed against mine, her nipples hard against me.

Since returning from Veronica's rescue mission, Olivia and I have been unable to keep our hands off each other. We also took Bigby—and Percy's—advice, and started seeing paranormal therapists, more equipped to help shifters work through issues like my evil Alpha killed my parents and my parents were murdered by vampires .

"We could disappear into one of these rooms," I murmur against her lips, pressing my cock, which is already hard, against her. "Nobody would miss us."

" Everyone would miss us," she murmurs against my lips.

"Liv," I say, swallowing.

"We can't right now, By—"

"No, not that," I chuckle, pulling back and tucking a piece of her hair behind her ear. "I—I've been thinking, and—I would like to start trying."

"I thought we were already trying, Byron," she says, smirking. "I thought that when you woke up in the medical bay, telling me you loved me, that we were trying—"

"No," I say, reaching up and putting a finger to her lips. "I mean, I want to try. For kids. With you."

Her mouth drops open, and she stares up at me, her eyes darting back and forth between mine. I watch her throat as she swallows.

"Byron," she says, dropping her gaze. "You know I want to hear that, but I don't want you to do it just to make me happy. I want you to do it because you want to."

I nod, chewing on my lip and looking down at her. She's the most beautiful woman I've ever seen. My mate. My wife. The future mother of my children.

"After reconnecting with my brother," I say, clearing my throat. "And talking to the therapist, I've realized that my insistence on not having kids wasn't—well, like there are some people who really just don't want kids, right? But that's not me. I want them, but I was like, punishing myself. Or living by this idea that family couldn't be real or mean anything when I had the truth about it around me the whole time. The Rosecreek pack is our family, and with you, I'd like to make it a little bigger."

When my eyes refocus on her, I realize she has tears in her eyes.

"Shit, Liv," I say, reaching up and wiping a tear away with my thumb. "I'm sorry—I didn't mean—"

"No, Byron," she says, laughing wetly, "that was just—it was a beautiful thing to say. Thank you for saying it."

"Thank you for waiting all this time," I say, tugging her closer to me and burying my head in the crook of her neck, "for me to come around."

"I didn't have much of a choice," she jokes, and I shake my head, leaning in for another kiss when Kaila, Araya, and Bubba round the corner, each erupting into laughter and squeals of disgust when they see us.

"Yeah, yeah," I say, "cooties this and that—I've seen you eat your boogers , Araya!"

They laugh as they continue their game of tag down the hall, and Olivia takes my hand, squeezing once, before leading me back down the hallway. Right at the bottom is Rafael, Maisie, Triste, Zane, and Ado, all holding a glass of eggnog or wine and chatting.

"Oh, shit, Byron," Zane says, "I was just telling them about how you killed me."

"I didn't kill you ," I mutter, rolling my eyes at him. Olivia squeezes my hand again and slips away, moving toward the group in the kitchen. Linnea is saying something about taking the rolls out of the oven. "I knew it wasn't you."

"How could you have known?" he asks, eyes daring, and I can see that, somewhere beneath the question, he's wondering if I really would have thrown that knife at his throat. Since that day, we've talked more, and Zane has even agreed to come to some therapy sessions with me, but neither of us brought up what happened on the boat.

Now, in front of everyone, is the perfect place to hash it out.

"I knew it wasn't you," I say, taking a deep breath and knowing nobody else is going to understand what I'm about to say, "because the fake Zane said that he chose the genocide path on Undertale."

Zane genuinely, honest-to-Gods, sucks in a breath, bringing his hand to his chest like he's a damsel in distress.

"No," he says, shaking his head.

"Yeah, see," I challenge, raising my eyebrows at him. " That's how I knew it wasn't you—you almost started crying when I even so much as mentioned it."

"You cried?" Maisie asks, turning to him, eyebrow raised.

"No," he says, smirking at her. "I did not cry. I—well, I'm sure I beat you up, probably."

He cried , I mouth to her, and Zane punches me in the arm.

"What in the world is Undertale?" Triste asks, glancing between all of us.

"I have no idea," Rafael says.

"You'd love it," Zane says, "both of you. Tons of monsters in that one."

" Monster is kind of a divisive word," Rafael says, rubbing his chin. "I think paranormal is much better suited."

"They're literally monsters in this game, though," I say, "that's what they call themselves."

"Hmm," Rafael says, while Triste pulls an actual scrap of paper from her pocket.

"What did you say it was called?"

"You play games?" Zane asks, raising his eyebrows at her as he takes a sip of eggnog.

"No," she says, shaking her head, "but I am interested in paranormal media."

"You're writing it on paper?" I ask, watching her scribble it down as Zane spells it for her. "He could just text it to you."

"I lost my phone a few months ago," she mutters, pushing her hair away from her face.

"What does that mean?" I ask, wrinkling my brow. "You just…lost it? And you don't care about finding it?"

Rafael shrugs next to her.

"It'll show up eventually, right? I lose mine all the time, too."

"You guys are nuts," I say, shaking my head and turning away from the group, finding my way through the kitchen until I see her bubblegum pink hair through the crowd, because it's already been too long since I had my hands on her.