Chapter Twenty-Three

Iris

After my night with my new mates, I felt amazing. And safer. I wasn’t even sure why, but wearing their marks gave me a new confidence.

I was still pregnant, of course, and had swollen ankles and various weird aches and pains but decided that maybe if I started an exercise program, I could work on some of that. Maybe make it a little better. I had my first visit with the healer, who examined me and agreed that I was doing fine, but some walking and other gentle exercise would be good. I hadn’t grown up in a family that had a lot of extra money or was big on taking kids for wellness visits, so my experience with doctors was limited, but the healer was completely different from anything I knew.

Cari had her office in her home, and a good part of the exam involved drinking tea in her kitchen while she asked me questions about my health and habits and how the pregnancy was going. Then she packaged up some teas and other herbal things for me to take home. Finally, she led me into a room with an exam table, stirrups included, and checked me over before sending me on my way. Keir and Nix waited outside, leaning on the car, and when Cari walked me down the front walk, I could tell they wanted to ask questions but in typical respectful fashion held their peace.

“They are my mates,” I told her. “Would you please let them interrogate you so they feel better?”

She laughed. “Typical alpha males, right?” Before them, I would have thought that not to be the case, but my previous experience was limited to one jerk-faced bear. “Your daughter will have great protectors.”

“Daughter?” I turned to stare at her. “My mates thought it was a boy.”

“No, it’s definitely a girl, and she has a lot to say. In her baby-mind way.”

“How can you know, without even an ultrasound. Wait…you can hear her?” I was already getting excited about my little girl. Somehow, when the guys said a boy, it didn’t feel right. Maybe Killian wouldn’t want a girl? He sure had nothing but disdain for me, and he wouldn’t see her as a leader?

“It’s my job.” Cari patted me on my shoulder and smiled. “She’s doing fine, you both are, and you can call me anytime if you have a worry. Now, questions, gentlemen?”

They helped me into the car before they started asking. Not to get me out of the way of important talk because they rolled down the window and stood right by the door. But so I’d be comfortable. It was the little things that showed me who they were. Little but important. And all their questions involved how they could be the best mates to me and the baby. I had to be dreaming because nothing in my life up until now was this good.

Their final question was from Nix. “Can we take her up for a flight?”

“As long as she feels up to it. Just be gentle.”

“Always.”

We went home and upstairs for a nap. I was a little worried that they might be needed at the office, but Keir insisted that they had worked a long time to be able to make their own schedules, and seeing to it that I got all the rest I needed and wanted was on the schedule in big bold letters.

I was too sleepy to argue.

But when I woke, they were both gone. I stood on the top landing and heard both their voices from Keir’s wing. Sounded like a business meeting, Zoom or something, and I didn’t want to bother them. But neither did I want to just sit around. I went into the kitchen and filled a glass with ice and half orange juice, half sparkling water, my new favorite drink then palmed the panel by the back door and went out into the yard to stretch my legs and enjoy the lovely sunny afternoon. After a few loops of the yard, the lounge chair called my name, and I settled into it to relax for a while. My exercise program was not going as well as it could, if that was all I could manage. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and brought up YouTube where a pregnant mama could find exercise videos. Somehow I found my way into the shifter version, and while it was less than likely I could do what the wolf mother was suggesting, I was transported into her description of her last cub’s birth. The babe I carried was already big for its development, according to Cari the healer, and I was a little bit worried about my daughter being able to find her way out into the big world and leaving me intact. Would I need a C-section?

“Thought you could hide behind those dragons, bitch?” I jerked my gaze upward to find Killian because of course he was there. “That’s my cub making you fat, isn’t it? My heir, and you thought you could steal him away,” he snarled. He reached for my hand and dragged me off the lounger. “Let’s go. I don’t want to have to slay your dragons.”

I dug in my heels.

“If I have to, I’ll just keep you in the basement chained to a wall and then cut my son out of you when the time comes. Bury you in the woods.”

I started to say it wasn’t a boy, but with his treatment of me, he’d probably just kill us both. And he thought he could slay my dragons? I opened my mouth to scream, but he slapped a hand over it. Rage shoved away the last of the fear I’d had upon seeing him, cold fierce rage that gave me strength I would never have had the courage to express.

I bit savagely into his palm, piercing the skin and flesh and trying to reach bone. He roared and jerked his hand back, blood streaming from the wounds. He released my arm and gaped at his injury. “You bit through an artery.”

I moved backward slowly, watching the blood with a pleasure I’d never have had before he taught me how to hate. “Did I? Good.” I took a few more steps, trying for as much space as possible before he made the decision to kill me before fixing his hand—which would require shifting.

I didn’t want to see his bear angrier than I had in the past. So far, any physical abuse against me was only in human form, and his huge bear with claws like knives could slash me far worse than I’d done him. I’d be dead in one swipe.

The air around him seemed to change, his skin roughening, hairs shooting out as his form began to shift. I turned to run, the scream blocked before ringing from my lips as I took a few running steps and slammed into a man’s chest. I shrieked, struggling to get away from whichever of Killian’s minions had come to check on him.

“Iris, shhh.” Keir’s arms closed around me. “It’s going to be all right. Did he hurt you?”

“No, but he wants to chain me in the basement and cut the baby out of me. And slay my dragons. He’s shifting. He will heal his hand and come after us.”

“No, he won’t.” Keir turned me around to see Nix and half a dozen bodyguards wearing black T-shirts with the pockets emblazoned with their company logo. They stood on alert, but it was not them who had Killian pinned to the ground in half-bear, half-human state. Still bleeding.

The men who held him down were not wearing any kind of uniform, just jeans and random shirts and work boots. But over them towered a gray-bearded elder with an expression I would never want directed at me. “Phoenix, Keir, what do you want us to do with him?”

“It’s up to our mate.” Nix waved Keir and me closer. “Iris, this is Gunaji, the new leader of the bear clan Killian broke off from. He and his men just arrived to talk to you about what happened with Killian before deciding what to do about him. But now, having seen his violence toward a female carrying a cub, they offer you the courtesy of deciding whether they should kill him now, let him bleed out, or take him away to deal with him on their own.”

I chewed my lip, considering. “I don’t really know what to say. A minute ago, I thought he was going to kill me, and I would have let him die to keep him from harming my child or my mates. Or me. But it’s not self-defense if I ask you to end him now. I would say, rather, ask me any questions about our time together or what you might not have seen today. I will answer honestly. Then subject him and his men to the justice you think appropriate.” I had no idea he’d gone rogue, but it made sense now.

“Very well. We already have some information from your mates, and we saw what we saw today. I don’t think we need to ask you any more questions after that. We will take him away and vow that neither you nor any of your family will be troubled by him or any of his followers again.” He gave a small bow and then turned again toward Killian bleeding on the ground.

Keir steered me back toward the house and, after a low murmur of voices, Nix joined us.

I refused to look back. “Will they kill him?”

Nix shrugged. “He didn’t say, but you can believe he will not be showing up again. They can be very severe with their own, and going rogue was already a crime. Harming a pregnant female…that’s bad.”

“Do they know he was the one who got me pregnant?”

“I didn’t tell them, but they got enough of the timeline that they must. He mentioned that if you have any need to talk to someone about your cub when it gets to shifting age, he is at your service.” And was likely the baby’s grandfather. Honorable, too. But I’d deal with that later if it ever seemed necessary. “Let’s forget him. We have a life to live. That is, if you’re sure he didn’t hurt you?”

“No. He wanted to, but I bit him. Hard.”

Keir chuckled. “Our fierce mate.”

We went into the house and closed the door on my past. My daughter was safe from Killian and any and all others who might seek to harm her. Our daughter. Nix’s and Keir’s and mine.