Chapter Twenty-Three

Bronson

My omega was the best. At everything. From the moment the baby was laid on his chest, he was a dad. With all the skills that entailed. I knew he’d been reading up on the subject since he found out he was pregnant, but I believed he was a natural. Our son was happy, healthy, and well-fed, and the two of them thrived.

The arrival of my new family member had me thinking. The law firm was all-encompassing, promising me a fast partnership and paying me very well but at the same time, working me to a frazzle.

Days could be fourteen or fifteen hours long, leaving me no time for the club or my mate and son. What kind of a life was that? Three weeks into my paternity leave, I put in my notice and signed a lease on a small office where I hung out my shingle. I still firmly believed everyone was entitled to excellent defense, and with my profits from my “side gig,” I could do it at a cut rate and still be fine. Take on a few cases at a time, people who would have had to take the services of anyone they could find without a reason to think they could be successful.

And many of these people were shifters. Living on the fringes of human society, they were often caught up in matters they didn’t even understand. And the teenage males? If they didn’t go to jail, it was just because they didn’t get caught. It was mostly just mischief, for which judges would give hours of cleaning the freeways or volunteering in a nursing home. If…the client had a good lawyer.

I would be that lawyer.

Tate was thrilled; I was home for dinner every night, and I came up the path, whistling. He’d made friends with the other partners’ mates, and they set up babysitting so they could all come to the club once or twice a week.

I never thought I’d have a home filled with laughter, a job that fulfilled me in so many ways, a place to meet up with friends and express a side of me that just didn’t fit in other places. Oh, and a little wolf. Most didn’t shift until at least adolescence, but our child? Ran on all fours before he could walk on two. I had a fated mate, the best one ever to walk the earth. My gratitude overflowed.

And my heart beat with love for Tate and Cillian. Every blessed thump.