Her eyebrow raises, calling me a liar, and I smile. “Okay, so I do that sometimes. An Alpha has a Luna for a reason. Running a pack and being Wolf King are full-time jobs.”
“So, Finan is your Luna?” she asks so innocently I know she’s joking.
I grin at her. “Not exactly. There’s only one person I want in my bed, and it is not Fin.”
“Ah, so you want someone to share the workload?”
I lift her hand and brush a kiss across her knuckles. “Share mylife. And one day, have pups.”
Her footsteps slow. I’m taking a big risk mentioning pups so soon. We’ve slept together several times now, but shifter couples have traditionally been slow to conceive.
“You want pups?” she asks, watching me closely.
“Didn’t mind the idea of them before. With you, I actively want them.”
I can envision Kat growing with my child, and it’s everything I never knew I wanted.
She studies me. “I never thought about kids before.”
She told me about her experience in the foster system, which was hell. “You were in survival mode, Kitty cat. I’m not surprised you wouldn’t be thinking about them then.”
We’re approaching a clearing when she looks down. “How many?”
I study her bent head. “How many pups do I want?”
She nods, still not looking at me.
I take the fact that she isn’t sprinting away from me or outright refusing as a positive sign.
“Ten,” I lie.
Her head snaps up, glaring, until she spots my grin. “Funny.”
I wrap my arms around her and bend my head. “As many as you want. We can split the difference.”
And I lift her, kissing her lightly.
She touches my jaw, and I hold perfectly still. There’s a new softness in her gaze that wasn’t there before.
Something new.
"I’m not making a mistake, am I?" she asks softly, and I wonder if she’s speaking to herself or me.
It hurts that she even has to ask, but I know exactly who’s responsible for her doubt. Me. I put that doubt into her mind.
“I won’t fuck things up again, Kitty cat. You’re right to doubt, but I won’t hurt you.”
She’s quiet for two beats, then says, “Three.”
I blink at her. “Three?”
“Pups,” she admits softly. “You are handsome, and you make me laugh, but I only want three pups as long as none of them have big heads like you.”
I’m laughing when a wolf bursts through the trees just ahead.
I act on instinct, shoving Kat back and driving my fist into the wolf.
It goes down hard, and the most important thing is that it stays down.
