Some of the girls in Eryne’s coven liked to make fun of me for being a house husband—whatever that meant—but I didn’t care. This is where I belonged. This is where I wanted to be.
Because if I had her, everything else was just a happy bonus.
ERYNE
A little awareness flickered inside of me, waking me from my peaceful sleep.
I turned to look at Barrett, sleeping next to me in his wolf form. He shifted sometimes while he was asleep, and I had to admit I liked cuddling with his furry self.
It had been almost a year since we’d met. Almost a year since I’d found him, fur shredded and bleeding, and nursed him back to health, not knowing he was a man. That he was my mate, all along. These last few months since we’d officially tied the knot had been incredible. If it was possible, I knew, deep in my heart, that I loved him even more now. Mymate.
My caring, compassionate mate, who had been so careful with me the last few days, like he’d known something I hadn’t.
The other witches had told me there was a knowing, even though it should have been too soon.
Willow had sensed she was pregnant with Opal before a human pregnancy test would have even detected it. It had been a few days since she’d brought her baby girl to visit the cafe. I’d told her about how I was more tired than normal lately, how after a long day all I wanted was to go home to Barrett and curl up in his arms, and she’d just given me a knowing smile.
But I hadn’t put two and two together until now.
There was, undoubtedly, a life growing inside of me.
My little witchling, or maybe a shifter pup. We didn’t know what would come of a child who was half wolf, half witch. It was something Barrett and I had spent many nights discussing as I was curled into his body, waiting for his knot to deflate. Those soft, whispered conversations while we were connected somehow felt even more intimate than when he made love to me—or when he fucked me hard rough like I begged for.
I slid my hand over my abdomen, splaying my fingers over my flat stomach, though it wouldn’t stay that way for long. Though I didn’t know the specifics of shifter pregnancy, Willow and Luna were with demons, and their pregnancies hadn’t been much different from a regular witch one.
Which meant in less than nine months, we’d have a baby of our own.
Barrett’s wolf raised his head, a question in his eyes, and then he sniffed the air. Like he was scenting what I’d just discovered. I nodded. He shifted before I could open my mouth, wrapping his arms around my waist and pulling my body against his naked one.
“Barrett,” I murmured, my eyes filling with tears.
Happy tears. Ones I couldn’t hold back—not for the life of me. Because this was something I’d wanted for so long, and I’d worried it wouldn’t happen. Barrett had told me how for wolves, it was harder to get pregnant if you weren’t in a heat cycle, butsince I didn’t actually have one, we didn’t know how long it would take.
“You’re carrying our pup,” he said, voice hoarse with emotion. It wasn’t a question, but somehow, I knew he’d just been waiting for me to figure it out myself.
I bit my lip, looking down between us. “I am.”
He picked up my hand, kissing my palm and then my wedding ring before nudging his head against my stomach, running his nose over my skin. “I don’t think I’ve ever been this happy, Sugar.”
“No?”
“No.” Barrett gave me a wolfy grin. “To know I did this to you, the way your scent has changed from my pup… our baby… fuck, Eryne. It calms me in a way I could never explain. I don’t deserve you, but I’ll spend the rest of our lives making you happy.”
I ran my hands through his hair as he kissed my stomach tenderly. So soft and sweet.
“What about where we live?” I whispered. I loved Pleasant Grove. This town, my job at the Witches’ Brew, it was all I’d ever known. But I wasn’t so naive to think he’d want to stay here. And part of me didn’t want to deprive our child of growing up knowing other wolves, if they were a shifter. “Do you want to… should we move to Walnut Ridge? If they’re a wolf?” I’d gotten close to Barrett’s parents and his sister in our visits over the last few months, and I loved going and staying at the cabin in Walnut Ridge. Still, it was a big decision.
“There’s nothing I’d love more than to take you back there with me. To build a house for us and them.” He rested his hand over the tiny flicker of life inside of me. “But… ”
“But?” I held my breath. It was a conversation we’d put off having. Of course, he’d decided to stay here, but that didn’t meanforever.
I loved him enough to know I’d follow him anywhere. Even if that meant leaving this place behind.
He grinned. “But I love our life here. Our friends…”
I thought about the community we’d built. My coven and their mates… It might not have been a community full of wolf-shifters, but they were our family. And my parents were here, too.
“They’ll have plenty of kids to grow up with, that’s for sure,” I agreed. “And Pleasant Grove is a pretty great place to grow up.” And it would only get better. Since opening the wards to other paranormal beings, we’d had a boom of new residents. It had taken some getting used to, but I loved it. “We can raise them the way we should have been raised.”
