“Ah, the old ball and chain.” Mary sat down on a chair left for her by my brothers. We were all outside, sat around the fire pit I’d dug myself, watching the stars come out in the sky.

Willow and her bunch were inside doing their nails and slathering stuff on their skin. Apparently, Mary didn’t want any part of that. She was welcome to stay outside with us, and avoid it all, but I suspected a part of her only refused because she didn’t want to be seen as soft in any way around any of us. That, and I was her brother, so she would want to be with me, naturally.

“She isn’t either of those things, Mary.” I crushed her to me in a hug, and she gave me a thump on the arm for my efforts. I rubbed at the spot, Mary was no weakling, and grinned at her. “She’s the green to my grass, the sun to my shine, the...”

“Oh, spare me, brother! I was only teasing! Please, don’t make me unload that dinner on you!” We’d ordered pizzas for everybody, the first time either Mary or Aleric had tasted it and both had consumed two whole pizzas on their own, they were so infatuated with the taste and texture.

“Well, after what you ate, that’s quite a lot, so I’ll just keep my thoughts to myself then.”

“You’ll find a mate, one day, Mary. Then you’ll see,” Mal called to her from across the fire and I showed him a fist of unison.

“You tell her, brother.”

“It looks like Aleric’s in line next, not me,” Mary quipped, her eyes cutting to Aleric. He’d gone quiet again, his eyes on the house where Edana was.

“I think you’re right. Look at him. Totally oblivious to us.”

Aleric was the youngest of us all, and the quietest of us all too.

With his golden looks, we’d all expected a child full of laughter and light, but we’d got a rather gloomy, brooding poet who hated being a soldier instead. He did his duties and took them seriously, but he’d rather write a sonnet than wield a sword. It didn’t show in his physique or his abilities, so we let him have his fun.

“She’s stunning, isn’t she?” Aleric’s voice broke over the crackle of the flames and we all stared at him. “I’ve never seen anyone so beautiful.”

“She’s your mate, Aleric, but yes, she is beautiful.” That came from Malcolm, the diplomatic one of the bunch.

“It’s more than that though. She’s special.”

“We all think our mates are special, Aleric. You’ll be alright, man.” Mal patted our brother’s shoulder and gave us all a knowing grin.

“We’ve all been there, well, except Mary,” I pointed out. “We can’t tease him, we know how it is.”

“Ah, but isn’t that why we tease him, Henry? We know how it turns your brains to mush.”

“True, but it also brings clarity, and changes your outlook. I’m glad he’s found his mate.” I left my hopes for Mary unspoken.

“I hope it skips me altogether. I don’t want to turn into the kind of saps you lot have.” She shuddered and looked into the flames. “I’d rather keep my mind and my body as my own, thank you very much.”

“You think that now. If it happens though, you’ll know your life was empty before.” I couldn’t help the words, they were true. “I thought I had all I wanted until Willow came into my life. Now, there’s nothing else I want but her.”

“See? You’ve turned into a fool. Why, Mal was willing to give up the throne to keep his mate. Why would I want to be so dependent on someone else when I can make my own happiness?”

She couldn’t understand, and wouldn’t until she found her own mate, so I didn’t argue.

“Do you think it’s a curse?” Aleric’s voice broke the silence again. “Do you think fate has decided that we are bad, and has decided to fuck us all over royally so we breed ourselves out of existence?”

“What?” Mary looked at him as if he’d grown another head, I think we all did.

“Think about it, why else would fate give us hunter mates? It makes no sense.”

“Well, I’m a woman and only women are hunters, so I guess that blows that theory all to hell. I can pass along the dragon DNA as easily as you lot can.” She laughed, but I noticed an air of tension around that laugh.

“I suppose fate could be exceedingly cruel to you and give you a female mate, Mary. You would never have children, but such pairings aren’t uncommon.”

“True, but I don’t see it happening. This seems to be about breeding, making babies, so fate will ignore me. I can’t have a female mate because we’re meant to mate, aren’t we? That seems to be the point of all of this.”

“You’re right.” I let Mary off the hook and let it go. “Still, Aleric may be on to something. Why else would fate give us slayer mates? Galen is obviously a dragon, so that didn’t work out, but any females might be both. Or neither. We never know, do we?”

“True. I guess we aren’t meant to know and won’t until fate decides it’s time for us to know.” Mary kicked another log onto the fire and we watched sparks fly from the pit. I’d lined it with rocks and fire bricks, so it was safe. With a water hose nearby, there was little chance of a fire spreading, even on the windy top of this hill.

I wondered about whether she actually wanted such a bleak life. Then I reminded myself Mary couldn’t know what joy Willow brought to me or what joy Arista brought to Malcolm. And now Aleric would know that joy as well.

Tomorrow, I’d make her my bride. I wasn’t sure how it would change anything between us, if it truly would, but I knew it was expected of us. I liked the idea either way, my mate and my wife. There was a double commitment in there somewhere. Fate had brought us together, choice would make us married. It was an example my world would understand, I hoped.

That brought my thoughts back to the wolves. They couldn’t understand this either, but it would show what they were throwing away by breaking our laws. A chance at total happiness. Maybe it was our fate to slowly decline, anyway. Perhaps they were fighting nature, blighting us all with their demand for their continued existence at the expense of others. It was a stain on us all for sure.

“You’re thinking grim thoughts,” Willow whispered to me as she wrapped her arms around my neck from behind.

“You caught me while I was distracted, princess. How are you?” I kissed the side of her cheek and placed my hands over hers.

“I’m alright, my love. Do you want anything?” Her lips were right beside my ear when she spoke the words in a low voice, only for me to hear.

“You know I always want you, Willow.” Heat singed each word and I felt her shiver in response.

“Well, you’ll have to wait until tomorrow. We have a house full of guests.” She brushed her hand through my hair, her breasts pressed into the back of my head.

Want filled me, and I looked at our guests. Would they notice if I dragged her off into the woods?

“Of course they’d notice, dear, but do you think they’d blame us?” There was a tremor to her words. She wasn’t as unaffected as she’d like to pretend.

“I don’t.” I stood up and pulled her by the hand to the woods. I shifted and took her on my back at the same time. She was in a nightgown and robe, so it wouldn’t take too long to get inside of her.

I flew her to a rather sturdy tree with thick limbs, landed, and had her against the tree with my cock buried inside of her before she could even get a good grip around my waist with her legs.

“You tempted me,” I growled against her neck as I moved within her eager body. She was always ready for me.

I gripped her full breasts, my fingers teasing at her nipples until she came with a quiet cry of release. Something drove me, some deep need that I didn’t understand. I knew she could take a little rough treatment and thrust into her with desperation. From the first touch of her hands on me to the moment I slid into her, want had filled me, and I needed what only Willow could give me. She cradled my head to her neck as I moved within her. My breath tore from my chest in desperate gasps, until at last, thank fuck, at last, the pressure eased, and I let go within her.

Maybe it was the talk of not needing a mate, a moment of fear that Willow would one day come to the same conclusion, but I knew I needed her. I needed her more than I’d ever needed her in that moment, and my lips found hers as a long cry of a satisfaction ripped from my throat.

“I am yours, you are mine. Nothing will change that, Henry.” She continued to soothe me, her fingers on my cheek, then in my hair as waves of pleasure shook me to my core. She was all I needed. My woman.

She smiled at me as I came back to her, as my mind calmed, and my breath leveling. “Sorry.”

I felt my cheeks heat and looked away as I let her body slide away from mine. The tree was huge, and the spot I’d chosen was actually two limbs that had fused together. We sat on the branches, our hands twined together as she leaned against me.

“I don’t know what our future holds, Henry, I can’t pretend to know, but I do know, it’s our future. Not mine, not yours, but ours. It will be alright, whatever fate brings us next.”

“Don’t challenge fate, Willow. I’ve recently learned what a bitch it can be.”

“You’re right. But I know we were put together for a reason. I love you, and whether that’s fate, chemicals, insanity, I don’t care, I love you.”

“I love you, Willow. Fuck mates, I love you, no matter what caused it. You caused it, actually. I couldn’t love if you weren’t you. I would want you, I’d want to be with you, but love? I don’t think even fate can fake that.”

“Perhaps not.” She sighed, and I knew she was tired. Her pregnancy was progressing at a normal pace for her, but she was tired, and with the added burden of pregnancy, that meant she was actually exhausted.

“Let me get you to bed, princess. Come with me.” I cradled her in my arms, shifted, and flew her to our home. I shifted before I left the edge of the woods and walked with her into the house.

“Sleep well, my bride. I’ll see you in the morning.” We’d planned an early wedding so we could escape to the honeymoon later.

“Good night, my love.” She was asleep before I left the room. I went back out to the fire and found my brothers and sister still there.

Not a single one said a word about my sudden disappearance, and I retook my position by the fire. Tomorrow was a big day in more ways than one. Malcolm was the one who brought that touchy subject up.

“Do you think she’ll be able to handle so many of us at once?” I knew what he meant. There’d be at least twenty dragons in that glen tomorrow, not just my family.

“I think she will.” I hope she will. So far, she hadn’t even felt a buzz with my siblings around. That was a good sign.

“We’ll keep an eye on everything for you. Don’t worry. At the least sign she’s about to freak out we’ll get the other dragons out of there.”

“It’s just her I’m worried about. There are more of her family at this wedding. And this new cousin too. She’s been dormant for a long time, but who knows?”

“She hasn’t reacted to us at all,” Aleric pointed out without me having to name Edana. I grinned at him.

“Yeah, Willow didn’t either, until I, uh, woke her up.” I was about to say nailed her, but that was just crude as fuck, so I didn’t. It still made me smirk though.

“We’ll just have to wait and see, fellas,” Mary said, her eyes on the flames again. It was going to be a long day for all of us. We risked exposure and death if anything went wrong, and it weighed on all of us. I had some of the security team coming in for more than one reason.

“I doubt any of us would be a match for a pack of hunters though, to be honest,” Malcolm said, redirecting us.

“None of them realize how powerful they are,” Mary replied.

“That’s probably a good thing. It will keep all of us safe, in the long run, if they don’t remember most of their powers.” Malcolm again.

“Is it right though?” Aleric didn’t look happy.

“No, but we need to make peace with them, brother. We aren’t the same as our ancestors, they aren’t the same as theirs. We all have heinous acts in our past, done by our ancestors. We have to move past that. Especially as all of our numbers have dwindled throughout the worlds, not just ours.”

“It’s not dropped much in some of them,” Malcolm reminded me.

“You’re right, but we know those worlds are either dragon free or slayer free now. There’s no conflict there now. There’s no reason to be worried about populations in those places.”

“Unless their numbers start to drop too,” Mary said. “It really does look like there’s more going on here than we thought. This isn’t just our world that’s gone mad.”

“Tonight isn’t the time to discuss it. There’s time to do this later. Tonight, we toast Henry. Congratulations and all the joys of the future to you, brother.” Malcolm raised his glass to me and my siblings joined in. He’d brought a barrel of dragon wine and we were determined to finish it before the sun came up. Tomorrow was going to be a good day, no matter what I had to do to make sure of it.