While enduring the stress of midterms, Yasmin’s interaction with her parents dwindled to the occasional afternoon call. Sometimes her father waved to her across the yard in the morning before slipping into his Jag and zipping away to work at the office. They had their lives, and she had hers.

Years ago, when Yasmin had moved out on her own, her mother had adopted a strict hands-off approach to parenting, which meant River minded her own business and didn’t devise excuses to drop in on the girls unless she came bearing food items or remedies for hangovers and colds.

Her father followed a similar policy unrelated to his awareness of how attractive her friends found him. He claimed he didn’t need to hover when he trusted her to make the right life choices, and it helped that Amaya and Gillian, while hot for him, had never flirted or made him uncomfortable.

It would have been really weird if either of her friends tried to bone her father. Ugh. She’d known “friends” who would have tried, but those two had proven time and time again they could be trusted.

Yasmin tried to focus on her study guide for her final test before school let out for spring break, but her distracted mind transformed her neat handwriting into a jumble of indecipherable words instead. Amaya sat in the adjacent recliner with her MacBook on her thighs while Yasmin sprawled on the love seat.

“So, when are you going to tell your parents about the… you know.” Amaya gestured toward her stomach.

“Ugh.” Yasmin made a disgruntled noise and flapped her hands in the air. “I mean… I know they’ll be okay with it, but I just have this irrational fear that they’re gonna lose their shit or be disappointed with me.” It didn’t matter that she was an adult with her own job and means of supporting herself. Her mother and father’s opinion of her meant everything.

“Totally irrational because your parents were the ones who wanted you to enjoy life, right? Didn’t you say one of them was looking forward to the grandparent life?”

“Well, yeah.” Yasmin frowned. Leave it to Amaya of all people to be the sensible one with the rational observations. The tight knot of tension in her chest eased, and the breaths flowed easily in and out of her lungs. “Thanks. I guess I needed your common sense or something. What would I do without you?”

“Fret. Stress out. Have frequent panic attacks. You’re overthinking it, and honestly, that’s okay because you’re going through a lot of changes in your life all at once. You found a good man, you’re shifter married, and you got a kid coming on the way.”

“True…”

Satisfied with her explanations, Amaya nodded. “So, when you see your parents, just be like, ‘Surprise! You have a son-in-law now’, then sit back as the magic happens.”

“Mom invited Javier over for dinner and strongly implied I should join them,” Yasmin said.

“Sweet. Leftovers.”

She swatted her friend’s shoulder. “I’ll scrounge up what I can. Anyway, I guess I should get cleaned up before Mom questions if I’m taking care of myself?”

“Yeah, best not to break this sorta news in sweats and a ratty tee,” Amaya agreed.

“Fine.”

After soaking in a bath laced with a rejuvenating mixture of her favorite essential oils, she changed into clean clothes and headed to her childhood home. Genuine laughter spilled through the open living room window, and a glance between the vertical blinds revealed Javier and her father wearing VR headsets in front of the television.

Gods. Dad already has him over there gaming with him.

Torn between relief and her irrational worries, Yasmin let herself into the house and veered into the living room. Her mother watched the action on the big screen from the couch. Apparently, the two were in a sword fight in the middle of some fantasy realm with beautiful, glowing flowers beneath a twilit sky. Their in-game avatars wore armor and looked like elves.

“For the love of Hecate, this is the slowest duel I’ve ever seen. Shouldn’t you play better than this since you’re the creator of the game?” River asked, voice playful. She twisted around to hug Yasmin and kiss her cheek.

“I’m going easy on the kid,” Zacarias replied, though he grunted when Javier snuck past his guard. Until that moment, the health bars displayed on the screen had been evenly matched, each one a single strike from depletion. With his attack, Javier won the match between them, sprawling her father’s character out in the grass.

“Ha!” Javier cried. “I told you I’d beat you.”

Zacarias removed his headset and set it aside. “That doesn’t count. She distracted me.”

“I did not. Anyway, our daughter arrived just in time to witness your graceless defeat.”

“That was pretty awful, Dad,” Yasmin agreed. “Maybe if you worked less and found more time to game with us you’d excel at the stuff you code.”

“You’re picking on me, too?” Zacarias held a hand to his heart, wounded. “Find time away from your studies to game with me, and I’ll make time for you too, pequenininha.”

Javier removed his headset and placed it on the arm of the couch with the game controllers. He’d been quiet throughout their interaction, hanging back and putting the ball in her court. Her father’s green eyes lit with interest, but her mother pretended not to watch. A mere gesture from her hand summoned a serving tray with an assortment of appetizer finger foods and frosty glasses of lemonade.

“Hey, Yaz,” her dragon murmured.

Yasmin stepped forward and kissed his cheek. “Hey yourself.”

“Glad to see you two getting along again,” her father said. “Last time you were over here, you looked like you wanted to strangle him.”

Javier chuckled. “She probably did.”

“Ha-ha.” She bumped him with her hip. “Anyway, you should probably know that Javier and I—”

“Are in love. I know.” River grinned while her startled husband choked on his drink. “I’ve been wondering when you two were going to kiss and make up about whatever you fought over on the island.”

Yasmin’s eyes widened. “You knew about us?”

Her mother’s honey brown eyes twinkled with mirth. “Marcy and I had a feeling. Plus, the stars alluded to December being your month for romantic interests.”

After clearing his throat with a few coughs, Zac held up a hand. “Hold on a minute. You two are dating?”

“Oh, well…” Yasmin wrung her hands until Javier took them in his and caressed her knuckles.

“Not dating, Mr. Silva,” he replied. Zacarias raised a brow, and so did Yasmin. Hadn’t they been on a first-name basis since Javier’s arrival because her wonderful, fun-loving father insisted for everyone to call him Zac? “Yasmin is my bonded mate.”

For a long moment, her parents said nothing. Even her mother’s smug smile melted into stunned disbelief. They blinked, but her father was the first to spin and face her mother.

“I told you he smelled like her now! You owe me fifty bucks.”

River scowled up at him. “I don’t have your shifter sense of smell.”

“That’s not all,” Yasmin said, ripping the proverbial Band-Aid off and deciding to spill all the news at once while her parents were receptive and in good moods. “I wanted to share something else with you, too.”

“Does it involve me shelling out for a big expensive wedding?” Zac asked. His eyes lit up and a big grin spread over his face. How could she have ever doubted they’d be happy for her? “Because I’m all for it if that’s what you want. The bride’s family pays for the wedding, right?”

“Um, no,” Yasmin said. “I mean, yes, the bride’s family traditionally pays, but you don’t have to shell out for a big wedding. Unless…” Her heart thumped in her chest, a spike of nervous adrenaline sending her pulse into a panicked gallop. They hadn’t even discussed it. There’d been little discussion about anything unrelated to their baby, in fact.

“Unless what?” Javier asked. He raised one of her hands to his lips and kissed her fingers.

“Unless you want a big wedding?”

“I’ll be content with any wedding that makes you happy.”

“We have to start planning,” her mom gushed. “Zac, baby, go bust out that champagne we’ve been saving since our wedding.”

“Mom, you don’t—”

“Nonsense! This is exactly the reason to celebrate.”

“I can’t have champagne.”

“Yeah, the bubbles go straight to her head, remember? I’ll get the rum,” her father said. “It’s time for mojitos.”

Her father hurried away and phased through the wall before she could stop him. The remnants of his silhouette shimmered green against the wall and vanished. Then he called from the kitchen, “Or do you want a mai tai?”

“This is so exciting. I didn’t expect everything to move so fast. I just thought, if I introduced you two again, fate would find a way and you’d be so happy to reconnect,” her mother gushed before throwing her arms around Javier.

Yasmin groaned. “No drinks.”

“No drinks?” River peered at her over Javier’s shoulder. “Oh! You’re right. Not until after dinner at least if we don’t want Javier to have to carry you home. I swear, you didn’t get your drinking constitution from me. Or your dad for that matter. If you didn’t look so much like us, I’d wonder if you were a changeling.”

Her father reappeared with a bottle of booze in each hand, as eager as a child on Christmas. “About time I get to open these. So, what am I making?”

Her mother shook her head. “She doesn’t want drinks until after dinner.”

“You’re gonna be grandparents!” she blurted over them.

First, absolute silence reigned. Then River squealed and dragged Yasmin close, the tide of her emotions washing over her with motherly warmth and affection.

All Yasmin could do was soak it in and revel in it. She hadn’t realized how much she’d wanted to feel her mother’s arms around her until she’d been folded in the woman’s embrace.

Then her father’s exuberant clap shattered the moment. “Sweet. Now we don’t have to have another baby, and we still get a child to spoil. Do I get to brag yet, or are you two keeping it hush-hush for now?”

As Yasmin glanced at her father, an indignant shade of red spread across her mother’s face. “You changed your mind?”

“Uh.” Her daddy wilted beneath the dirty look from his wife. “I mean… I’m not opposed to it… you were just really terrifying while carrying Yasmin.”

“Zacarias,” River bit out stiffly.

“Where is the lie? You know it’s true.”

The short-lived glower ended when her mother hugged her again. The remainder of the evening with them passed without alcohol, her empathetic father stowing away his beloved bottles of rum in lieu of making coconut-lime slushes instead to accompany the steak and shrimp dinner he had grilled.

Her family’s willingness to accept Javier into their lives put her on cloud nine. All her life, she’d been exposed to the happiest couple in the supernatural world, her soul-mated parents, two halves of a whole.

Now she had the same sort of love in her life.

Her parents didn’t fuss when she finally begged off for the night, but her mom did promise to send over leftovers to the girls. Javier received hugs and kisses, accepted as part of the family.

“I guess we can expect the same when we tell my folks, since our moms were—what’s the word?”

“In cahoots?” Yasmin offered.

“Heh. Yeah.”

Hand in hand, they crossed the yard from her parents’ house. Telling them everything had lifted a tremendous weight from her shoulders, and in the end, she’d been foolish to ever doubt they could be anything but supportive.

“So, since we’ve come out to your parents and we’re bonded, how do you feel about sharing my side of the duplex and leaving the other half to Amaya and Gillian?”

“Are you sure you want to share your space with me already?”

He chuckled and squeezed her hand again. His thumb circled over the back of her knuckles. “Why not? I mean… we are bonded,” Javier murmured. “And I can’t think of anyone I’d rather wake up beside every morning.”

“And leave sleeping in bed, I hope. Your schedule sucks.” She smiled up at him despite the stinging tears in her eyes.

“Does that mean you’ll move in with me?”

“Yes.”

“Good, then you won’t mind if I do this.” He swept her up into his arms, a big grin on his absurdly handsome face. Each time he kissed her reminded Yasmin of the first time. And with their whole immortal lives ahead of them, she hoped that never changed.

Loved this story? Stay tuned as Javier’s tale continues in Bound to Magic, coming out this fall. Does he have what it takes to make it through a federal agent school run by our favorite eagle shifter?

Is this a cliffhanger? By Odin’s beard, I swear it isn’t. I’d call this a Happy For Now. But I will be continuing their tale and carrying the Agents of Saint series onward with other shifter heroes from different walks of life.

What to read until the next novel in this series? Love Yasmin’s family? Check out Impractical Magic for witchy hijinks. Want more dragons? Read Dawn of the Dragons to enjoy a time before supernaturals came into the open. Curious about Ian? Dive into the Wild Operatives series.