THE FINAL HAPTER
Charlotte could feel the tingling all through her body as she waited for Sebastian to come into the bedroom. Once they’d gotten cleaned up, he’d decided that she needed immediate rest and relaxation, and that he needed to make dinner for them both; she’d been in too much shock from what she’d witnessed to even want to argue with him, and had simply accepted his pointed suggestion that she relax in her room, maybe even take a nap if she felt like it, while he fixed something for them in the kitchen.
The Pride wanted her to mate Sebastian; they wouldn’t accept that she wouldn’t tell anyone about what had happened. If she and Sebastian didn’t mate, then the Pride would expel Sebastian and she would be with him—at least in terms of being thrown out of the Pride. She had no idea whether they expected to keep the infant or not. Charlotte closed her eyes, struggling not to see the images of what had happened in the huge melee flitting across her lids.
Instead, she thought about how good it had felt, how right it had felt, when Sebastian had kissed her. The strength in his arms in spite of his wounds was immense, but it was under his complete control.
Could she bring herself to mate him? Charlotte knew very little about it, other than that it was more or less a permanent bond between the two people who mated. She knew that it was a particularly intense bout of sex that went along with it, and that she would be marked, scars showing where Sebastian had marked her, possibly never to fade. It was important to the shifter community, but it would mean next to nothing in the world that she had inhabited until maybe a month before.
She thought of everything that she would—by necessity—have to leave behind if she chose to mate Sebastian. You don’t have any responsibility to him. You don’t have to do this for him, even if he’s the father of your child.
Obviously, there are shifters who exist outside of communities. But if she didn’t mate him, and Sebastian was expelled from his Pride, then where would he go? He’d never lived anywhere else. At the same time, though, Charlotte knew very well that if she only mated him out of pity, that would set a whole set of negatives into motion, so she couldn’t just accept worry for his future as a reason to go through with it.
She had feelings for him. That much Charlotte was comfortable admitting to herself. The rights and wrongs of it were not something she wanted to probe too carefully; that was too complicated, too complex for her to parse in one night, and the Pride needed their decision in the morning. “God, what are we going to do?”
“We’re going to eat dinner, and we’re going to relax for a bit, and then we’re going to talk about this whole situation.”
Charlotte opened her eyes in surprise to see Sebastian standing at her open bedroom door.
“I can bring you a tray, or we can eat at the table. Or the living room. Up to you.”
Charlotte smiled weakly. “I think I want to eat at the table,” she replied. It was strange, the way that Sebastian alternated between being completely in control—dominant even, over her—and then careful, almost hesitant to displease her. It was yet another thing, she thought, that marked how different their lives had been.
She followed him out of the room, still feeling that strange combination of dread and anticipation, doubt and something like desire. Sebastian had worked quickly, but well; as she sat down in her normal spot, Charlotte saw chicken—or at least some kind of poultry—breasts, baked in spices and neatly carved, along with green beans, new potatoes, and a salad.
“I’d offer you a glass of wine, but…” Sebastian smiled wryly.
“I appreciate the thought anyway,” Charlotte told him. It felt strange, being so polite. “God this is just so weird,” she said, shaking her head.
“What is?” Sebastian gave her a ghost of a smile. “The food looked pretty normal to me.”
“The food is fine,” Charlotte said sharply and then took a quick breath. “What’s weird is that…”
“I thought we were going to eat first?” Sebastian raised one sand-colored eyebrow and sat down at the table, across from her.
“I know,” Charlotte said. She closed her eyes. “But I can’t not think about what we have to talk about.”
“Let’s talk and eat at the same time then,” Sebastian suggested. His gaze trailed down to where her abdomen would be, covered by the table. “You need to keep yourself healthy.”
Charlotte considered arguing with him, but decided against it. She began eating, and decided that whatever the poultry was, it wasn’t chicken—but it was very good, indeed. When Charlotte had sampled everything, she looked up from her plate to see that Sebastian was also eating, but more slowly. “We need to talk about this mating thing,” she said.
“I guess we do, since we have a deadline,” Sebastian said. He looked up and took a sip of water from his glass. “I don’t mind leaving the Pride, but I don’t want to lose you.”
Charlotte stared at him; she had assumed he would press the case for her to stay there, for her to be his mate. “You don’t want to lose me?” Charlotte’s hand drifted to her abdomen.
“The baby is important too,” Sebastian conceded, “but the bigger issue for me—right now—is that I don’t want to lose you specifically.” He smiled wryly. “I should have known even before you became the mother of my future child; I had all the warning signs.”
“Warning signs?” Charlotte gave herself a shake; she sounded like an idiot. “What do you mean—and why are you worried about losing me? You—we—we barely know each other.”
“I know it can’t be the same for you, but I’ve sort of known for a while that I want you,” Sebastian said. “Not just want, though... it’s like a need.” He took a bite of green beans and seemed to consider for a long time. “There’s a kind of animal impulse, a knowledge of when you’ve found that person—the one you want for you.”
Charlotte’s eyes widened. “And you think that’s me?” Her heart beat faster in her chest and she wasn’t sure if she felt more excited, thrilled, hopeful, or full of dread. She couldn’t conceive of a way that they could possibly navigate the situation between them with everyone being happy; someone would have to lose out, wouldn’t they?
“I know it is,” Sebastian said calmly. “I knew it a little bit when we had sex before the meeting, a couple of weeks ago. I knew it a little more when you got pregnant. And I really knew it when I was defending you against the people in the Pride who wanted to get at both of us.”
Charlotte set her fork down; she couldn’t eat. Her stomach felt strange, her heart was beating far too fast, and she didn’t know what to think.
“You want to mate me?” Charlotte stared at Sebastian in frank amazement. “Beyond keeping your title, and all that.”
“I’d mate you—if you let me—whether or not I was Alpha of the Pride,” Sebastian said. “I want to be with you.”
“Is this just some... weird... paternal thing? You want to be with the mother of your child?” Charlotte couldn’t quite credit the idea that Sebastian would want her for her—even if she knew, and had accepted, the fact that she was more attached to him than she liked.
“Part of it is that,” Sebastian admitted. “But it’s not even the largest part. That just makes me want to protect you with my life if I have to. I’ve had to hold back from trying to get you to mate me for weeks.”
“Weeks?” Charlotte raised an eyebrow at that.
“Yes,” Sebastian said, matter-of-factly. “Eat your dinner, Charlotte.”
Charlotte frowned, for a moment almost tempted to be contrary, but she picked up her fork, picking for a moment at her food. She took a bite of potato and chewed it slowly.
“Explain something to me,” she said, once she’d swallowed.
“What’s that?”
“What would mating you really be like?” Charlotte looked up from her plate to meet Sebastian’s gaze.
“According to everything I’ve heard on the matter, the best sex of your life,” Sebastian said with a little grin. “I’d mark you as mine, and everyone—not just people in this Pride, but every shifter and anyone who knows about shifters—would know that you’re mine. You would mark me, too, so everyone would know I was taken.”
“And it’s permanent?”
Sebastian nodded. “As permanent as—well, pretty much anything can be,” he told her. “We could dissolve the mating, but it isn’t easy.”
“Why not?” Charlotte frowned; that was something she hadn’t heard before.
“Because it’s more than just marks on us,” Sebastian said. “It’s a bond. It’s mental—psychological. You would be giving yourself to me, I would be taking you.” Something about that scared Charlotte—but it thrilled her all at the same time. “It is harder to end a mating relationship than it is to end a marriage.”
“If we did mate,” Charlotte said slowly, “would you be willing to also be married?”
He nodded. “Of course,” he said.
“What would our lives look like if we did this?” She took a bite of the poultry and was surprised at the fact that she actually regained her appetite.
“That would depend on us,” Sebastian replied. “If you really couldn’t stand living here, with the Pride, we’d have to discuss what things would look like. Where we would go, what we would do.”
Charlotte stared at Sebastian in shock. She’d had the impression that if she mated him, she’d be inextricably bound to Sebastian, to the Pride. She’d never be able to leave. “I’m willing to give up being the Alpha and a member of the Pride if you don’t want to mate me, Charlotte,” Sebastian said. “If you do, I can hardly decide everything for us. We’ll be partners.”
“I guess I just thought that if I said yes, I’d be…”
“Stuck here forever?” Sebastian grinned again. “No. If you really couldn’t tolerate living here, then we’d figure something out together. You’re only submitting to me sexually if you mate me. I like the fact that you’re your own person, with your own life. I wouldn’t even want you to change if I could make that happen.”
That was information that Charlotte needed to consider; it was something that she hadn’t anticipated, and more to the point, something that changed her whole outlook on what the downsides to mating him would be.
She ate in silence for a while, weighing her feelings, thinking about all of the conflicts she’d put herself through in the past few weeks. She knew—she couldn’t deny—that she wanted Sebastian and that she had more powerful feelings toward him than she’d felt towards any other man she’d been with.
Even without being mated to him, she had to admit that the sex had been spectacular—so much so that she had been sad at the thought that it might be over, that she might never have sex with him again, or even that they’d have less sex when she became pregnant.
Then, too, she had the baby to think of. She had been so torn at just handing him or her over to Sebastian when she gave birth; if she mated Sebastian, she wouldn’t have to do that. But could she live in the Pride? No matter what Sebastian had said about being willing to leave the Pride if she couldn’t tolerate it, and that she wasn’t submitting her entire life to him, Charlotte knew that she was much better equipped to adjust her life than he was.
She could work remotely, she could get another job that was closer to the Pride’s territory. Sebastian had no job history, he would struggle to get a job in the city, and then, too, he needed community, he needed to be around his own kind, and to have the freedom to hunt during the full moon.
Sebastian gathered up the dishes when they’d finished eating, and Charlotte still couldn’t quite come to a decision. She watched him move, fascinated by the feline grace that marked his steps, that infused everything he did. You know you want him too, a quiet little voice whispered in her mind. It’s insane, and it makes no sense, but you want him. You want to be with him. But did she want it so badly that she would give up even the option of being with someone else? Did she want it badly enough to abandon the rest of her life in the world she had known before he’d had her kidnapped?
Charlotte was so lost in thought that she barely noticed when Sebastian approached her and gently lifted her out of the chair, bringing her up to kiss her lightly on the lips. “Don’t strain your brain,” he murmured, holding her close, and Charlotte couldn’t help but remember how good it had felt in the woods—because it felt just as good in the kitchen, just as right to be in his arms as it ever had. “Ask yourself what you want, and don’t question the answer. Whatever you decide, we can make it work.”
It was as if his words had been a key; Charlotte pressed her body against Sebastian’s, leaning up onto the balls of her feet to kiss him hungrily. Knowing that he was willing to do whatever it would take to make the situation between them work, knowing that he was willing to even forego the community he had lived in his entire life if she wouldn’t consent to him—and then, finally, telling her that it was her decision—made her want to give into him.
She’d been holding back from it for weeks, and she knew it; she’d tried to deny her feelings toward him, tried to block them out, rationalizing and justifying and debating herself on why she felt a particular way and whether she should or not.
Sebastian’s hands came to life on her body, caressing her and kneading spots she hadn’t even known were sore until his fingertips pressed into them, smoothing away the tightness. Charlotte moaned as the Alpha male began to strip her clothes off her, barely even noticing that he was leading her toward his bedroom—and when she realized it, she was more than happy to go with him without pause.
The anxious tingling that had suffused her before transformed into a kind of pleasant buzz along her nerves as her body heated up, making her shiver and cling to Sebastian even as she tried to peel the few clothes he’d put on off his body.
They tumbled onto the bed together and Charlotte groaned at the reminder of her injuries—minor as they were—even as she heard a rumble from Sebastian that told her that he had forgotten his own pains as well. She felt the slickness along her labia, the tightening of her inner walls as she and Sebastian both got hotter and hotter, touching each other everywhere, kissing and nibbling and lapping at each other’s skin. All at once Sebastian pulled back, looking into her eyes. “I want you to be sure,” he said. “This is something you have to do completely voluntarily, with no doubts.”
“I want to do this,” Charlotte told him, nodding. She pulled his face back down close to hers and kissed him hungrily. “I want to be your mate.”
“This is going to be intense,” Sebastian said, his lips barely an inch away from hers. “It’s going to be the most intense sex of your life.”
“Well, you’ve already set a high bar,” Charlotte said breathlessly, giggling a little bit—she felt as if every inch of her body were ticklish, as if her nerves were primed, her whole body humming and buzzing with electric tension.
“Oh trust me, I have been holding back,” Sebastian told her. He rocked his hips against hers and Charlotte moaned at the feeling of his erection pressed against her, hard and hot, deliciously thick the way it had been every time they’d had sex. She wanted it inside of her more than anything else she could think of—she couldn’t even really say that she wanted to breathe as much as she wanted to feel Sebastian inside of her.
She pushed her hips down to rub against him, nipping sharply at his bottom lip, gripping his shoulders tightly. “Getting impatient now that you’re pregnant, aren’t you?” Sebastian pulled back, reaching one hand between their bodies and cupping her soaking wet folds in his palm. He stroked up and down along her inner labia and Charlotte cried out, twisting her hips to get better contact.
He barely brushed against her clit, and Charlotte shivered, feeling her inner muscles flex with the desire—no, the need—to feel him inside of her. She kissed and nibbled along the column of Sebastian’s throat, finding his earlobe and worrying it with her teeth and tongue.
Sebastian teased her relentlessly for what felt like hours, stroking her and lightly grazing her pleasure center with his fingertips, working the bead of nerves for a few moments and then moving away from where she wanted him the most just when Charlotte was beginning to feel like relief was near.
Sebastian pulled back and began kissing a path down from her lips, along her throat and down to her chest. He lingered for a moment at the juncture of her neck and shoulder, and when Charlotte felt the sharp nip there, she gasped, shivering against him. She reached down and took him in hand, wrapping her fingers around the thick length and stroking slowly, trying to tease him as much as he was teasing her.
But as Sebastian moved down to her breasts she couldn’t hold onto him anymore, and could only accept his worship almost passively, caressing his back and shoulders, kneading the muscles there, trembling and writhing underneath him helplessly.
Slowly, achingly slowly, Sebastian made his way downward, tickling her abdomen, nuzzling against her hips, until he slipped down between her legs, spreading them wide and gently parting the folds of her soaking wet pussy.
He buried his face against her and Charlotte cried out, grabbing at his head and shoulders, tangling her fingers in his hair. He sucked and licked, his slippery, rougher-than-usual tongue lapping at her inner folds and grazing her clitoris, until Charlotte was certain that she would reach climax in a matter of moments. She groaned with frustration as he teased her yet again, building her up until she was on the edge and then pulling back just enough to deny her the pleasure of what she wanted so badly she could taste it.
Just when she was certain that she would die if she didn’t get relief, Sebastian sucked her clit between his lips, flicking his tongue against the engorged bead of nerves so fast that Charlotte could do nothing but cry out as the tension deep between her hips broke and wave after wave of pleasure washed through her.
She bucked and arched, her body twisting seemingly with a mind of its own, as the sensations intensified, crackling through her nerves under the constant onslaught of Sebastian’s lips and tongue against her. Her climax continued, raging through her body as Sebastian pulled back and hammered on with obvious intent, keeping her right at the peak until Charlotte was almost frightened she wouldn’t be able to stand any more pleasure.
He pulled back slowly, releasing her clit and slowing his tongue, until he had finally stopped. Charlotte panted and gasped for breath, trembling in the aftershocks, as he worked his way back up from between her legs to her face, kissing and nibbling lightly. “We’re not done yet, you know,” Sebastian murmured against her lips, letting her feel the hard heat of his erection pressing against her hip.
“I wanted to make sure you were completely... and totally... receptive.” The tip of his cock brushed against her folds and Charlotte shivered, her arousal starting to rise up again in spite of how thoroughly satisfied she’d been moments before.
Sebastian worked her into another frenzy with an ease that told Charlotte that if nothing else, the rest of her life with the Alpha male would be sexually fulfilling. He stroked her all over, waiting until her post-orgasmic tremors had subsided to move onto more intense touches. He sucked and licked and worshipped her breasts with his mouth, claiming each of her sensitive nipples carefully but thoroughly with his lips and tongue and even his teeth, until Charlotte could feel her body tightening once more, feel the heat building up in her.
She knew that Sebastian was holding back his own pleasure; she could feel the hardness of his cock against her skin, feel the tension in his body as they kissed and touched each other. But Charlotte also knew that she had to let Sebastian take the lead—she didn’t know the first thing about mating a werelion. “When—when can we get to the main event?” Charlotte reached down between her body and Sebastian’s and wrapped her fingers around his cock, stroking him slowly. “I feel bad about how long you’re putting off your own climax.”
“It’ll be worth it,” Sebastian told her, grinning against her lips. “Although since you’re already pregnant, it’s not like it’ll be more than symbolic anyway.” He shifted against her and Charlotte moaned as she felt his cock rubbing against her soaking wet folds, the tip brushing every few moments against her sensitive clit.
“I swear to god if I don’t feel you inside of me soon, I’m going to cry,” Charlotte told him after several moments of the teasing sensation of his cock rubbing against her.
“Ask and you shall receive,” Sebastian murmured, guiding the tip of his cock up against her before thrusting slowly. He filled her up inch by inch, and Charlotte was amazed at the fact that even after weeks of having daily—in some cases, multiple-times-daily—sex with the man, he still felt so large that she could barely take him, her muscles flexing around the intrusion in little spasms as he pressed deeper and deeper inside of her. Charlotte wrapped her legs around his waist and pushed her hips down, intent on taking him as hard and as deeply as she could.
Sebastian began to move inside of her and Charlotte lost herself in the moment, kissing him everywhere her lips could reach, touching him everywhere her hands could find. She claimed his mouth over and over again, nibbling at his bottom lip, tasting him as if they’d never kissed before, probing every corner with her tongue.
He began to pick of his pace inside of her, his weight against her body more comforting, more alluring than anything that Charlotte could imagine. He shifted against her body and she cried out as the tip of his cock brushed against her g-spot, sending a jolt through her nerves.
They fell into a rhythm that Charlotte couldn’t have resisted even if she wanted to, both of them touching each other everywhere, both of their bodies heating up more and more by the moment. Charlotte felt herself on the edge of climax for what seemed like too long, barely held at bay by something she couldn’t define. Sebastian pulled back, looking into her eyes. “Tell me you want me to take you,” he said, his voice low and growling. “Tell me you want to be mine.”
“I do!”
“Say it.”
“I—fuck—god—I want you to take me,” Charlotte managed, twisting her hips as Sebastian teasingly avoided the contact she wanted the most. “I want to be yours.”
“I need you to mark me,” Sebastian told her. Deep in his throat and chest, Charlotte could hear and feel the sound of an almost subliminal purr, vibrating through her. “Bite me, Charlotte.”
“Bite you?”
Sebastian nodded, his bright eyes dark with need and desire, the pupils almost completely obscuring the color.
“On the side of my neck,” he said. “Do it.”
Charlotte hesitated for a moment, but the pleasure coursing through her veins made it impossible to think; if Sebastian wanted her to bite him, to mark him as hers, she would do it, especially if it meant relief from the terrible tension between her hips. She pressed her face against the side of his neck, just above his shoulder, and only hesitated a moment longer before opening her mouth, and closing her teeth on his skin.
She bit down, not sure if she was supposed to draw blood or not. “Harder. You can’t really hurt me, Charlotte—claim me!” She bit harder, wincing; a ripple of pain crackled through her jaw, and then she tasted blood. There wasn’t much of it, but Sebastian’s purring intensified. “Good,” he murmured, renewing his hard, fast thrusts inside of her until her lips fell away from him.
Then, somehow, a heartbeat later Charlotte felt his cock retreating, leaving her, and she cried out in disappointment that only deepened when Sebastian’s weight against her body eased up. But then he grabbed at her, his eyes intense, his expression a mixture of animal and human that almost made Charlotte afraid. She could see the bloody smear where she’d bitten him for just a moment before his strong hands pulled her around and dropped her back onto the bed on her stomach, on her elbows and knees.
He pulled back her hips and Charlotte remembered—in a brief flicker—the time they’d had sex before the meeting with the Pride. He spread her legs and then thrust into her all at once, his hips slamming against the curve of her buttocks. She could barely hold herself up, but Sebastian held her in exactly the position he wanted, her shoulders pressed forward and her hips pulled back as he pounded into her hard and fast, sending her toppling over the edge into her second climax. Charlotte moaned helplessly as she gave in to the sensations completely and totally, letting them course through her veins, letting them obliterate even the ability to think.
She felt Sebastian’s lips along her neck, against her shoulder, and then he was kissing and nipping the spot he’d nipped so sharply before, preparing her—but nothing could prepare her for the brief moment of intense pain that shocked through her when his teeth broke through her skin, releasing her blood from just under the surface.
Somehow the pain only made the pleasure more intense and Charlotte heard herself almost screaming from the sensations, moaning and crying out as her body tried to understand what was happening to it. The next moment, she heard a deafening roar—it had to be Sebastian—and felt the hot, sticky-slick gush of his climax deep inside of her.
If I wasn’t pregnant before, I would certainly get pregnant from this, she thought as the sensations overwhelmed her and she slumped, exhausted, to the bed, feeling Sebastian’s comforting weight against her body.
*
“I have good news and bad news.” Sebastian looked up from the crib he was building at the sound of Charlotte’s voice.
“What’s the bad news?”
“The bad news is that this precious crib you’re making is going to need to be broken down and remade,” Charlotte said.
Sebastian frowned. “Why?”
Charlotte grinned. Over the three months since he had taken her as his mate, since he’d marked her as his own, she’d relaxed more and more, and Sebastian wasn’t sure how much of that was him and how much of that was her pregnancy, but he was pleased to see the teasing side of her.
“Well, from what I have just heard from the OB-GYN, we’re either going to need a very large crib... or two of them,” Charlotte said coyly.
“What?”
She had insisted on going to the doctor’s visit alone; Sebastian had gone to the first two with her, making sure that he had visual evidence of the pregnancy he’d known about, making sure that he knew the woman he loved was okay. But after that, Charlotte had steadily said that she wanted to go by herself, that it was one of the few ways that she had of keeping herself “free” in her own mind, and Sebastian had given into it. After all, he had wanted her in no small part because of the personality informed by that freedom.
“We’re having twins, you Alpha dummy,” she told him, grinning even more broadly. “They weren’t sure until today’s appointment and even then, they didn’t know whether one twin would absorb the other, but they’re pretty much certain now that there are two, and that they’ll both thrive.”
Sebastian’s eyes widened at the news. “Two? Twins?”
Charlotte nodded.
Sebastian rose to his feet, immediately moving to wrap his arms around his mate. He felt even more protective, even more desirous of her, with the news that she was carrying not just one child of his, but two. He kissed her hungrily, tempted—for a moment—to simply pick her up and carry her into the house, to seduce her into another long session of lovemaking and then feed her.
“This is great fucking news,” Sebastian said sincerely. Things in the Pride had been somewhat difficult since he had taken Charlotte as a mate; he knew that more than a few of the members of his community had agreed to the ultimatum thinking that Charlotte would refuse to mate, that he would be forced out so that they could choose someone else.
But with Charlotte’s help, he’d begun negotiations with two other recessives—women who could carry a shifter child to term—and had also started talking to a few other Prides from different parts of the country that had a surplus of women. A few of the other Alpha males had been open to marrying off some of their fertile women off to members of his Pride, not out of an altruistic motive but because with an excess of breeding-age females, the hierarchies and social order had become strained.
They were still navigating what their partnership would mean to both of them; Charlotte had announced her pregnancy to her bosses in the city, and had made plans to finish off her current projects and retreat from her job by the time she was six months along.
She would have good references if she wanted to try for another job, one that she could do remotely, but Sebastian thought that Charlotte wasn’t in very much of a hurry to find something else, and he didn’t think that the advent of twins would increase her hurry.
“We’ll have two new members of the Pride,” Charlotte said contentedly. Sebastian grinned.
“Let’s hear those catty bitches say something about you now,” Sebastian said. More than a few of the remaining women in the Pride had tried to snub Charlotte in spite of her built-in status as the mate of the Alpha male—but now that she was not just carrying a child, but two children, they would be in a much lower position. There wouldn’t be any man in the Pride who could resist protecting her, no matter his attachment to his mate.
There were some things that they were both still trying to figure out, and Sebastian was realistic enough to know that even their love for each other wouldn’t be enough on its own to make those things right. If anything, having children would complicate things even more. Charlotte couldn’t transform, couldn’t take part in the full moon hunts, although she was—for the time being—able to keep up with the Pride when they hunted at other times.
She would be isolated no matter what they did to incorporate her into the Pride, unless he could convince some of the Recessive women they were talking to not just to act as surrogate mothers, but to come and stay in the Pride’s territory as mates.
It was a complicated issue—and Sebastian understood that much more than he had even when he and Charlotte had made the decision to become mates—but he hoped that he could at least find a few women to bring into Charlotte’s life who would be able to relate to her in ways the Pride’s females couldn’t.
“Let’s get you inside, get you a bath, and you can tell me all about the appointment,” Sebastian suggested. He knew that most of the Pride thought it was strange that he did half of the cooking, along with the usual “masculine” tasks that he’d taken as the husband in their partnership, but between the pregnancy and her work, Charlotte was often exhausted—and now they knew why she became so tired. “I think we still have some of that soup from yesterday, if you’re still hungry.”
“I just want to lay down and feel you holding me,” Charlotte told him. “That’s really all I want right now.”
Sebastian grinned and carefully picked her up, cradling her in his arms and walking toward the house. He would deal with the crib later, he told himself; it was a tiny thing to make a crib for two babies instead of just one, especially in light of the fact that he would have twin children.
“Do they know if the babies are fraternal or identical?”
Charlotte shook her head. “They’re not sure yet. I think next month they’ll be able to do the genetic testing—if we want it.”
Sebastian carried Charlotte to his bedroom; he’d let her keep her room as a sort of office and retreat-space, a reminder that in spite of being his mate, she was still a free woman. They would have to discuss what to do with that space if they had more children—but that was well down the line. Even the twins she was carrying at the moment could stay in the same room for at least a few years.
He laid her down gently on the bed and took off her shoes, stripping off Charlotte’s pants and tossing them aside before climbing in next to her. One of the other things that Charlotte had insisted on as a mark of her personal freedom was the ability to buy her own things in the nearby town, to own things in her own right, from the money she made at her job. Sebastian had more than enough to take care of everything she would need, but the Alpha male in him understood—even if the animal consciousness didn’t approve of—her need for independence.
“So, when do we tell the rest of the Pride?” He pulled Charlotte close and kissed the top of her head.
“Next meeting, I think,” Charlotte said sleepily.
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