Chapter 7
One Year Later
Arian held his daughter as she dozed in his arms. She wore the pink velvet dress that Charli had bought for her.
Charli walked out from the bedroom and slipped her coat on as she crossed the family room to where Arian stood with Hope and watched out the front window. It was four p.m. on Christmas Eve, and they were waiting for their pick up from North Pole Security. Arian was thrilled to be going home and sharing NPC with his mate and their beautiful daughter.
“Did you do your last check?” he asked quietly after he kissed Charli.
“Yeah, everything is packed,” she said as she leaned against him with a soft sigh.
“We can stay, love,” he said.
She looked up at him, blinking her beautiful brown eyes that were shimmering with unshed tears. “No, I want to go. I want Hope to grow up with her own people, and I can’t wait to meet your mom and see what it’s like up there.”
“It’s cold,” he said, grinning.
Her nose wrinkled as she smiled. “You’ll keep me warm. I’ll miss seeing Kerri, but I think that this place hasn’t felt like home since the night we met.”
He turned from the window and put his arm around his mate. “You’re giving up everything for me. Your home, your writing, your sister. I want to be with you, no matter where that place is.”
“I’m gaining so much more. I’m not losing anything but the ability to see Kerri, and she’s busy with school, plus Rhys said that I could email her and do the video chat whenever I like.”
Relief twined through him. “I just don’t want you to regret anything about our life together.”
“I promise I don’t.”
Emotion rolled through him. “I love you, Charli.”
“I love you, too.”
He pulled Charli close and kissed her. His beasts rose to the surface, wanting to put the baby in her crib and play with their mate for a while, but he knew that their time was short.
She smiled at him as he pulled from the kiss. “Oh, look! They’re here!”
He turned and saw the same four males who had come for him the year before. He and Charli walked to the front door, and Charli reached over, pulling the blanket closer to shield Hope from the cold.
The males came forward and grabbed the bags that Charli had packed. They’d been asked to limit their belongings to two suitcases.
“Well, well, introduce us properly to your little angel,” Rhys said, smiling broadly.
“This is Hope,” Charli said, beaming with pride.
All four males grinned at the little treasure Arian held in his hands. Because that was what she was – their treasure.
“Oh, I get it. Hope,” Sullivan said.
Arian looked at his friend in confusion. “What?”
“SC said there was hope in the cabin before he left last year. He must have known Charli was pregnant.”
Charli blushed sharply. “Really? Oh man.”
Arian hugged her with a laugh.
“Are you three ready to go? We need to get this new dad buckled up for his flight,” Declan said.
“Buckled?” Arian asked.
“You didn’t think we’d give your job away, did you?” Rhys said. “SC knew you were coming back. We never filled the Blizten position.”
“How could he when I didn’t even know?” Arian asked.
Jack’s eyebrows rose. “You know he’s magic. More than elves, more than shifters – he knows things that no one could possibly know. Plus, he named your baby. That’s just weird.”
It was extremely weird, but Arian was used to weird things that couldn’t be explained in any way other than attributing them to magic. For example – falling out of the sky on Christmas Eve a year ago and landing in the backyard of his fated mate. Beyond magic, how else could that be explained?
“I’m ready to go home now,” Charli said.
“Me too.” Arian said.
Arian and Charli followed them to the center of the yard. Arian gently transferred his still-sleeping daughter into his mate’s arms and wrapped his arms around both of them. “This will be strange,” Arian cautioned.
“I hope I don’t throw up.”
“We all hope that,” Declan said. The four males surrounded them, and Arian felt the rush of magic sweep over them as they were transported to the heart of North Pole City.
The last year had passed quickly. Charli had realized she was pregnant two weeks after Christmas, and it had been the second happiest moment of his life. The first, of course, being when he met Charli. She spent her days writing, and he worked around the cabin and found paid work at a local farm to help out with bills. When Hope had been born in September, Charli said she wanted to move to the North Pole, and Arian had made her promise to think it through for thirty days before they talked about it again. She had never wavered in her decision, even knowing that she would only be able to see her sister on Christmas Eve, when the security team would bring them back for a short visit.
She had stopped publishing her stories in November, posting on all her social media sites that it was for family reasons. She had told Arian that she didn’t need to write romances anymore because she was living one. Any royalties she earned in the future were going into an account for Hope. Although they didn’t use currency in North Pole City, Hope may someday want to explore the human side of herself and live somewhere outside of the city. If or when that happened, Charli wanted Hope to have money at her disposal.
Arian had thought he was fortunate to be a quad and to become part of the sleigh team, but now he knew that he was truly a lucky male because he had found the most precious creature in the universe – his fated mate.
If it weren’t for a broken buckle, he and Charli might never have met, but that was an alternate reality that he never cared to contemplate. He had his mate and his daughter, and the future was theirs to build. He couldn’t wait for the next chapter of their lives to begin.
In North Pole City.
The End