“Simone!”
Mera’s scream rang out through the library the moment we stepped through the Valdor door. She had felt me with her godlike powers, and just the sound of her voice was enough to have my chest tight and eyes burning.
So much had changed in my life that I barely recognized myself or my wolf these days, but one thing that would never change was my love for Mera. My OG family and pack.
She barreled toward me, not stopping until we were hugging so tight that I couldn’t breathe, and I didn’t care. Her strength didn’t crush me the way it had last time, and that was a good indication I was so much stronger.
I’d stepped into her world, and finally, I felt like I belonged there.
“I can’t believe you’re back here. Alive. Safe. Beautiful and perfect.” She was rambling, her words spilling over each other as she held me and rocked back and forth like I was a baby to comfort. “When Shadow told me all the shit that happened, I was ready to raze Valdor to the fucking ground. How dare they hurt my best friend! How. Fucking. Dare. They!”
Shadow chuckled as he appeared behind her, baby in his arms. “There was no need, Sunshine. Lucien tore through them like wet paper. He cleaned house for his mate, and Simone ripped the head off her kidnapper. It worked out exactly as it should have.”
He shifted the baby, and I noticed she was already holding herself up in his arms and looking around. It really didn’t surprise me at this point—all the beings in this room defied nature, so who was I to question one extra-special child.
“My duty,” Mera shot back, still holding onto me like I might disappear if she let go. When Lucien stepped up closer to my back, she growled at him, and I felt the heat rising around her. She was not in the most stable of moods, but at least Lucien didn’t view her as a threat, because he stopped moving, keeping a few feet between us until Mera calmed down.
Eventually Shadow had to pry her off me, and I discreetly wiggled my body to get the blood flowing again. Mera, finally in a rational frame of mine, examined me closer. “Holy fucking shifters.” She shook her head. “You look amazing. I mean, you’re always gorgeous, but the glow, my friend. Your power is calling to me.”
My lips twitched as I nodded. “Yeah, I’ve officially stepped into the reborn club. This is the new vampire-shifter hybrid form, and I have to say, I quite like it.”
Lucien pulled me against him like he couldn’t wait another second. “As do I, mate.”
Mera, with her million-moods-a-second, sighed as tears filled her eyes. “This is the best fucking day. Naming ceremony, Angel and Reece are here with Damon, Len has finished with his fae business, Galleli agreed to officially bless our child, and my best friend is a badass eternal like the rest of us.”
Her head whipped around toward Shadow. “She is, right? She’s not gonna die in the next few hundred years from old age?”
“Right,” he told her in what could even be considered a gentle tone, for a beast like Shadow.
Mera’s smile could have lit this room up all on its own. “As I said, best fucking day. There’s just one more thing we need to decide before our baby girl gets her name blessing.”
No one said a word, waiting for her to continue.
When her gaze met mine, I recognized that mischievous expression.
“What is Simone and Lucien’s couple name?”
Lucien groaned in my ear, but I was excited to hear her options.
“Shadow and mine is Shadowshine. Angel and Reece’s is DesertAngel, though I would have been just as happy with Angel and the Asshole.”
“I heard that,” Reece bellowed, appearing in the distance. He had Damon in his arms, who was also up and watching everything. The desert god stopped right next to Shadow, two huge-ass warriors cradling tiny babies. It should have been comical, but I was fairly certain my ovaries hurt just looking at them.
“Annnddd I’m pregnant,” Mera muttered, fanning her face.
Shadow rumbled at her, but then his baby girl patted his chest, and he calmed down.
So. Fucking. Weird.
Angel appeared a moment later, as stunning and ethereal as always. Her wings were away, and she wore a simple, white shift dress that perfectly complimented her lithe frame. With her golden-brown hair back in a braid, she wore an expression of complete serenity. Mera often wore that expression too, and now I finally got it.
In my mate’s arms, our bond pulsing between us, I felt part of this magical world.
No longer on the fringe, but dead in the middle of it.
We were getting a couple name.
“Come on,” Mera said. “We should eat and discuss this.”
“After the naming ceremony,” Shadow told her, and she pouted but didn’t argue.
“Yes, okay.”
Len and Galleli appeared from the shadows of wherever they’d been, somehow knowing it was time for us to gather. “Everyone get your Sunday best on,” Mera called. “We’re blessing this baby girl in style.”
I looked down at my jeans, sneakers, and plain white shirt. I was not dressed in any best, let alone Sunday’s. Mera must have seen my panic.
“Your room is set up for you,” she reminded me. “Wardrobe fully stocked. I took the liberty of laying out a dress for you already, so you don’t even have to think about what to wear.”
With a chuckle I shook my head. “Still a pain in my ass, best friend.”
Mera smiled broadly. “That will never change; now go and get dressed while I ponder your couple name. Sucien does not work at all. Just saying.”
Laughter filled the library, followed by more calls of other variations on Lucien and Simone that just didn’t work. “They’re never going to find a couple name for us,” I said with a chuckle when we started in the direction Mera had pointed for our room.
“We don’t need a couple name,” he murmured, wrapping his hand around mine and making me again feel like I’d won the fucking lotto. “We have a blood call bond. Our blood and souls call to each other, and even more than that, we have love we chose. There’s nothing else.”
Boom. Pregnant.
Truth be told, I wasn’t sure if we would ever have children. It wasn’t a discussion we’d had yet, and I didn’t feel strongly on it either way. I was still young in this world and happy to explore it with my mate for many more decades before thinking about children.
Unless the sexy talk got me.
“I’m starting to understand what Mera meant by you won’t miss the room,” Lucien said, distracting me from my baby thoughts. I focused to see that my door, near the dining hall’s entrance, was crimson. Of course it was. Outside of Lucien, Mera was the only one who knew the why of my favorite color. Knowing how smart she was, she’d probably put it together now with my love of Crimson City and a certain Crimson House master.
“My bestie is better than your bestie,” I told Lucien, overwhelmed with emotion. “She found our shade of crimson.”
“Your besties are my besties,” he reminded me. “And we are lucky to have this family.”
I hugged him tightly, just needing to feel him close for a moment.
“So lucky I can barely believe it.”
He lifted me off the ground, and I wrapped my legs around his waist, the full-body hug the best thing I’d ever felt.
Well, almost the best.
It had already been too long since my mate was inside me.
Too damn long.
