I pursed my lips.
“Mace thinks it’s funny not to be there when he knows I want him to be,” I told her. “He’s an asshole.”
Am not, Mace’s amused words drifted across my mind.
Wink gasped and said, “Who was that?”
“That was Mace,” I answered. “And, like I said, he shows up on his own timetable. Sometimes not at all.”
“Well, that doesn’t seem very fair,” she muttered. “You’re not very nice.”
I lifted a brow at her.
“Mace, not you,” she promised, holding up three fingers for the equivalent of ‘scout’s honor.’
“Who are you?” a woman asked, startling us both.
I turned to find Blythe, Keifer’s wife, standing there, staring at us worriedly and with more than a little bit of curiosity.
Then her eyes traveled down to our necks, and her eyes got wide.
“Oh, my God,” she whispered. “You’re mated!”
“Who’s mated?” Keifer asked as he came into a room, a baby in the crook of his arm.
“Awwww!” Wink said. “That’s the cutest baby I’ve ever seen!”
My eyes drifted over to Wink.
“Have you seen a lot of babies then?” I asked her.
Keifer snorted but Blythe, offended that I somehow insulted her child, huffed in annoyance.
“I’ll have you know, Ian, that my child is the cutest baby I’ve ever seen,” she insisted.
“What about your other baby?” Brooklyn, a beautiful brunette that was tall and willowy, asked.
“She is also the most beautiful. And, I like her, too,” Blythe said, tossing a smile over her shoulder.
Keifer snorted.
“You just like her best because she doesn’t try to tear off your nipple while she’s eating,” Keifer said.
“There’s that, too,” Blythe affirmed. “Now, are we forgetting that there’s a stranger in our kitchen?”
All eyes turned to me and Wink.
Wink shrunk into my side, so far so that she hid her face behind the meat of my arm.
I moved it up and over her shoulders, pulling her into my side.
“This is Wink,” I said. “Wink, the brunette with the big tits is Blythe.”
Keifer hissed while Blythe blushed.
Wink pinched my side.
“Ian, that’s not nice,” she admonished.
I noticed she didn’t disagree with me, either.
Blythe’s tits, already large before, had nearly doubled in size. I was sure that Keifer was living the dream.
“Well, you do have big breasts, Blythe,” Brooklyn said.
“The brunette with the long legs is Brooklyn. She’s mated to Nikolai, who’s likely at the helm of his computer upstairs,” Ian said.
“No I’m not. I’m right here,” Nikolai said, pulling his glasses off as he walked into the room and hooking them around his shirt collar. “You’re new.”
That was directed at Wink.
“She is,” I said.
“What happened to your neck?” Brooklyn asked, coming closer.
The baby in her arms, the girl, turned her head and looked at me, and I winked.
“What was that?” Keifer asked.
“What was what?” Brooklyn asked, stopping.
“That wink you just did,” Keifer said. “What are you doing, Ian?”
“Ian hasn’t ‘done’ me yet!” Wink said indignantly. “He’s been a perfect gentleman!”
I rolled my eyes skyward.
“He’s not talking about you doing your man,” Blythe said softly. “He’s talking about that wink that just passed between Ian and my daughter.”
Wink looked up at me, then back at the baby in Brooklyn’s arms.
I just stared at them all blankly, not bothering to explain.
I’d perfected it over time, and I could now hold a stare with Keifer and not even blink.
I wouldn’t have blinked with anybody else, but Keifer was the king after all. He expected people to bow down to his excellence and all that shit.
Me, I didn’t think he was any better than the next guy.
He hadn’t really proven to me that he was, anyway.
At least not to me, personally.
I respected the power he held inside of him, though, which was the entire reason I bowed down to him as the alpha and king.
If he did something to lose that respect, though, I wouldn’t have any problem kicking his ass to the curb.
“You’re not going to tell any of us, are you?” Blythe asked.
I smiled then.
“When she wants you to know, she’ll tell you,” I said.
And she would let them all know soon.
She’d relayed that information while she was still in the womb.
“That’s helpful,” Keifer muttered. “Your psychological bullshit isn’t needed right now, Ian.”
“Then why did you ask me to come over here for a meeting?” I asked, shrugging and turning to leave.
Wink held on to my hand like a landline, following closely behind me without me even telling her to do so.
“Stop,” Keifer said. “I did have a reason for asking you over here.”
I sighed and turned, leaning my back against the wall beside the backdoor.
“So get it over with. Ask me,” I ordered.
Keifer’s eyes narrowed.
“You do realize that I’m the King here, right? If I want to take all day, I can damn well take all fucking day,” Keifer growled in annoyance.
Wink’s hands tightened on my forearm as she read the hostility in the room.
Good. She would need to pay fucking attention if she was going to be with me.