“I think that Roman can take care of it.”
“Are you sure?”
“Go on, if it’ll make you feel better.”
I excused myself from the festivities and eased into my wolf form. The night was full of so many different scents that it was difficult to pinpoint that of my child but after a few sniffs, I was able to find what I was looking for.
Once I was sure I was on the right track, I broke into a sprint.
After a few minutes, I reached a clearing. Roman had Jayden but the scruff of the neck. Jayden didn’t look too pleased with the arrangement.
“You shouldn’t run off like that, young man. You’ll have everyone worried sick about you.” I told him.
He wiggled out of his father’s grasp and returned to his toddler form. “But mommy…”
I shook my head. It was incredibly difficult to remain stern with my child. He just had this innocent face and sometimes, he would look at you with these eyes. I felt weak just thinking about it.
“What your mother is trying to say, is that you can’t let such things bother you.” Roman was squatting down, so that he was eye-level with our child. “If you get upset over a s’more, what’s going to happen when you’re faced with more serious problems? You have to be a man and prove that you can handle anything because, one day, you’ll have to be the pack leader and when that day comes, I want you to be ready for it.”
“Pack leader?” he said, through a few stray sobs. “Me?”
“That’s right,” Roman answered, as he ruffled up the kid’s hair. “As soon as you’re old enough and we’re a couple of senile lunatics, the pack will be all yours and it’ll be your job to make sure that everyone is safe. Do you think you can do that.”
Jayden stuck out his chest and started marching back towards home.
“Nice pep talk,” I whispered under my breath so Jayden couldn’t hear what I said. “When it comes time for that kid to do some chores, I hope you can instill in him the same sort of patriotic duty.”
“I’m not making you any promises,” said Roman with a chuckle. “Because I’ve tried doing that with Landon and it never works.”
“He is a lot like his father, isn’t he?”
“Oh, definitely.” Roman grabbed my hand and laced our fingers together. With Jayden leading the way we were forced to take on a leisurely pace. “But that’s okay. It just gives us another excuse to make more babies with you.”
“More?”
“Many more.”
“How many are we talking about?”
“Hmm, I’m thinking three? Two boys and a girl. Ideally, I’d like the girl to be the baby of the trio but I know you don’t have any control over that. Although, I suppose we could ask Cynthia for a magic potion or something.”
“Are you kidding me? Our kid would come out with a third eye or something. Honestly, I don’t know how Fiona’s kid is going to turn out with Cynthia being the godmother and all that.”
He laughed. “But yeah, three kids. That sounds good to me.”
“You know what, I’d have to agree with you, Roman. A nice little bunch to call our own. What could be better than that?”
“Oh, I could think of a few things.”
“You mean, like making those babies?”
“You took the words right out of my mouth,” he grinned. “Now let’s find Landon and get this show on the road!”
Without warning, he picked me up and tossed me over his shoulder. A second later, he did the same thing to Jayden. He didn’t even break a sweat.
We both laughed.
I never thought that my life would end up this way but I wasn’t regretting a single moment because deep down, I knew that this was how it was always meant to be.