the toy for a wash after Naya went to sleep one night this week, Sascha returned her attention to stirring the slowly warming milk. As she waited for it to reach optimum temperature, she picked up an organizer with her other hand to finish reading a note from Tamsyn about the joint DarkRiver-SnowDancer event she and Lara had proposed to celebrate the birth of Mercy and Riley’s babies.
The pupcubs would, after all, belong to both packs.
It’s a good excuse to acknowledge how deeply the two packs are now linked,
the pack healer had written.
I think we need to recognize that, start getting everyone used to the fact that with the birth of the pupcubs, we’re going to truly become two independent parts of a much stronger whole.
To her original message, Tamsyn had added an update:
SnowDancer has suggested Mercy take the lead on this. I can see their point.
Sascha smiled. Lucas had decided on Mercy, too, but had been waiting to hear back from the wolves, see if they’d insist on a more hands-on approach. It would aggravate him that he and the wolves—especially Hawke—were on so much the same wavelength.
Grinning, she tapped back a message to Tamsyn, thanking the healer for the update and saying she’d pass it on to Lucas when he returned to the aerie. She and her mate switched off with child-care duties during the times Naya was home, but they were never out of touch with each other or the pack.
As alpha, Lucas had the heaviest workload, but Sascha had carved out her own place in DarkRiver, was the main point of contact for multiple matters so he could be free to focus on the wider picture. She missed Naya when she was away from her, but changeling cubs thrived on social interaction with other packmates. As a result, Naya was often at nursery school or on playdates with friends.
Conscious of the responsibilities that befell the alpha pair, their packmates were more than willing to take full charge of those playdates, but Sascha and Lucas took their turns as the hosts.
Naya needed to see her parents just as much as any other cub.
Pack was built on the bonds of family.
Putting down the organizer as the milk heated to just a little hotter than the temperature Naya liked, she turned off the cooker and carefully poured the milk into a sippy cup. It would be the right temperature by the time she got it into Naya’s impatient hands. She was just sprinkling on the dark chocolate—from her personal stash, courtesy of her mate—when she felt a ripple along the mating bond that connected her to the man who was her heart.
She smiled and looked out at Naya. “Papa’s almost home.”
Face lighting up, Naya ran to the door on wobbly legs. She banged her small palms against it while saying, “Pa-pa! Pa-pa!” Her speech development and comprehension skills had kicked in closer to the Psy timeline than the changeling one, the likely result of her having constant telepathic contact with her mother.
Sascha screwed on the lid of the sippy cup before she walked out barefoot to pick up her daughter. Only when she had a firm hold did she unlock the door and open it to the early evening darkness. Lucas jumped up onto the balcony less than a minute later.
He’d clearly run full tilt from where he usually parked his car overnight; changelings took care not to ruin the environment in which they thrived, and if that meant a long run home, so be it. Lucas’s T-shirt was stuck to his chest, that chest heaving. Given his fitness, he had to have run
really
fast.
“Racing to beat your best time?” Sascha asked as Naya stretched out toward her father, a wriggling, excited armful.
Lucas’s grin was pure sin, his green eyes all panther right then. Smacking a kiss on Naya’s cheek after taking her into his arms, he hauled Sascha close with a grip on the back of her neck and claimed her mouth in a distinctly adult kiss. Even after more than three years as his mate, Sascha’s bones melted.
Pressing her hands against his chest, his
The pupcubs would, after all, belong to both packs.
It’s a good excuse to acknowledge how deeply the two packs are now linked,
the pack healer had written.
I think we need to recognize that, start getting everyone used to the fact that with the birth of the pupcubs, we’re going to truly become two independent parts of a much stronger whole.
To her original message, Tamsyn had added an update:
SnowDancer has suggested Mercy take the lead on this. I can see their point.
Sascha smiled. Lucas had decided on Mercy, too, but had been waiting to hear back from the wolves, see if they’d insist on a more hands-on approach. It would aggravate him that he and the wolves—especially Hawke—were on so much the same wavelength.
Grinning, she tapped back a message to Tamsyn, thanking the healer for the update and saying she’d pass it on to Lucas when he returned to the aerie. She and her mate switched off with child-care duties during the times Naya was home, but they were never out of touch with each other or the pack.
As alpha, Lucas had the heaviest workload, but Sascha had carved out her own place in DarkRiver, was the main point of contact for multiple matters so he could be free to focus on the wider picture. She missed Naya when she was away from her, but changeling cubs thrived on social interaction with other packmates. As a result, Naya was often at nursery school or on playdates with friends.
Conscious of the responsibilities that befell the alpha pair, their packmates were more than willing to take full charge of those playdates, but Sascha and Lucas took their turns as the hosts.
Naya needed to see her parents just as much as any other cub.
Pack was built on the bonds of family.
Putting down the organizer as the milk heated to just a little hotter than the temperature Naya liked, she turned off the cooker and carefully poured the milk into a sippy cup. It would be the right temperature by the time she got it into Naya’s impatient hands. She was just sprinkling on the dark chocolate—from her personal stash, courtesy of her mate—when she felt a ripple along the mating bond that connected her to the man who was her heart.
She smiled and looked out at Naya. “Papa’s almost home.”
Face lighting up, Naya ran to the door on wobbly legs. She banged her small palms against it while saying, “Pa-pa! Pa-pa!” Her speech development and comprehension skills had kicked in closer to the Psy timeline than the changeling one, the likely result of her having constant telepathic contact with her mother.
Sascha screwed on the lid of the sippy cup before she walked out barefoot to pick up her daughter. Only when she had a firm hold did she unlock the door and open it to the early evening darkness. Lucas jumped up onto the balcony less than a minute later.
He’d clearly run full tilt from where he usually parked his car overnight; changelings took care not to ruin the environment in which they thrived, and if that meant a long run home, so be it. Lucas’s T-shirt was stuck to his chest, that chest heaving. Given his fitness, he had to have run
really
fast.
“Racing to beat your best time?” Sascha asked as Naya stretched out toward her father, a wriggling, excited armful.
Lucas’s grin was pure sin, his green eyes all panther right then. Smacking a kiss on Naya’s cheek after taking her into his arms, he hauled Sascha close with a grip on the back of her neck and claimed her mouth in a distinctly adult kiss. Even after more than three years as his mate, Sascha’s bones melted.
Pressing her hands against his chest, his
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