Page 4 of Bear Your Fate

My head swiveled in his direction, and my hand shot out to cover his mouth as my gaze darted around the hallway to make sure we were alone. His dark eyes twinkled as he kissed my palm, and my wrist tingled in response to the feel of his warm lips against my skin. I yanked my hand away, disappointed yet again to not find a consort mark when I looked down.

Even though our situation was terribly complicated, I couldn’t help but yearn for Carrick to be the man the Goddess had chosen for me. If he was the one who was supposed to stand by my side, then the mark would have appeared by now. But that didn’t stop me from checking each and every time I was near him, especially since the darn tingles I felt in the exact place a consort’s mark traditionally appeared on a witch kept getting my hopes up.

“I didn’t run,” I huffed, lying my butt off because that’s exactly what I’d done. Both times. “I just had other places I needed to be.”

“You ran so damn fast; I wouldn’t have been surprised to learn you were a cheetah shifter.”

“There are cheetah shifters?” I gasped since I’d never heard of them before. Although witches and shifters had a long history of staying away from each other, I’d learned a lot about the shifter world ever since my daughter met her consort.

“Not so far as I’m aware.” His eyes twinkled with humor as he stared down at me, making him even more attractive. “But I don’t see why there couldn’t be.”

“You’re a pain in my ass,” I grumbled.

He trailed a finger along my spine until his hand rested over my butt. Then he squeezed and leaned forward to whisper in my ear. “What I want to do to your ass might hurt at first, but I promise that pain will be the last thing on your mind once I’m done.”

Oh.

My.

Goddess.

My plan to try to ignore him for as long as I could went flying right out the window. It wasn’t even remotely possible to brush him off when he went around saying things like that to me, making my panties spontaneously combust. Maybe I needed to skip the melting in a puddle idea and head straight for the nearest closet, dragging him with me. Except that was something I needed to at least try and avoid, for both of our sakes. Even if it was futile because he was so darn irresistible to me.

That didn’t mean I should just hop back into his bed, though. He was my daughter’s father-in-law, which meant he should be off-limits since I wasn’t his fated mate, and he wasn’t my consort. Those were the only circumstances where I could picture Selene understanding her mom having a relationship with a man who was such a big part of her life. All aspects of it, too, since she was the first witch to ever be appointed to the shifter council. She’d served with him on it for the past year, and I knew from all our conversations during that time how much she’d come to care for Carrick.

Shaking my head, I tried to clear the image of us wrapped together from my brain.

“Just because we slept together twice doesn’t make two our lucky number,” I disputed. It wasn’t exactly the smartest way to drag the conversation away from dangerous topics, but it’s what popped out of my mouth anyway.

“Considering I plan to make it three soon, I guess you’re right.”

“Carrick!” I gasped, stunned to find myself giving the idea of a third round with him serious consideration. Luckily for me, I was saved by Carrick’s family as they joined us.

“Twins!” two feminine voices squealed.

I turned and found Annora, Carrick’s daughter, and Finley, his oldest son’s mate, leading the charge towards the window. The rest of his family wasn’t too far behind. Parker, Annora’s mate, had his hands full with their daughters. Kyla was toddling behind a stroller, batting her daddy’s hands away each time he corrected her aim, which was pretty much every second step. Her baby sister, Riley, was sound asleep inside the stroller, despite the bumpy ride.

Behind them was Alasdair, the oldest of Carrick’s triplets. He had his and Finley’s baby boy, Ajax, settled on his hip as he ambled towards us with a huge grin on his face. Walking next to him was Braden, the middle of Carrick’s triplets. I smiled as he lifted his tiny baby girl, Zaria, out of her mommy’s arms. As soon as her daughter was settled, Tahlia raced forward to join Annora and Finley at the window.

“I would have loved to have seen the look on Camden’s face when the doctor told him there was a second baby,” Braden chuckled.

“Yup, I was just telling Audra how two must be our lucky number, what with the surprise appearance of Nyssa and all,” Carrick drawled, making me snort since we both knew he had really been trying to drive a completely different point home when he’d said it.

“Nyssa,” Finley sighed. “I love it.”

“What’d they name my nephew?” Alasdair asked.

“Our nephew, you mean,” Braden corrected him.

“Nixon’s a baby, not a toy for you boys to squabble over.” Carrick glared as he chided his sons, and even that made me melt a little more—just like pretty much everything else about him did.

“Finally Ajax will have another boy to play with.”

Finley turned and glared at her mate. “He loves his girl cousins, too. Don’t be a chauvinistic pig.”

“Yeah,” Tahlia piped in. “Don’t make me show you exactly how capable girls are.”

“You heard my woman,” Braden chuckled. “Don’t make her embarrass you.”

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