Page 12 of Change the Plan
He nods, his eyes on the road. “I think you know how I feel.”
“No, I don’t, actually,” I say with a nervous laugh. He grabs my hand and places it on his crotch, his penis as hard as steel beneath my palm.
“Van, that’s… you’re like thatoften, honey. This isn’t telling me much.” It does, however, ease the tension, and I relax back in my seat, opting to keep my hand in place, tracing the head of his cock through the fabric of his dress pants, watching his expression closely.
“All I’ve been able to think about this past week is getting you pregnant.”
“Theact?” I ask, unable to stop myself from squirming in my seat a little. I’m dripping wet, and I know he’ll be able to smell that. “The breeding?”
He nods once, and I can sense the slight embarrassment from him through the bond.
“Babe, I like it too. I like getting fucked by a wolf-headed creature! I mean, it’syou, but…” Now it’s my turn to flush, the alcohol in me both loosening my tongue a little too much and making me feel overly hot. “It’s… it’s fucking hot being railed by awerewolf, so don’t be embarrassed aboutthis.”
I could have worded that better, but he knows what I mean. “Kinks aside, it’s a big decision.”
“Yeah.” I pull my hand away from his dick, straightening my skirt. “We’ll make cute babies.”
“We will. The cutest.”
“And we know we have at least one.” It’s a strange thing, to have a mother-in-law that can see parts of the future. There’s probably a shit-ton of stuff she hasn’t even told us, either.
“Supposedly.”
Van, like the rest of the Livingstons, and like his mother Bronte herself, puts less stock in her magic these days. She never predicted her own daughter’s death, and I know that failure has hung over the family ever since. “Are you scared?” I ask quietly. He nods, exhaling heavily through his nose.
“I’m always scared.”
I wait quietly for him to say more.
“I told you the story about how a pixie cursed Dad and I.”
I nod, meeting his gaze as he glances at me. What he’s referring to is an incident not long after his parents met. A pixie — a species related to fae — supposedly cursed Weston and his firstborn child, though apparently Van’s father bit the pixie’s head off before they could elaborate further than that.
“I wasn’t supposed to be an alpha. You’re not supposed to be an alpha if your own parent is one. It… it hasruinedso much of my life. I don’t want to sound ungrateful for what I have, not when I have you. You’re the best part, and you know it. I’d belost without you, Ellie. But Dad and I didn’t deserve what we got. No amount of money could have ever made that better,” he adds. “I’ve had shifters say shit like that to my face —well at least you got to grow up with a silver spoon in your mouth.No. They have no fucking idea what it’s like to have a Dad and then have that relationship ripped away from you both because of something completely beyond our control.”
This time, when I reach over, I place my hand on Van’s thigh, running my thumb back and forth.
“That curse was put onme,” he says, and there’s something about his tone that’s chilling. “I don’t trust it to end with me being an alpha. There’s always two alphas in a pack, and our pack only has one. What if we have a child and…”
The thought is sickening. Not because there’s anything wrong with alphas — if Van wasn’t an alpha himself, it wouldn’t matter — but because of what happens between alphas in a pack. The rivalry. The hatred their wolves have for each other. The potential of a fight to the death.
“For seventeen years my brain and my wolf told me my father was the bad guy, and yeah, he fucked up certain things badly?—”
“—Very badly,” I cut in. Weston was the one who used his alpha bark on Van to separate us all those years ago.
“I know. I know it impacted you. It was bad. But I have to acknowledge that I gave him shit back, yet there was a point in time where I couldn’t even admit to myself what I was doing with my own behaviour towards him. Ellie, what if we have a kid and I become the bad guy? If they’re an alpha… I couldn’t live with myself if I hated my own child.”
“So we don’t have a kid until there’s another alpha born? Someone else’s kid? If that’s what we need to do, I understand,” I say, though I can’t hide the disappointment in my voice or the way it seeps through our bond before I can shut it down. “What if I get too old? I know I’m fae, but I’m notreally, I’m still veryhuman and we don’t know how long I’ll live for. I’ll be nearing forty in a decade. What if we’re still waiting and my fertility goes, and?—”
“There’s Benji.”
Of all the things he could say, I’m not expectingthat. Suddenly, so many things make sense. Why Van, despite the unsettled murmurs from his pack, has continued to employ a young, lone alpha at our vineyard. Why I’ve watched my husband struggle to rein in his instincts to defend his territory against a perceived threat. “You never told me.”
“I didn’t want to worry you. I didn’t want you to turn around and say ‘Well let’s just have kids sooner so you can get that part of the equation out of the way.’” I wasn’t sure if it was even a good plan, but for the life of me, I can’t think of any other solution.”
“But it’s crazy. He’s not a kid anymore.” He’s young, yes, but a twenty-year-old male alpha shifter like Benji is still a very big man, who turns into a very big, very dangerous wolf. “What if he attacks you immediately?”
“He won’t.”
