Will nodded. “Madadh told me that the warlock’s been spotted outside Quondam. I’ll ask Mariketa to scry for us, and we’ll run the prick down.”
“Even with Glenrial’s boundary spell, I’ll be uneasy letting Kereny out of my sight when we hunt.” Not that his mate couldn’t put up a hell of a fight. With her knife-throwing skills, she was a she-wolf without equal.
“Chloe can act as an extra bodyguard while we’re out. If you saw my wee cambion play with a giant caiman’s eyeball like it was a Hacky Sack, you’d have no fears about Kereny’s protection.”
Munro’s need to remain by his mate’s side was strong, but his Instinct overruled it. —Hunt the warlock; extinguish the threat to your mate and offspring.— “Aye, then. We start tomorrow. Along with Kereny’s training.”
When Rónan regaled the group with tales about his witch girlfriend and the spells they liked to do, Kereny wrinkled her pert little nose like a kitten. Could she be any bonnier?
Munro kept seeing some mysterious feline aspect to her lupine, something kittenish about her wolf. Whatever that aspect was . . . it turned his crank like nothing else before.
He finally broke his stare and found Will gazing at Chloe.
“I look at her and it’s like . . .”
“You forget how to breathe?”
Will turned to face him. “We had it all figured out, no? I’d concluded that life was nothing but misery interrupted by bouts of shame. Now it stuns me how mistaken I was.”
And Munro had concluded it was all thankless drudgery interrupted by hollow hedonism.
Could it be any better? His gaze lingered on his mate. It all depends on her and that damned babe.
SIXTY-THREE
“Twins?” Chloe squealed when Ren told her. “You’re for reals having two?”
While Munro and Will were out tracking down Jels, Ren and Chloe sat on a blanket under an oak tree, a cooler of snacks at the ready. The wards practiced knife throwing nearby.
“Uh, yes, for reals.” Though Ren was only a few weeks along, the Instinct had given her the news. She’d been delighted, love for the babies overwhelming her. But she hadn’t yet told Munro.
Chloe’s hazel eyes blazed succubus green with her excitement. “I’m going to have to start organizing a babies shower stat!”
“I wouldn’t want to put you out.” Ren sipped an apple cider, fresh from the Ubus Realm where Chloe’s relatives lived. “And you already did so much for my birthday.” Chloe had organized a cookout with the entire pack. The night had been fun and blessedly uneventful.
“Are you kidding me? Auntie Chlo is going to spoil those kids so bad, even before they’re born.”
Ren and Chloe had grown close, as she had with Will and the two boys. Though Ren missed her loved ones from the past, she was making her home among Munro’s people at Glenrial.
Would her parents have approved of her new life, tucked away among “monsters”? She imagined what she would tell them about this place. I never thought I could recreate the unity I felt with you two and with my hunters, but I have. I’m happy.
And Jacob? She knew he would’ve wished for Ren to have what he’d found with Esther.
Chloe asked, “How did Munro react to the news?” She read Ren’s guilty expression and said, “You haven’t told him yet. I can see why. He’s a stress bucket, isn’t he?” Straight-talking Chloe.
Ren nodded. “He hardly eats or sleeps. I don’t think he’ll be right until the babies are born and Jels is dead.”
She’d delegated her plan to hunt that archwarlock to Munro and Will due to her morning sickness (which really should be called all-day sickness) and her growing need for rest.
A local witch named Mariketa continued to scry for Jels, and Loa fielded tips of sightings, but he wasn’t easy to pin down. The brothers had chased down lead after lead.
Two weeks ago, they’d run him to ground in the streets of downtown New Orleans, battling his vassals and dodging his beams. Yet once Munro and Will had gotten close, the coward had portaled away.
Since then, no sign of him outside of Quondam.
Ren and Munro had received a couple of bits of good news though. After Lothaire and Loa had informed everyone they knew that the Forgotten’s gateway was no more, the bounty had lost traction.
And Balery had rolled the bones for Ren again to find out what had happened to Dorada. Had the sorceress become a Wendigo? Or perished?
Balery couldn’t see the specifics, but she spied no Dorada threat in Ren and Munro’s future.
Yet that news had hardly made a dent in his worry, which Ren felt as her own. Over these weeks, she’d fallen for him so hard that the depth of her feelings sometimes frightened her.
Each night after they made love, they talked for hours. He’d told her the heartbreaking tale of sending away his mortal son, then returning to Tàmhas’s deathbed, and he’d confided to her more about his brother’s past. Will had overcome so much to make a new life with his mate, and the two were clearly devoted to each other.
Chloe knotted her sun-streaked hair atop her head and said, “Will told me you’re making amazing strides with your beast.”
“Amazing? And here I thought I was stumbling instead of striding.”
Each day before he and Will left to hunt for Jels, Munro trained with her. In their first session, he’d told her, “When I remove your cuff, your beast will rush to the fore. I want you to breathe deeply, and picture yourself forcing your way back to the surface.” The instant he removed the cuff, her beast had surged beyond any hope of control. Munro had quickly cuffed Ren once more.
Will had said that the beast responded to confidence. Basically, one had to out-alpha its alpha and conquer it. So Munro had made her release it and force it back, over and over. Inhale. Exhale. Off to the background, beast! Now. NOW!
Ren told Chloe, “My new record is four minutes.”
“I know you can do it. I’m a big believer in mind over matter.” Chloe had overcome much to become an Olympic-caliber athlete in her mortal life. Now she was a sword-wielding cambion. Her weapon was always within reach, just as Ren’s blade was.
“I believe I can do anything if it would alleviate Munro’s worries.” Ren’s warrior mate needed an enemy to vanquish; in his eyes, her beast was a foe, one who might steal her from him.
Yet sometime soon, she would remind Munro that only she could conquer her own beast. Ultimately, it was up to her, and she was ready to meet the challenge, ready to fight for their future.