“He has always been the one at Alec’s side, training right along with him. He is the one who we have been waiting for, for what feels like centuries. He’s the one who will keep us safe from afar.”
“Finally!”
Alec didn’t know who said that, but he just grinned.
“And our Beta, he has always been here, as well. The one who will listen to you, who has always listened. The one who is a bit calmer than the other.” Hunter winked, and Liam blushed, considering Liam was anything but calm most days. A personality trait that was needed for the Tracker, but not the Beta.
“Meet your Beta, Alec.” There was shouting then, howls, and Alec just shook his head, bouncing Mili on his hip as she laughed and giggled and clapped her little hands.
Liam leaned forward, brushed a little baby hair from her forehead, and then whispered into Alec’s ear. “You ready?”
He met his mate’s gaze, knowing that this was it. This was the start of their future. “Always.”
He had his home, his Pack. A family. He had thought he’d lost it all when he was forced to kill his uncle and then his brother. When the Pack disintegrated, everything had changed.
But then he had fallen for his wolf, his mate who wasn’t the Alpha, but an alpha wolf in every way that mattered. He had fallen for his best friend. And that, in the end, was always going to be a fate worth fighting for.
AT LAST SIGHT
Chapter 1
Jonah wasn’t used to taking nights off. It wasn’t that he was overworked, but he tended to stay in his own realm so he could be close in case something happened overnight. Not that it was his realm. It was the one he’d chosen, the one that had chosen him. This was his home now, no matter where he might have once come from.
As for leaving his ward? He wasn’t sure he should have. He’d seen what had happened far too often when one lost sense, control, or let their guard down. He’d lost his leg because of such a thing. Had almost lost his ward, the darling child Penelope, because others had tried to break their words and their bonds.
What would happen if he wasn’t there?
“If you keep grinding your teeth, I’m going to have to pay for replacements, aren’t I?” Malik, Jonah’s employer, Alpha, and friend asked from his side. “Wait. Do jaguars grow them back like lions do? That would make things simpler.”
Jonah scratched his cheek with his middle finger, and Malik’s mate, Eliana, laughed from the other side of the booth. They were at Dante’s Circle, a bar owned by a dragon friend. A place that had changed the lives of almost everyone in the room.
A few years ago, lightning from on high—or rather the Conclave some might say—had struck seven friends under the bar’s roof and changed everything. Each of the women had not only had a hand in saving the realms more than once during these passing years, but each had also found their mate or mates and had unlocked their supernatural DNA in the process.
Eliana had been born human but was now a phoenix. One who had literally risen from the ashes. She was his Alpha, as well, mated to a lion shifter who ruled their realm.
“I’m not grinding my teeth,” Jonah said after the pair had quit laughing. “And I can grow them back. Slowly.”
Malik winced but, thankfully, didn’t look down at Jonah’s leg. Most shifters could grow back limbs, as well, but he’d almost died when he was injured, and the magic involved hadn’t been truly shifter-based. His leg had remained how it was, and he’d learned to fight and live far differently than he had before the war. It had been so long that Jonah barely remembered what he had been like before.
“What are we drinking?” Dante asked as he sidled up to the table, his long, black-and-blue hair pulled back from his face. He smiled as he said it, and Jonah figured the man’s perfect timing wasn’t a coincidence. The dragon was good at soothing awkward situations…as well as decapitating anyone who dared hurt his family, but that was another perfectly logical and needed trait.
“A beer sounds great,” Malik said and leaned over to kiss his mate on the temple. “Feel like it’s been forever since we just came out and did this, you know?”
Eliana smiled widely, her heart in her eyes. “I know, we’ve all been so busy. And I’d love a beer, too. Anything you have special on tap. You know us.”
Dante just grinned, nodding. “I do.” He looked over at Jonah. “What about you? What are you in the mood for?”
Jonah just shrugged. “I’m sure you can figure it out, dragon.”
“That is true. But I like to pretend that I give you guys a choice in these matters.”
“You’re very scary, you know that?”
Dante flashed a smile that was all teeth, and Jonah just laughed. If Dante weren’t his friend, he might actually be scared. In fact, any other dragon? There would probably be a Jonah-shaped hole in the door on his way out. He was a warrior, a soldier, had fought until his feet were bloodied, and his soul was marred, but fighting a dragon? Not his favorite thing to do.
“I’ve a really good pumpkin ale that we just put on tap.”
Jonah scrunched his nose. “Pumpkin?”
“‘Tis the season and all that.”
“I wish pumpkin season was every month of the year,” Eliana said, her voice dreamy, like when she spoke of Penelope.
“You and those pumpkin spice lattes,” Malik said, shaking his head even though his lips quirked into a smile.
“I am surprised you’re not wearing UGGs and a North Face jacket right now,” Jonah said dryly, and Eliana flipped him off.
“Hey, that’s not very queenly,” Jonah said, and Eliana flipped him off with her other finger.
“Queen this. And don’t make fun of being basic. It’s what I like.”
Jonah nodded. “Yeah, I have a North Face jacket, too. There’s nothing wrong with being basic. I just like making fun of you.”
Eliana grinned, and Dante just snorted from in front of the table.
“And, Eliana?” Jonah asked. His Alpha’s mate leaned forward to look at him. “There’s nothing basic about you.”
“Stop flirting with my mate,” Malik mock growled and then kissed Eliana square on the mouth, a little too enthusiastically. Jonah had to move in his seat just to get out of the way.
Dante rolled his eyes and then went off to presumably get three pumpkin ales.
That’s when Jonah saw her.
Her. The new bartender.
He swallowed hard, trying to slow his heart rate down even as he looked at her.
Dante had staff members coming in and out of the place often. Mostly because he took in those who needed help, even as he needed the help behind the bar, as well.
Becca, one of their friends, had been a bartender for a while. Now, she was mated to a wolf shifter, an Alpha no less, and had her own family responsibilities.
There had been a few other bartenders since then, but this one? This one was all new.
And he couldn’t stop staring.
Her skin was a dark brown, soft, illuminated under the lights of the bar. Her black hair was in curls all around her head like a halo, and the style just highlighted her sharp cheekbones.
She had on a purple top that bared her arms, and silver bangles that went up both wrists to the middle of her forearms. They jangled as she worked, sounding like music to his ears.