At which point, Naya had growled at her, eyes sparkling with mischief.
And Sascha had cracked, laughing so hard she’d had to put down her hot chocolate before she spilled it. Lucas had shaken his head as Naya plopped down on her diaper-covered butt and joined in, clapping her hands at having made her mommy laugh. “No discipline.” Lucas had mock-growled at her before picking up their misbehaving baby. “And you”—a growly nuzzle that made Naya laugh harder and pat his stubbled cheek—“time for bed.”
He’d finally got her to sleep—by walking around with her pressed up against his bare chest.
Today, their cub was playing in the living area just outside the kitchen nook. Sascha had locked the aerie door to ensure Naya wouldn’t undo the latch and go out onto the balcony, and Lucas had childproofed the entire main area of the aerie, so Naya was free to roam as she liked. A lot of the time she practiced her walking skills. And no matter how often she fell down, she started back up again after a little break.
Stubborn, determined baby.
Peeking out from the kitchen, Sascha found her concentrating on stacking the colored alphabet blocks Faith and Vaughn had given her as a gift. Beside her sat a more than slightly ragged wolf plush toy, aka “The Toy That Shall Not Be Named.” Hawke had given that to Naya when she was a newborn, and it remained her favorite snuggle toy, much to her father’s despair.
Though Lucas did enjoy it when Naya went leopard on the toy, growling and “fighting” with the wolf. Then he’d smile and say, “That’s my girl.”
Laughing softly and making a note to steal 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 heart thumping strong and fast under her palms and the scent of sweat and man around her, she rose up on her tiptoes, only breaking the kiss when her lungs protested. “I’m glad you’re home.” She hadn’t seen him since six that morning, when he’d had to leave for an international conference call held in the comm room of DarkRiver’s Chinatown HQ. To do with the fragile new Trinity Accord, it’d had too many participants for him to take the meeting on their home comm screen.