"Of course he is. He's Russian," Artem said.
"He's half Irish," I said. "And half me, which means he’ll be stubborn, suspicious of authority, and capable of holding a grudge through three generations."
Ivan’s mouth curved. “Terrifying.”
"You say that with a smile now. But you wait until he refuses to eat anything green."
Artem's eyes found mine. "He's ours."
The word landed. Ours. Not a negotiation. Not a claim I could dispute. Just the simple, irreversible truth of it.
I looked around the shop. The counter I'd scrubbed a thousand times. The shelves I'd stocked. The sign outside, slightly crooked, because I'd painted it myself on a stepladder at six months pregnant and the angle had defeated me. It had kept us safe, this place. It had done what it needed to do.
It wasn't home. I'd known that for a while. I'd just been pretending not to.
"You know he is," I said.
Artem's breath caught just for a second. Like he hadn't quite let himself believe it would come.
Then his lips were on mine.
My eyes were open and I stared, shocked. Then, when a gentle hand rested behind my neck and pulled me against him, he wasn’t hard and unforgiving, he was soft and loving.
He pulled back and rested his forehead against mine. "Nine months, Maeve. We could have been cherishing you for nine months."
"It was a one night stand, Artem. There was no marriage proposal."
“It was two nights, one omega, her three alphas and one joined scent of three notes, Maeve. Do you know what you did?”
“Ran away?”
“You abandoned your fated mates.”
Ivan made a sound that was half-laugh, half-something-else and then he clapped his hands together. "Let’s get your things and take you back to London."
Gregor was already at the door. "Car's out front." He looked at my belly. “It’s armoured.”
I raised an eyebrow. "Bulletproof glass?"
Gregor didn't blink. "Standard."
"We always have bulletproof glass cars," Ivan said, with the tone of a man explaining that they always brought an umbrella.
I glanced at the car waiting at the opposite curb, sleek and black and wholly absurd on my quiet side street.
Ivan opened the door with a flourish. "Your chariot."
I rolled my eyes. “I need a cup of tea before I go anywhere.”
5
Gregor
The stairs groaned fromthe first step, which was fair. Men built like artillery should not be climbing rickety stairs. Maeve went first, one hand sliding along the wall, needing the balance because being with her mates was making her knees wobbly.
Fergus pattered up ahead with his head high, though one ear flopped. He still looked like he thought he was in charge. At the landing, he turned and fixed all three of us with a look that said he had survived worse than Russian men and was prepared to do whatever it took to protect his owner.
I liked that about him.
