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“Hi, Mom,” she said.
She held her at arm’s length and looked her over with a smile. “What a glow! You’re gorgeous as always, which I’m going to take full credit for in the genetics department. Now, introduce me to your truemate.”
“Mom, this is Ren Corbin. Ren, this is my mother, Linella Mueller.”
Ren extended his hand and Linella looked at it and then scoffed, pulling him into a hug. “We hug in this family, Ren. Get used to it.”
“I’m sure that Dad isn’t a hugger though,” Noah quipped.
Kismet snorted out a laugh. “I’d actually pay to see that.”
Ren shook Noah’s hand. “Nice to meet you, too.”
“Welcome to the family. Our side is the best, of course.”
“Hey!” Kismet said. “Uncool.”
Rich said, “Have a seat everyone, help yourselves to the food.”
“You’re going to stick around, right?” Kismet asked as she took a croissant stuffed with chicken salad off a platter and put it on her plate.
“I have a patient coming in, but I’ll be back.” He smiled and disappeared to the front of the house.
“You never met Noah?” Linella asked.
Ren shook his head. “I’ve heard of him through Rich, and even used some of a healing oil you made for some minor wounds I had after a pack fight a few months ago. Thanks for that, it worked great.”
Noah winked at Kismet. “You can thank my sister, too. She’s the one who found the seeds for the spiny willow and grew it for me, so we could harvest the bark to put into the oil.”
“I’ve never heard of that tree,” Ren said.
“No one has,” Kismet said. “It doesn’t grow in this realm. The leaves are poisonous, but the bark has healing properties. The species is dying out, but I was able to find seeds at a shop in the fae realm.”
Conversation flowed around the table as Kismet’s family asked Ren about himself and his family. Eventually, the chatter turned to their future.
“I’m assuming you’ll stay here in Wilde Creek,” Noah said after wiping his mouth with a napkin and balling it up on his plate.
“We haven’t officially decided yet,” Kismet said. “We’re planning to head to the fae realm to spend a week there.”
“But he’s pack,” Noah said, his brows raised. “There’s nothing like that for him in the fae realm.”
She opened her mouth to answer, but Ren stepped in. “We’re leaning toward staying here, but we both want to give each place a fair shake. I’d give up the pack to make her happy, and she and our future children will be my pack if that’s where we end up.”
Noah nodded. “Cool. I have to say that when you called and said you were mated to a wolf, I thought,finally, she’ll live where we can see each other more.”
“We see each other plenty,” she pointed out.
“Yeah,” he said, rubbing his fingertip along the edge of his plate, “but not like families do. We don’t have Sunday dinners together or go on vacations as a family.”
She looked at her brother.Reallylooked at him. “You could have talked to me about that, you know. It didn’t need to take me and Ren finding each other for us to have family dinners.”
He shook his head, an abrupt side-to-side motion. “Your life’s always been in the other realm. You and Dad, two peas in a winged-pod.”
She reached across the table and linked her fingers with Noah’s, and then took Ren’s hand with her other. “Now my life is here.”
“Maybe,” Ren said.
She glanced at her mate. “It’s getting harder to imagine not being here full time.”
