Pairing with the Protector Read online

  Then something else fell out. And then again.

  “Oh my!” Sophie exclaimed, as Liv caught the machine’s results and cupped them in her hands. “One…two…three blue flowers.”

  Kat looked at her, eyes wide with sympathy.

  “Three little boys. Well, you’re going to be busy, doll, I can promise you that.”

  “Three?” Whitney couldn’t believe her ears. “Did you really say three?”

  “Well, yes—but so far they’re all healthy,” Liv offered as she handed Whitney the three perfect blue flowers. “But you say Rafe is the father? It’s very unusual for a Beast Kindred to father triplets—that only usually happens when you’re bonded to Twin Kindred like Kat is.”

  Whitney’s head was spinning. “It must have been the special food,” she muttered, staring down at the flowers. “It seemed to cause the tweedles to conceive multiple babies—it must have done the same thing to me.” She rubbed her temples. “God, what am I going to do? I was prepared to raise one baby on my own but three…”

  “Wait a minute—tweedles?” Liv asked, frowning.

  “And why would you raise the babies on your own?” Sophie demanded. “I thought you told us you were bonded to Rafe?”

  “I am—but he doesn’t want me.” Whitney’s voice wavered and the three blue flowers grew fuzzy as her vision blurred. “He…he said he’s going to try to find a way to break our bond. Something about a machine made by the Scourge—”

  “What?” Kat demanded. “Let me tell you, doll—I went through that with my guys and it’s horribly painful. You can’t seriously be considering it!”

  “I don’t know what I’m considering,” Whitney whispered. “I only know he doesn’t want me. And now I have three babies to raise on my own and what am I going to do?”

  Then she broke down crying again and this time she couldn’t seem to stop.

  Thirty-Six

  “I’m glad you’re coming to the party tonight,” Kat said, smiling at her in the 3-D viewer they were sharing as they got ready to go. Her two husbands, Deep and Lock, had taken their three boys out trick-or-treating up and down the halls of the Mother Ship, leaving Kat time to get ready for the big party.

  “I thought it was a good way to say goodbye to the Mother Ship.” Whitney sniffed and dabbed at her eye-make up. Rather than going as a cat, as she had first planned, she had traded costumes with Kat and was wearing a Cleopatra outfit instead. It came complete with a golden asp headpiece, a flowing white gown, sandals that laced up to her knees, and elaborate make-up. Which she was not going to cry off, she swore to herself. No matter how crazy the pregnancy hormones were making her.

  “Wait…what? Say goodbye to the Mother Ship? What are you talking about?” Kat gave her a startled look in the mirror as she adjusted her own cat makeup. “Where are you going?”

  “Kat…” Whitney sighed and put a hand on her friend’s arm. “You and Liv and Sophie are wonderful and I love being here but I can’t raise three babies on my own! I mean, you have two husbands to help you and still you’re always telling me what a handful three is.”

  “But the Mother Ship is a great place for single mothers!” Kat protested. “We have free health care, free daycare, paid maternity leave for the whole first year—”

  “Yes, but what you don’t have is my mom and my sisters and my Grannie,” Whitney interrupted her. “I’m going to need all the support my family can give me to get through this.”

  “But…what about your job?” Kat protested. “You love being part of the BEGI—Sylvan recruited you specially.”

  Whitney sighed. “Yeah, I’m going to miss it,” she admitted. “But there’s just no way I can stay here and keep going on dangerous missions when I’m raising three babies all by myself.”

  Kat frowned and put a hand on her hip.

  “I don’t think you’d have to raise them by yourself if you’d just tell that big stupid Beast Kindred of yours about them! I mean it, Whitney—tell Rafe you’re pregnant times three and he’ll come running back in a heartbeat.”

  “Which is exactly what I don’t want,” Whitney exclaimed. “I don’t want him coming back because he feels obligated.”

  “Well he is obligated!” Kat said indignantly. “He had a little something to do with putting those buns in your oven too—you didn’t get preggers all by yourself!”

  Whitney sighed. “I know but he didn’t want to bond me to him in the first place. He only did it because the special food Mama Tusker had given me was going to kill me if he didn’t, uh, you know, service me.” She had picked up that much through their bond—it made her a little less angry at Rafe for bonding her to him when he really didn’t want to—though no less sad.

  “Too bad—it was still his sperm that made those babies,” Kat said stubbornly. “And if he tells you he didn’t enjoy the act of bonding, that’s a big fat lie. Bonding sex is the best sex going so it’s not like he didn’t have some fun. It’s like the two of you enjoyed a really expensive fancy dinner and now he’s sticking you with the entire bill!”

  Whitney shook her head. “It’s not like that.”

  “Oh no?” Kat put a hand on her ample hip. “What’s it like then?”

  “I…can’t explain it.” Whitney couldn’t even explain it to herself, let alone her friend. How could it be that she felt such intense love coming from Rafe’s side of their bond, and yet such intense regret at the same time?

  It wasn’t just that he had broken his oath as a Protector, either. She had inquired discretely of Sylvan and found out this wasn’t the first time a Protector had fallen in love with the female he was protecting. It wasn’t considered optimal but when the two of them ended up bonded, it wasn’t looked down on either. So Rafe would have been forgiven for breaking his vow—which made her think something else was behind his confusing feelings for her.

  Well, he’s going to have to stay up here and figure them out himself, she told herself firmly. After the party tonight I’m taking the first shuttle down to Earth and I’ll probably never see him again.

  The idea of never seeing the big Beast Kindred again for the rest of her life caused desolation to well up and threaten to suck her under like quicksand. Taking a deep breath, Whitney braced herself She was going to have a good time at the party with her friends tonight and she was not going to spare a single thought for Rafe.

  “There,” she said, putting the final touches on her elaborate blue and gold eyeliner. “How do I look?”

  “Fabulous, doll.” Kat put an arm around her and gave her a squeeze. There were tears in her eyes as she admitted, “I’m really going to miss you around here! And Liv and Sophie and all the rest of our bunch are going to be devastated too. Are you sure you can’t just bring your family to live up here?”

  Whitney gave a little laugh that was really more than half sob.

  “I would if my sister’s husbands didn’t have jobs down on Earth. But my mom will never go so far away from all her grandbabies and since my sisters are stuck down there, she is too.”

  “Makes sense,” Kat admitted nodding. “Oh shoot—I’m ruining my eye makeup!” she exclaimed, dabbing at her watery eyes.

  “Don’t you dare start crying,” Whitney warned her. “These crazy accelerated pregnancy hormones already have me on edge. I don’t need to start bawling myself.”

  “I wished for an accelerated pregnancy when I was carrying my three,” Kat remarked, touching up the damaged makeup. “Considering that Kindred buns usually take an entire year to bake. By the time my fourth quadmester rolled around, I wanted to die.”

  “Liv and Commander Sylvan say it won’t take that long for me,” Whitney said. “Apparently I’m due in six months.” Which was why she had asked to trade costumes with Kat. The tight black cat suit that went with her original costume clearly showed her already-pronounced baby bump.

  “That is so unfair,” Kat grumbled. “I mean, not that I’m not happy for you,” she added. “But the fact that you only have to go