The living room yawns around him, full of empty furniture and shadows. The rest of the house rings with silence; Mrs. Brentwood has gone to sleep. Kade had said goodnight an hour ago, and Felix wonders if his alpha is still awake. If he should try texting Kade. Will he answer?
There’s no point texting him if I’m just a room away.
Heat creeps up his cheeks. He could knock on the door and say hi, and Kade wouldn’t mind. It’ll be better than falling asleep alone. He’s been falling asleep alone for years, and... falling asleep with his bondmate is a thousand times better.
Felix rolls off the couch, padding over to Kade’s door. It swings open quietly.
Inside, the glow of the laptop screen shines weakly from the desk. Across the room, Kade lies on his side in bed, eyes closed, the little figurines on his display shelves behind gleaming in the white-blue light.
Felix pads into the room. “Kade?” he whispers.
When Kade breathes in and out, Felix tiptoes forward, sitting carefully on the edge of the mattress. The room smells like cedar and pine, like a faint hint of musk and lavender. This morning was nice, when Kade leaned over him in bed, running his wrists over Felix’s skin.
It doesn’t seem like he’d mind if Felix stays over for a while. So Felix lifts the thin sheet, climbing in next to his alpha, tucking his back against Kade’s chest.
Kade stirs. For a second, Felix’s chest squeezes. What if he doesn’t want me here?
But Kade slips a hand around his waist, nosing into Felix’s hair. His breaths puff evenly against Felix’s scalp, gentle and warm. Felix moves Kade’s hand further up, so it presses flat against his chest. The heat of his palm soaks into Felix’s heart.
A second later, Kade’s thigh presses against the back of his own—one of the ways they’d curled up in bed together years ago. Felix relaxes into his alpha’s embrace, feeling far more at ease than he had on the couch.
He falls asleep without even realizing it.
43
Kade
Kade wakes to a mellow lavender scent in his nose. His sheets wrap around him like a warm embrace, and he wants to sleep in, even though his alarm’s beeping like a stupid cricket that needs to shut up.
He reaches over to slap it off, and freezes. There’s something—someone—in his arms. Someone slender and familiar, and it feels like Felix. His eyes snap open.
The mop of blond hair kindles something painful in him. The fine, wispy strands, the way they curl just a little at the ends.
Kade hits the snooze button on the clock, five, ten times, his heart thudding in his chest. When had Felix climbed into bed with him? Because he’s asleep, his breathing slow and even, his limbs loose.
Slowly, Kade curls back around his bondmate, his chest to Felix’s back. Maybe Felix had been lonely last night. And it says something about them, doesn’t it, if Felix can climb into bed with him and he never once woke?
It’s been five years since Felix slept in with him. Five and a half, if he wants to get technical about it, but it’s been too long since he’s held his bondmate. So he props himself up on an elbow, traces his wrist over Felix’s forehead, down his temple to his cheek, his clavicle, his chest. Felix’s shirt drags beneath his wrist, then rises up at his stomach. Kade pauses.
It’s not his child. But Felix is his, and he should protect the child too, shouldn’t he?
He follows Felix’s belly with his fingers, the swell of it up to his navel, then down to his groin. There’s a second heartbeat in there somewhere.
Felix stirs. Kade stills, his fingers low on his bondmate’s abdomen. He should have asked permission first. But Felix sucks in a breath, his eyelids fluttering open, and it’s too late for Kade to pull his hand away.
“Kade?” Felix murmurs, his voice raspy with sleep. His nostrils flare, and he slides his hand over his belly, bumping into Kade’s fingers.
Kade stops breathing.
Felix blinks, looking down. Kade should really pull his hand away, except he’s not hiding things, he’s not lying. If he touched Felix, then Felix should know.
Felix sucks in a sharp breath, glancing around, then up, meeting his eyes. “Kade?”
He lifts his hand then, an inch away, his heart thudding. “May I touch it?”
His bondmate gulps, blinking rapidly. “Yes. Yes, of course you can.”
And Kade gently sets his palm on Felix’s belly, smoothing over the curve of it. Then he slips his fingers under Felix’s shirt, trailing his fingers over Felix’s warm skin, up over that dark line of his abdomen.
His bondmate has a child. It’s not his. But he can touch Felix’s belly without flinching, and he strokes his hand up, all the way to Felix’s stomach. Then back down, over the bump, and there’s a baby in there that Kade will accept as his own.
“I’ll protect both you and the baby,” Kade says, his hand gentle on Felix’s abdomen.
Felix opens his mouth, as though he’s about to say something, but no words spill from his lips. He swallows, choking, tears welling in his eyes. “Oh, Kade. I didn’t think—I thought you’d...”
Kade reaches around, turning Felix over to face him. Then he pulls his bondmate close, leaning in to kiss his damp eyelashes. “I told you,” he says. “I’ll protect it.”
Felix curls his hands into Kade’s shirt. His face crumples, and Kade holds him close, stroking his hair.
Three hours later, Kade follows his bondmate into the department store. He almost took Felix to a different one, but the one they arrive at is the biggest in Meadowfall, and they probably have the widest selection of baby clothes.
He breathes in deep and turns them into the baby clothes section, where he’d found Felix and Taylor a month ago. Felix had trembled, fallen apart when he said the baby isn’t Kade’s.
Next to him, Felix glances at the racks of tiny dresses, his eyes growing dark.
