Wild Wolf (Darkmore Penitentiary Book 4)

TEN YEARS LATER

“Don Julio stop hanging your little sister out the window,” I clipped, and the long-haired ten-year-old sheepishly pulled Mimi back inside by the strap of her playsuit. Our six-year-old redhead slapped him around the ear, stomped on his foot and shouted, “Stronzo!”

“Language!” I called after her as she sped off down the hallway, and all I got in response was a manic laugh. Wildlings, the lot of them.

I guided Don Julio into the lounge where Mason was sitting on the crescent moon couch with our four-year-old, Gianna, on one knee, and our five-year-old, Marco, on the other. He was somehow balancing them there while reading a book to them.

Sin was sitting on the sun-shaped footstool, shuffling in closer and keenly listening to the story, and I realised they were reading The Fae Who Flew to Flamoo. It had been one of my favourite childhood stories and it had gone down a hit in this house. Over the past years, we’d taken in any lost child we’d come across in Alestria, adopting them from bad situations and giving them the life every child deserved. Our family had grown to include seven kids at this point and none of us seemed inclined to slow down in adopting more.

I rested my shoulder to the doorway, encouraging Don Julio to go join them, but he just mimicked me instead on the other side of the door, gazing at them with love just as I was doing. His blonde hair was growing into something of a mane, and I got the feeling he was mimicking his Papa Roary who had regrown his over time. It was longer and shinier than it had been before and I swear the amount of hair products he used in it was bordering on insanity, but damn did it pay off. I might have borrowed a few of them from time to time.

“-oh I wish I could fly, the Fae did cry,” Mason read, putting on a little voice for the Fae girl who was the main character in the story. “And down from the sky, with a swoop and a swish, came a beautiful Harpy with scales like a fish. “I can help, oh you’ll see. I’ll take you as far as the billabean tree. So on hopped the Fae to his new friend’s back, and they took off with a-”

“Whoosh!” Sin cried along with Gianna and Marco, knowing it by heart. “Then a flap and a CRACK!”

“Oh no, the Fae cried!” Mason took back over. “We’ve hit a big beast. He has scales of pure red and he came from the east.”

Sin snatched the book, gazing at the words hungrily and my smile lifted as he started reading it. He had been learning along with the kids these past years and I was kinda proud of him.

He put on a deep, booming voice. “I’m not just any beast, I’m a hoarder of gold. And I’m the most fearsome creature in the land, I’ve been told.”

The kids shrieked their delight, urging Sin on and he sprang up onto the footstool, arching his spine and using air to make two pillows flap like wings beside his back.

“Noooo, do real one!” Marco demanded.

“Not inside, you’ll break the chandelier,” I laughed, and they all looked around, finding me and Don Julio watching.

“Dad! Tell Papa Sin to go outside,” Gianna begged like I held all the power in the room.

I smirked, nodding to Sin. “You heard them.”

“Yes,” Don Julio said excitedly and Cain stood up, keeping Gianna hugged to his side while Marco went racing to the large doors across the room, throwing them wide and beckoning us after him.

“Mama!” Marco called. “Come see, come see!”

I picked up Don Julio, racing outside as Sin went barrelling out the door and Cain boomed a laugh as he followed with Gianna. I wondered if Hastings had arrived yet; he was due to join us for a barbeque this afternoon with his two pups Nala and Kado, both of them born to Rosalie’s cousin Maria who Hastings had married within six months after the events at the Polar Capital. He was the kind of father that wore socks with his sandals and carried kids supplies around in a pink backpack that was covered in glittery moons. He was the most sensible Fae in the world, yet still insisted he had a twisted soul and wouldn’t speak of his ‘dark past’ in front of his kids. I was pretty sure Sin had filled them in anyway in a much more colourful way than Hastings probably would have liked.

Rosalie was out on the lawn in a pair of denim shorts and a white t-shirt, looking like my favourite view in the world. I tucked Don Julio under my arm and he wriggled wildly as I sprinted down the grass and tugged my beautiful mate into a hug that Don Julio was trapped inside. He wriggled until he didn’t, his laughter rising as we both tickled and nibbled at him.

“Stop – stop,” he said through his laughter. “Papa Sin is about to do the thing!”

“What thing would that be? He does a lot of things,” Rosalie mused as Don Julio got down and went running back up the lawn to where Sin was pulling off his shirt and readying to shift.

Beyond Rosa, the play area was busy with our other four children where Roary was running around with them. Rosalie’s dirty knees and hands said she’d been scrambling around on the dusty wooden obstacle course herself only a few moments ago and the look was edible on her.

Mimi was swinging from the bridge with our other five-year-old, the blonde-haired Eloin, and they were shouting taunts at Roary who was pretending to be an FIB agent out to catch them. Our eight and nine-year-old boys Tusca and Harvin were hiding behind him in the tunnel, stifling their laughter as they stuck sticky leaves to his jeans.

“Papa Sin has a surprise,” I called to them, and the kids squealed, abandoning the game at once. Mimi threw herself off the bridge, putting blind trust in Roary to catch her, and he shot forward with a burst of Vampire speed to do so, cursing her before breaking out a grin. He had to keep that particular skill secret, his second Order something we all worked to hide. He, Cain and Rosalie would semi-regularly sneak off to the Hellion Hunt to let Roary enjoy a bit of freedom, and here on our estate he was able to bite our beautiful Moon Wolf and express himself fully.

It was strange how the two Orders had found a balance inside him. Sometimes he needed space, while other times he couldn’t get enough of nuzzling all of us, and I swear to the stars, his Charisma made me want to offer up blood to him. I sometimes found myself rousing in the night to slide my wrist under his mouth only to snatch it back and growl when I realised what he was up to. He rarely bit anyone but Rosa though, his desire for her far outweighing any call for blood he might have for the rest of us. But he’d drank from each of us on occasion, calling my blood ‘serene’, while Cain’s was ‘volatile’, and Sin’s was ‘volcanic’.

My gaze trailed over Mimi as she whooped and hugged Roary. She might just have been the wildest of them all, but it was a pretty close call. I’d caught Harvin climbing the roof just yesterday and Tusca was always looking to do everything his brother did.

Though none of us were family by blood, there were no greater bonds than the ones we’d found together. This group of misfits who had built a pack as one and found more love between us than I could ever have imagined. If I’d thought my own past dreams of family life had been good, it was nothing to the reality. This was happiness brought to life, and every new lost soul we added to our family only brought more joy, more wholeness to us all.

Rosalie had her Aunt Bianca’s open heart, extending her love and affection to every Fae who needed her and who she needed in return. Every one of our children placed a glimmer of starlight in her eyes and I was all for adding more, because I felt that very same glow in my heart and wanted her to feel it tenfold.

Sin shifted into the huge green Dragon form that was a mimicry of Lionel Acrux’s Order – though thankfully he didn’t shift his cock the way the original fantasy had directed. A bellow rolled from his open jaws that sent bubbles spilling across the grass and up into the sky. The kids whooped excitedly, racing to pop them and Don Julio shifted into his grey Wolf pup form, snapping his teeth to burst them. Our little lioness Mimi shifted too, her golden fur shimmering in the sunlight as she raced to pop as many bubbles as she could.

“No fair!” Eloin shouted, having no Order of her own yet, but Don Julio swept himself under her so she was riding his back, making her squeal in delight.

Tusca had surprised us all last month when he’d Emerged as a Pegasus and he shifted now, revealing his sunshine yellow pelt as he raised his head and popped the bubbles with his horn.

I pulled off my shirt and Rosalie bit her lower lip as she took in my bare chest, leaning in to kiss me, and I felt her grin staining my mouth with a smile of my own. “Let’s play, love.”

She nodded, pulling her shirt off and racing away from me as she dropped her shorts and shifted into her large silver Wolf form while I followed, chasing her down as a black Wolf.

I swiped at bubbles as Sin let out another stream of them and he beat his wings, ready to take flight. Cain leapt onto his back with Gianna locked tight against his side and Eloin ran to climb up with them, snuggling close to the once-grumpy Vampire who rarely looked unhappy these days.

Sin took flight with another roar that let a cloud of bubbles spill into the air. Rosalie released a howl that we all echoed, that sound like the song of our family, our love. And I knew, no matter where any of my pack went in this world, if they were ever lost, they could always hear the howl of the Oscura Wolves and find their way back home.