Page 68 of Destined Paranormals: Volume One

I looked at Monroe, confused. “How? Where? I won’t ask my brother to help, and at the moment, I wouldn’t trust Hailey to hold a baby, let alone change or feed one.

“Where are we going to get help? I don’t know anyone. Everyone I know has their own kids. They don’t have time to help us.”

Monroe shook his head. “You are definitely getting ahead of yourself. One, you’re not even pregnant yet. Two, if you have twins, we can hire someone to help. Having four under five years is a lot. I’ve never experienced quite that amount of chaos in a house, but every other year is a lot as well.”

I shook my head. “I don’t get how we’re going to hire someone. Who? Where will they come from?”

Monroe tilted his head to the side. “Have you completely isolated yourself from the pack? From the council?”

I glared at Monroe. “I’ve been busy working, trying to take care of my siblings. The pack is nice enough, and they’ve helped me out a lot already. But I don’t want to be too needy and wear out my welcome.”

“Your pack, the council, they’re here to help. If you are having issues with something, they’ll help. Same as with children. There are others who will come and just sit and listen for a baby if you need to shower or take a nap.”

I shook my head. “How do you know this?”

“Because it was told to me over and over during the past two days. The childcare center here on the mountain is funded and run by the council because they know that some of the enforcers have mates that work, and not everyone has family in the area to help. Others possibly have family but can’t help. We have options if we want to utilize them.”

I had no idea how he knew more about this place than I did, except for the fact that he’d been given a crash course yesterday, it seemed. And, well, I’d done just about all I could to first get away from here and then avoid any and everyone here that I could. That was something I did not regret. Had I made things way more difficult on myself than they really needed to be?

“You seem confused.”

“I wouldn’t say confused, really. More like frustrated. I never really had a good pack. My birth pack wasn’t the greatest, and although I’ve been to pack runs in Timber Valley, I wouldn’t really consider myself a member though. I just live here because they let me. I couldn’t stay where I was, and I really had nowhere else to go, so I came back here.”

“Why are you frustrated, then?”

I thought about that for a moment to see if there was truly any reason other than my lack of thought about actually trying to be a member of the pack. Alpha Forest had given me a home, a pack-owned home to live in with my siblings. They helped with therapy for my siblings, and then I’d pretty much settled into a routine of working and trying to make things up to my siblings for the shittiness that our family and pack had put them through.

“I guess because things were more difficult than they needed to be, and I have absolutely nobody to blame but myself. Deep down, I knew I could go to someone, anyone, about the issues I was having with Hailey. I can guarantee she’s not telling her therapist how much of a bitch she’s being. I just wish I knew what was causing it. I know she’s hurting. I know she is. But every time I’ve tried to talk to her, I get the same response. I’m not her father. I can’t tell her what to do. Stuff like that.”

Monroe nodded slowly. “We’ll work on it together. I, too, am not her father, but I have young siblings that I have to protect. I can’t have her bringing anything negative to the house. I’m sorry, but I can’t.”

I shook my head and reached for Monroe’s hand. I laced our fingers together and smiled at the size difference. Monroe wasn’t a massively muscled alpha. But he was, I guess, a sire? He was a lot larger than I was, and his hands were as well. Mine were definitely smaller than his. Then again, I was a bit on the smaller side, even for a wolf omega.

“I won’t ask you to. I’m with you completely. I’ll make it clear that the crap with her ends because, yeah, we can’t have that around the kids, and if I get pregnant, I’m most likely going to snap and just chuck something at her.”

Monroe chuckled. I looked up from our hands curious.

“Surely not. Would you really throw something at your sister?”

I shrugged. “I can’t say that I’ve not thought about it before. Usually a pair of shoes she absolutely had to have and then only wore once, maybe twice. Or a shirt that she loved and was all the thing, and then wore it once and said it was so last week.” I rolled my eyes. Monroe sighed.

“I’m not sure I’m ready for teenage Hailey. I’ll figure it out in a hurry, but I can honestly say that none of my siblings ever acted like that at her age. We never had to go through what any of you did though, so I will admit that our circumstances are completely different.”

I shook my head. “I wouldn’t go that far. You had different trauma because of your parents.”

My stomach growled just then, and Monroe raised an eyebrow at me in question.

“I didn’t get a chance to eat breakfast. I was going to grab something in the kitchen at work. I barely got my coffee down before Hailey started in on me about going to the solstice festival tonight with her friends.”

“Yes, we should go. It can be a date,” Monroe said as he scooted to the side of the bed. He tugged me with him. “But first, we feed you. There was plenty of food in the kitchen. And we never did explore all of the other bedrooms. We can do that after breakfast.”

Monroe pulled me from the room, and I glanced back at it, wondering when we’d get back to it. It already felt cozy and inviting.

“Are you going to tell me more about fae? Or, more specifically, yourself?”

“I will,” Monroe said as we started down the stairs. He was holding on to my hand tightly, going slowly as the floors were bare wood and quite slippery if you weren’t careful. We were both now in our socks, and I wondered if we’d be able to put some sort of carpet runner on them. That would be better for the kids and, overall, probably me. I was trying to think ahead, and, well, I was most likely going to be giving birth to our first child come spring. I couldn’t see that not happening, actually.

“You sit at the table, and I’ll fix breakfast,” Monroe said and pulled out a chair for me.