The Surrogates: The 5 Book Paranormal Pregnancy Romance Box Set Read online

  Good, like that, keep going.

  The intrusion in her mind shocked her eyes open, she hadn't even been aware she closed them.

  Loptr?

  It was surely his voice, it had a sort of menacing quality to it that was hard to forget.

  Come find me, you were almost there.

  She closed her eyes again; thought of the shop, the parking lot, what it felt like to be there… that triggered something.

  She was there, as if she never left. Loptr was seated in a small lounge chair, a cup of coffee in hand. He gestured to the pot.

  “By all means, help yourself.”

  She looked down at her hands, was she really there? Slowly her hands went from ghostly outlines to solid flesh and blood.

  “How?”

  “It’s quite remarkable really, it takes most people a lifetime to figure out what you just did. Bravo, dearie.”

  She was there, it wasn’t a dream, or an illusion, but she was physically in his shop. She poured herself a cup of his coffee, added cream and sugar, and after a moment of rifling through his things, found the mint oil she liked so much.

  He made a face at her. “You people from Seattle, such snobs.”

  “It's not our fault you like to drink coffee without making it an art.”

  She cupped the mug with both hands, breathed in its delicious scent before sipping the dark swirling liquid. Of all the things she missed while pregnant, nothing compared to coffee.

  “Now, tell me what you did to me, and how can I fix it?”

  “Direct and to the point, you know you should try that in your head, you’re terribly self-punishing when you don’t have someone else to blame.”

  Reign moved around from behind the bar and found the seat opposite of him. At first, she thought maybe it was a dream, like the one where he first came to her, that had felt real enough, but no, when she sat in the chair it was just too real to be fake.

  “Oh, it’s real enough, dearie, you traveled here.”

  “You mean teleported?”

  “Such an ungainly word for an elegant experience. We call it Fade Walking, when you move through the Fade to get from A to B. You don’t really teleport, distance is traveled, you just don't realize it,” Loptr said as he sipped his coffee, polite and all smiles in his dark gray blazer and scarf.

  “Each time I do that, I go through the Fade? Isn’t that dangerous?”

  His eyebrow quirked up. “My girl, you’re bright. If you were around a thousand years ago, I could have unleashed you on Charlemagne. Yes, that’s correct, if someone knew exactly when you were going to go in, and where you were traveling, they could pull you out, or stop you, or do umpteen hundred nasty things to you.”

  “So tell me,” she said, sipping her own coffee, “can I make Cara a wolf?”

  “Why on Earth would you want to do that? You’re the one who made it so you can’t ever have children that are wolves, yes, you and Richard could have a thousand babies,” his eyes drifted to her body for a second, losing a little focus, “right, and you would never have a wolf. Sorry dearie, you’re going to have to save him some other way.”

  Anger flared up in her; he could have warned her, she could have tried it her way, with them turning her after the baby was born.

  “Yes, but where would be the fun in that?”

  Loptr reading her thoughts was getting old. She narrowed her eyes at him. “Stay out,” she said, a hint of menace in her own voice she didn’t recognize.

  “Well, well, you do have fangs, well done, I’m out, I doubt anyone could get in. You’re like a virgin with a chastity belt, so touchy.

  “You are very bright, Reign, you’ll figure something out, but you better get used to what you can do. There aren’t many of us, and those who can do it, tend to know each other. Wolves aren’t the only thing that go bump in the night.”

  She had a million questions for him when she arrived, and she only had a million more now, but his raised hand told her they were done.

  “Now go, come back another day, if you yet live.”

  She glared at him, to which he smiled behind his coffee. Seeing no alternative, she focused on her home, how it made her feel, the warmth of her bed, the smell of coffee in the morning. The world began to fade. Loptr lowered his cup. “One thing before you go, the night is not your friend, watch your back, Reign.”

  Reign used her emotional anchor to the loft to Fade Walk back to it. As Loptr’s shop disappeared, and the loft appeared, her mind settled, and things became clear. She hadn’t failed them. At least, not then, she had failed them now. She was wallowing, and she had to stop.

  Depression was not something to be shaken off, or snapped out of, but she felt hers was coming to an end, and she had some making up to do.

  Seattle was the same; the sun was only as much higher in the sky as it should have been. It seemed the time warping properties of the Fade did not extend to Fade Walking.

  Richard was still asleep, clad in his cotton pajama pants and no top. He cut quite the figure in bed, his well-defined muscles easily visible in the dawn light.

  Reign decided she owed him. Not in the way one could collect, but in the way she could pay back. She marched from the balcony, shedding her clothes with each step. She loved him, loved him with all her heart, and he had proved time and time again he was willing to sacrifice for her; it was time she did the same.

  By the time she reached the bed, her naked body was silhouetted in the rising sun. As a young woman, it had not been hard to reach her pre-baby weight, though she wasn’t quite there. The baby had some effect on her body. Her hips were a little wider, her bosom a little fuller. The tradeoff was that her stomach wasn’t quite as flat, but she could handle not being as thin as before.

  She couldn’t, of course, sneak up on a werewolf. His eyes drifted open when she put pressure on the bed. They snapped open when he saw her state of dress.

  “Reign, everything okay?”

  She realized he asked because tears dropped onto the sheets as she crawled up the bed, her legs under her.

  “Yes, Richard, oh yes, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry I---”

  His hand caressed her face as she came to a stop with her face over his taut abs.

  “Honey, you have nothing to be sorry for, you did the best you could, and that is all anyone could ask.”

  Her heart warmed with his love, the tears came fast as she smiled. She wanted to reply, but her mouth opened and she could not. There was nothing that could be said. She loved him. He loved her. They didn’t need words.

  She pulled the band of his pajamas down and kissed his belly button, she breathed his scent in deep for a moment. His response was immediate and obvious. She pulled his pajamas down a little more, wiggling them under his hips and his growing hard-on. His warmth radiated to her, filling her with desire and setting her skin on fire with radiance. She cradled his penis in one hand and gently kissed the top, her warm, moist lips, encircling his erection.

  His moan was deep and full of passion. She couldn’t stop crying as she took him into her mouth. Her tears mixed with saliva as she slowly worked her lips up and down, taking more and more of him into her.

  “I love you,” he uttered, his eyes on her, his hand gently grasping her hair.

  She looked up to him, her eyes on his, her mouth around his erection. With one hand she held herself up, with the other she rubbed his leg, his stomach and his chest.

  “I love you too,” she replied. His other hand slid down her skin, leaving a trail of goose bumps as he made his way to her dangling breast. He gently squeezed her nipple, playfully pulling on it, and then twisting it slightly as she bobbed her head on his hardness.

  Reign was determined to show him how much she loved him. She could say it until she was blue in the face, but she wanted him to feel it. He hit the back of her throat and she held him there, gently compressing her mouth up and down, moving her head in small circles. She increased the tempo, his body began to tighten, his back came of
f the bed ever so slightly.

  “Reign, I,” she ignored him as her sole focus was his member. She was determined to make him cum for her, to give him pleasure in an act that was as selfless as one could give for another. She briefly took her mouth off him to run her lips down the shaft, to let the cool air contrast the warmth of her mouth.

  She smiled at him as she did so, she couldn’t contain her love for him, her heart was not big enough so it leaked out of her eyes. She paused just long enough to make eye contact with him, then she swirled her tongue around his head and engulfed him with her mouth again.

  He groaned, squeezed her head, and imperceptibly forced her further down on him. She liked the feeling that she made him lose control, if only a little bit. The hardness in her mouth twitched and she redoubled her efforts. She was going to make him feel her love for him, as he had so many times for her. Moreover, she did.

  He let out a long, low groan as he came in her mouth. His whole body shivered and lifted off the bed. She locked her lips around him and started sucking as hard as she could. When he came, it was warm, salty, and she sobbed as she drank deep of his love. She knew she loved him, loved him without reservation or conditions. And she hoped he knew too.

  When he started to soften, she let him drop out of her mouth. She crawled forward and folded her hands together on his six-pack, and rested her chin on the backs of her hands.

  “I love you,” she said, still weeping.

  Her heart pounded in her chest, for tears ran down Richard’s face as well.

  “Oh Reign, in all my life, I have never loved anyone the way I love you,” he said softly. “You make me feel alive, as if anything in the world is possible.”

  She smiled up to him. “That’s because it is.”

  He grabbed her shoulders and pulled her up to him. His lips brushed against hers and it sent shivers down her spine, her skin lit up with goose bumps, and she could feel that her lips had the same effect on him.

  “I should brush my teeth,” she started to say when he kissed her. His hands roamed her back, pulling her to him, smashing her body to his. She embraced him, pressing her breasts against his chest, her hips against his.

  He froze for a moment. His nose twitched and the yellow in his eyes expanded.

  “Do you hear anything?”

  .

  Then they both heard the scream.

  Gently, but with alacrity, Richard pushed Reign off him and to the side. He jumped up, pulled his pjs up with one hand, and reached for one of his crescent shaped axes with the other. The door to the bedroom burst open. Two men clad all in black, wielding AK-47’s with long black suppressors attached, were in the doorway, one was kneeling, the other standing. They said nothing, they moved with the rapidity of operators as one tracked Reign and the other Richard. They were fast, for humans.

  Richard was not human. He rolled sideways, to put himself in front of Reign. When he came up on one knee, he hurled his ax at the one standing. They both opened fire, the sound of the bolts crashing against metal filled the room seconds before the scream of agony as the axe embedded itself in the chest of the one man. He slumped to the ground in a great spray of blood as his heart raced in panic, but with the artery severed, it just pumped blood into the open.

  The other man barely registered the death of his comrade as he held the trigger down. With remarkable accuracy, each bullet hit Richard. The large rounds tore chunk after chunk of flesh from him. The agony of the bullets blossomed and beat him down. He fled backwards, still trying to shield Reign with his flesh. The bolt locked back and the hail of bullets stopped. All thirty had hit him, and he couldn’t move. His body was healing, but it took time, and the man advanced on him reloading as he did so.

  Reign was there in his field of vision; she wasn’t scared so much as angry. Her nakedness didn’t seem awkward to him, and their assailant didn’t seem to register her as a threat. Physically, she wasn’t, what could a naked woman, with no obvious training, do to a full-on commando that this man so obviously was.

  To her credit Reign did not cry, or back down, she did not ask him to stop or surrender. She simply held her hand out, and lightning answered her call. The bolt arched from her fingers into his chest, lifted him up and smashed him against the wall. He grunted with the impact and twitched as she poured the electricity into him..

  Richard’s groan was lost in the sound of crackling energy. His whole body hurt. He had shielded his head with one arm, thankfully. But thirty rounds had stripped him of bone and muscles. It wasn’t the first time he had been riddled with bullets, but it made it no less painful.

  The lightning stopped, and the man fell to the ground. Richard smelled the burned flesh and hair. It made his nose wrinkle. Reign stalked out of the room, anger bold on her face.

  “Wait,” he tried to say but a round had pierced his lung and he was having trouble breathing. These men were dangerous, and terror filled him. They obviously knew what they were up against, and no matter how fast a wolf healed, bullets still could kill, it just took more. His vision was clearing, his legs started to respond. He felt something, then a massive explosion like a clap of thunder filled the apartment. The overpressure deafened him, and likely blew out his eardrums.

  What the fuck is going on?

  He stumbled out of the room. It led to a short hallway, then to double doors and the main living room of the three thousand square foot loft. The place only had four bedrooms, so the wolves had partitioned off the main room into living spaces. They could have separated and gotten hotels, or went to their other homes, but something seemed right about all of them staying together. Now, seeing several bodies of his friends littering the ground, Richard wished they had separated.

  Reign was in the middle of the room, three assailants were on the ground, the smoke rising from their torsos told the tale of their demise. Richard stumbled through the doors, still not fully healed, but he was determined to get to her, to protect her, even if he didn’t need to. Skye was collapsed on the ground in the kitchen. She was hunched over something, the massive amount of blood on her back a testimony to her desire to protect the baby at all cost.

  One last man stood, a large combat knife held to Abbey’s throat. TJ’s body lay on the ground at the man’s feet, a hole the size of a baseball in his head. Abbey’s sobs broke the silence of the room.

  “I’m gonna step out to the balcony and you all are going to stand there and do nothing, understood? Or she’s going to join her boyfriend.” He pressed the knife to her neck for emphasis.

  “And don’t think I don’t know what you are. If she tries anything, this knife will cut her head clean off.”

  Reign’s stance told Richard she had no intention of standing down.

  “You hurt my friends, my baby, my home, and you think you get to live.”

  It wasn’t a question, Reign was furious; Richard had never heard her speak in such a way.

  “No, you don’t get to live.”

  She waved her hand, the knife jerked out of his grasp and flew to Reign, and she grabbed it out of midair.

  Abbey slammed her heel down on the man’s foot; when he let her go she spun and, with all her might, kicked him in the chest. He shot clear off the railing and they could hear him scream the six floors to the ground.

  After the scream ended, the noise of the city returned. The loft was quiet for a few moments, broken only by the stifled sobs of Abbey as she knelt over TJ’s body.

  Richard tossed the ax aside, it wasn’t needed anymore. He found his pack in his head. TJ was gone, two more were wounded enough they could die, and Skye was one of them.

  “Indigo,” he didn’t even need to finish. The Spaniard leaped into action. He directed two others to lay out the bodies of the invaders, and then he proceeded to check on the wounded.

  Skye was in bad shape, she clutched baby Cara to her bosom, protecting her with her own flesh. Richard had to block that out though, the danger had not passed. Reign wasn’t standing down. She was still
emanating small amounts of electricity, and anger clouded her face like a storm.

  “Reign, it’s over…” he started to say.

  She turned to him, her pupils engulfing her eyes, leaving black pits where they once were.

  “Is it? No matter where we go, we are in danger. Did the council send these?” she asked, her voice tilted with an odd quality, almost as if she were speaking through a radio.

  “Doesn’t seem their style, does it? Heidi would have come herself. No, I think the council thinks we are dead, or missing, there’s something about…”

  “Richard, Reign,” Indigo interrupted.

  With care, Richard reached out to Reign to hold her hand. At first, she resisted, but after a second she relented, and let him. Her body relaxed, the brown in her eyes returned, and she was Reign again.