Slate's Mistake (24 page)

“Yeah,” Slate piped in. “You’re going to need another
car. We should start running a tab.”

“Fuck you!” Slate could hear the laughter in his voice
and knew Alphy wasn’t seriously angry. “All right, Marek took off a little
while ago with Elise, in the van. They’re headed down your way, Raymond, as
fast as they can. Please keep me informed, if you will, on his progress.”

“I will.” Raymond nodded, even though he knew Alphy
couldn’t see him over the phone.

“You know what I don’t get? If Carl was protected by his
alpha, why did he travel all this way? And how the hell did he even find you?
In the city, no less!”

Matteo answered him. “We questioned Maximus Stone, the
lion shifter assisting Carl. He’s very cooperative. He was forced under duress
to do as Carl said. He informed us that Carl had been acting more and more
crazed this last year, reiterating what Elise had said. He said the incident in
Tyler pertaining to Beverly, pushed him past his breaking point. The vampire
physician has some suspicions and is doing an autopsy. As for finding us, he
said they had followed us from Bancroft but couldn’t find the right moment to
attack. They had followed us into the area where Dex’s house is, but lost us at
a turn. They were driving around looking, and it was actually a sick kind of
luck that they found us when and where they did.”

“I would very much like to know the results of those
tests. Raymond, would you be willing to have the results sent to our Seamus?”
Alphy asked.

“I believe he already plans to do so, but I will run
it by him to be sure.”

“Thank you. Slate, you need to get you home as soon as
possible. Something about the tests they ran having come back with some
results.”

Slate’s anxiety sped up his heart and tightened his
gut. “Is anything wrong?”

“I don’t know. They just said they got results back
from the tests and that it’s about the pregnancy. They won’t talk to anyone.
Katie locked herself up in her room, and Seamus won’t reveal anything to anyone
until you get here. She’s not even letting your mom or her own sister in.”

“Fuck!” Slate shouted and through the phone.

****

Katie lay on the bed trying to come to terms with the
news she’d just learned. She felt bad for turning everyone away, including her
dad and sister, but she needed the time to process and accept the information
she had been given. She contemplated how to tell Slate and everyone else. She
even contemplated not telling anyone until later, but from the number of people
asking for her, she could tell they were all too concerned to wait any longer
then they had to, to be told. So after mulling it over, she decided to wait
until Slate came home,
then
tell everyone all at once.
A bit dramatic, but this wasn’t a normal family, so who was to judge really?

Their room was on the side where vehicles arrived.
This allowed her to hear a speeding vehicle approach, and the sound of tires
scratching to a stop on the dirt was heard, too. Katie sat up, but that was all
she was able to do by the time the door banged open, causing her to jump. She
would have glared daggers at Slate, but his face told her he was panicked, and
she had put him like that. He was only in a pair of sweats, showing her his pert
nipples and curved muscles.

Slate rushed across the room and scooped her up into
his arms. “Are you all right? What’s wrong?”

“I’m fine. I just needed time to process. Let’s head
downstairs and I’ll give the news to everyone at once.” She didn’t really want
to go now that she was warm and flush against his bare skin. Something suddenly
occurred to her. “Um, Slate, not that I’m complaining, because I’m not, but why
are you wearing only a pair of sweats? You didn’t leave looking like that.”

She felt him slightly stiffen. “You didn’t hear? No
one told you?”

“No, I’ve been in here for a long time. What
happened?”

“I’ll tell you later. It isn’t a short story, and I
want to know what’s going on with you first.”

They made their way down the stairs just as Nix and
Pierce led two others towards the kitchen. Everyone followed them into the
living room, all with expectant and concerned looks on their faces.

Oops. Guess I should have
told someone sooner.

Katie looked around the room as she stood with her
back against Slate. Her dad led her sister, Sara, and Slate’s mom, Beverly into
the room, but Dex and Slate’s sister weren’t to be seen. Seamus joined them but
didn’t reveal any clues as to the news she was about to share.

Slate held her tightly against his front as she spoke.
“I’m sorry for scaring everyone. The news isn’t as dire as I’ve just been told
everyone thinks. You are all my family, so I want to share this with you all at
the same time as I tell Slate.”

Katie took another breath before she went on. “I’m not
having a cub…” She paused and took another shaky breath. This was a lot harder
to say out loud than in her head, and it took most of the day to get it through
her head. “I’m having more than one.”

For a brief second, the room went still. Havana broke
the silence.
“Twins!
Sweet!”
Her brother, Reese, cheered along with her,
and they high-fived, but
Katie shook her head and everyone got silent again.

This time, Katie’s sister, Sara, exclaimed,
“Triplets?”

At Katie’s nod, everyone whooped and cheered. She
turned to look at her mate and saw how pale he went. “Yeah, now you know why I
hid most of the day in my room to process.”

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