Chapter 237

Justin’s POV

I planned for the future when designing the green belt, hoping someday, these trails might be connected to playgrounds. And there was room at the backside of the green belt, in property that had once been held by my father and was now in my name, to build an additional school.

I wanted all of the members of the True Mates pack, regardless of their species, to understand that this community was for them. I wanted them to want to live here. I wanted it to be a good place for them to have pups or babies or whatever the Pixies called their offspring, where we could all live in peace.

Not to mention the fact that the Community Center for the multi-colored wolves was drawing in additional members by the week, every time I turned around, it seemed like they had new wolves coming in to join.

I had been trying to think of a way to repair the damage that had been done by my family by slandering those wolves. And that was the problem that I was pondering today as I took off for my walk down my newly created trails.

I’d left Helen at home after breakfast. Her hips were hurting her, and so she had retired to the sofa. She’d taken up knitting and was furiously making little hats and blankets for the pups. As long as this made her happy, I was glad she had something to do to pass the time.

Inside our house smelled like scrambled eggs and fruit. She’d been working hard to try and make sure that she got plenty of protein in her diet along with all of the necessary vitamins and nutrients that she needed. She’d spent countless hours doing research about which supplements she needed for brain growth and whatnot while trying to give our pups the best start in life that they could have.

Outside smelled like fall leaves and wet ground. Fog still clung inside the green belt, the shreds wrapping themselves around the trees and giving the forest a little bit of a spooky fall feel. But above the mist, sunlight filtered through the fog, lighting things up and giving a hint at a beautiful fall day to come.

Once the sun had a chance to burn off the rest of the mist, the afternoon promised to be warm and delightful. I started out into the misty forest, my brain churning with ideas on how to incorporate the new wolves into the True Mates pack.

As alpha, my first instinct was to offer them a place within the True Mates pack and insist that they assimilate or move on. But Helen and I had discussed this previously, and she pointed out that such a gesture would come off rather rude, considering it was my family who drove the multi-colored coated wolves out in the first place.

In the past, they had their own pack, and they had been living peacefully as such. That being the case, I also toyed with the idea of possibly carving out some territory and giving them a space to make their own pack. But that idea didn’t appeal to me much more since that would mean that I would have to relinquish control, not just of my lands but over a portion of the population, not something an alpha takes well to.

The failure of these options left a new idea forming, which was to create something that I don’t think any other alpha had considered. I’d heard in the past that there were werewolf kingdoms in which the werewolf king ruled over all of the packs in a given territory. But that wasn’t how ours was set up.

I was the king but over the True Mates pack and our territory. The surrounding territories were autonomous, and I wasn’t going to war to bring them in and underneath my rule. But those previous kings might have created an example for me to model after.

If I took the multi-colored coated wolves and formed a sub-pack of the True Mates pack, that might solve the problem. I would be able to give them a wolf to be in charge, not an alpha but maybe a beta or a gamma, a leader who directly reported to me but yet saw to their affairs.

I could also give them a parcel of land for rent, nothing completely autonomous in ownership. I would, of course, allow them to buy the land for themselves, like those humans who buy apartments but don’t own the building. Then the multi-colored coated wolves could govern their district as they saw fit.

In the end, they would still report to me as king and be part of the True Mates pack. Ultimately, the more I thought about this, the more I liked the idea. And I rolled around the logistics of creating such a sub-pack while I walked, making decent progress toward a proposal.

When my phone beeped in my pocket, I pulled it out and checked the text message. It was from Helen, and it consisted of three words: it is time. Irritation prickled at me. Time for what? Why couldn’t she be more specific?

Then a new sensation zipped through me, electrifying every nerve from my hair down to my toes. It was time!

I shifted into my lycan, and turned around, tearing back for the house as fast as I could run.

She meant that time, time for babies.

I shifted back when I hit the streets so I wouldn’t alarm anyone, but I still went sprinting down the road until I skidded to a stop in front of the house, fumbling for the lock. Before I could get the key in the keyhole, Helen opened the door with her bag in her hand.

“I think we should go to the hospital,” she said.

She held up a towel that was folded. “I’ll sit on this, and I think we should hurry because my water broke.”

I rushed around to the car while she waddled down the path toward the driveway. Once I got the engine started, I went back and grabbed her bag, stuffing it on the back seat, and then helped her into the front seat. I wanted to rush her, to hurry this up, but she was moving so unbelievably slowly.

Not that she could really waddle any faster. She was huge. But still . . . didn’t her speed frustrate her at all?

I had learned several months back, though, that you don’t make comments like that to a pregnant woman, especially not a pregnant werewolf woman. Because the term “she’ll bite your head off” takes on a whole new meaning, a very literal one.

I hopped in the driver’s seat and started down the driveway, my whole body trembling.

Helen reached over, patting my arm. “Don’t worry. I’ve already texted the doctors. They’ll meet us at the hospital.”

She grinned at me. “Take a deep breath and calm down. Werewolf women have been having pups for countless generations. This isn’t something we need to panic about.”

I drew a deep breath in through my nose and let it out slowly through my mouth. She was right. This wasn’t some freak occurrence or anything like that. We had time to calmly and rationally deal with this.

The minute we were out of the driveway, I mashed the gas pedal to the floor, and the car shot off down the street. Helen shrieked and tugged at my arm.

“Slowed down!” she yelped. “This is not an emergency. It’s just a delivery.”

“You’re right, you’re right,” I said. I managed to pry my foot off the gas pedal and place it on the floor, where it pressed into the floorboards instead.