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Ally remained in the living room as Riley took Nova, Shae and Abby upstairs to the guest rooms while Milo and Ryder got their luggage from the car. Ally looked around nervously before standing up and sitting down next to me.

“We have to talk, Wynter, alone. Can you come over to Chandra’s house a bit later?”

“I’m sorry I kissed you, it shouldn’t have happened.”

“Wynter … please.”

She left again as quickly as she had sat down and was out of the front door. It could only be about that kiss, we really had nothing else to talk about and I knew that she’d felt that bond groping for us just as strongly as I had.

“Wynter, you really don’t have to give up your room for us. We can go stay in a hotel.” Ryder still had the luggage in his hands and I looked up from the couch.

“Not a chance. I’ll be fine down here.” I took a suitcase from him and headed up the stairs to my bedroom where he and Nova would sleep.

I put the suitcase down and took some clothes from the walk-in cupboard and found Ryder looking around my room. “There’s space in the closet if Nova wants to unpack and stuff like clean towels and extra blankets are in that far cupboard there.”

“Which one of the hotties does your laundry for you?”

I laughed as Ryder grinned at me. “I do my own laundry, Dad.”

“Don’t tell Nova, before you know it she’ll have me doing shit like that too.”

“You have a beautiful home, Wynter, I really like it.” Nova linked her arm with Ryder’s and gave him a smile that told me she had heard about the laundry.

“Thanks, Lauren sold me the house and Chandra decorated it. They also buy all Riley’s clothes for her too and if Chandra had her way she’d be living with them.”

“The blonde one said something about a dinner party at their house tonight. She said to bring your homemade basting sauce.”

“That’s Lauren. I’m sure she’s dying to meet all of you and she might have a thousand and one questions for me like why she got to know me as Ethan.”

“It sounds like fun and maybe tomorrow you can show your father how the washing machine works.”

Ryder coughed as his eyes widened and Nova smiled sweetly at him as I laughed and took my clothes downstairs. I left the pile on the couch that I’d make up later when I pulled the bed part out. Milo stood in the backyard with Abby as they watched Riley and Luke play on the playground I’d built for her.

“No time like the present to hear what Ally wants to say.” Echo reminded me of one more thing I had to do.

I opened the fridge and took out the bottle of basting sauce and headed over to Chandra’s house. I opened the front door and headed straight to the kitchen and put the sauce in the fridge. “The sauce is in the fridge!” I knew that either Chandra or Lauren would hear my yelling from the kitchen.

“Hello.”

I turned to look at the little boy that stood behind me and took a step back as I looked at him. “Hello Hunter.”

“Do you know how to kill vampires?”

“Why do you want to kill vampires?” I looked curiously at the little boy with his blazing yellow eyes and I felt the familial bond snap into place as our dragons intertwined. He felt it too because he cocked his head to one side and watched me with curiosity.

“Grandpa says my father used to kill bad people and if you can kill a vampire then you can kill anything. That’s why my name is Hunter because my father was a hunter.”

My heart was hammering in my chest as I looked at him, looked at a miniature version of myself and tried to block out Echo’s voice in my head as he claimed the little boy as ours. “Ours. Ours. Our son!”

“Grandpa’s right and I just happen to know how to kill a vampire. Maybe I’ll show you on Uncle Milo.”

Hunter smiled victoriously just as Ally appeared in the kitchen’s doorway. “Hunter, go clean up your toys in the bedroom please.”

“But I’m going to learn to kill a vampire now.”

“Now Hunter.”

I knelt down so my face was level with his. “I promise I’ll teach you, okay, but first you have to listen to your mom.”

“You can’t make a promise to a kid and then break it, your teeth will fall out.” Hunter was deadly serious as he told me that and I smiled and nodded my head.

I watched him as he left the kitchen and trudged up the stairs. Ally remained standing where she was and I fixed my glare on her, anger coursing through my veins. “I asked you and you lied to me.”

“I had my reasons, Wynter.”

I was in front of her now and she had nowhere to move, my face was inches from hers. “You lied to me, there is no reason you can give me that can justify what you’ve done.”

“I did it for you.”

Something inside me snapped and I punched the cabinet to her left as she screamed and flinched away from me. “You kept my son from me! You lied!”

“I’m sorry, Wynter, but if you let me explain …”

“Who are you, Ally? You lied to everyone, your whole family, to him! Does he know I’m his father?”

“I wanted to talk to you first and then last night with the bond reaching out …”

“Our dragons bonded, Ally, I’ll find him no matter where you take him and I’ll bring him back. He’s not leaving Chehalis, do you understand me? You won’t take him from me again! Tell him, tonight, or I swear …”

“You swear what, Wynter? You’re not the boss of me and I was going to tell him about you. You don’t get to threaten me.”

“I’ll make your life hell, Ally, and that’s no threat. I want my son in my house by the end of the week.”

I walked out of Chandra’s house before Ally could say anything else and I knew she wanted to. She was much too hot-headed not to retaliate, I just had to figure out how. My fists clenched by my side as I walked back into my house and Ryder stood there with his arms crossed over his chest.

“How long did you know?”

“I figured it out when Hunter turned two and Ally finally confessed.”

“I can’t believe she lied to me when I asked her.”

“Yeah imagine my surprise when I found that one out. She was barely seventeen, Wynter.”

“We bonded that night, Dad. I didn’t want to fight it and maybe I should have but I didn’t and here we are.”

“Trust me, I’ve had a lot of time to come to grips with my children screwing each other. I’m so glad there’s no brother for Shae.”

I laughed then as Ryder smiled. “If she runs I’ll find her and then she won’t like the consequences.”

“She won’t run. She loves you, Wynter, I don’t think she ever stopped. She took your death extremely hard.”

“I asked her, Dad, and she lied to me about him.”

“She had her reasons and I’m sure once you give her a chance she’ll tell you. You said you bonded, what happened there?”

“She rejected the bond, I accepted her rejection, end of story. New story is keeping her in Chehalis and my son with me.”

“I’m sure you’ll both figure it out, I’m not going to get involved. I love you both and they’re both my grandkids so I’ll go for what’s best for them and that’s parents that love them. Tell me about the hotties instead.”

We moved to the kitchen and I brought out my stash of bourbon, that I didn’t share, and shared it with him. We sat down at the kitchen table and Ryder talked to me about the Unit that Sorin had restarted again. I knew all about it but I kept quiet, I’d been keeping tabs on both the Unit and Romania.

Ryder was laughing so much he had tears in his eyes as I told him about me walking in on Chandra and Lauren, just as Milo joined us and emptied his glass of bourbon. “So she told you to fantasize about them in the shower?”

“That’s Chandra, you’ll like her actually.”

“Honestly now, Wynter, have you three ever … you know … played together?”

“If we did I wouldn’t tell you.”

“Lucky bastard, that just means you have.”

Ryder shook his head as I smiled at Milo. We talked about the good old days and Ryder just nodded his head when he asked if I’d go back to the Unit and I said no. I had Riley to think of and Hunter too now. It wasn’t even a choice I’d consider, ever.

I didn’t go to the dinner party Chandra and Lauren threw and she sent me a text calling me an asshole. At least there was a smiley face at the end. She’d forgive me. I made up my bed in the living room and at nine pm Abby came back with Luke and Riley and we put them to bed.

“Are you okay?”

“I really don’t have the energy to talk about this any more. I’m fine, Abby, I’m always fine.”

She sighed but left me on the couch and ten minutes later I slid under the blankets and closed my eyes to sleep. I was drifting off when I heard the front door again and relaxed into a deeper sleep when Ryder’s scent reached me.

I slept like the dead, knowing that Milo and Ryder were in the house and nothing ever happened in Chehalis. Our street always remained untouched by house robberies mainly because of the fear barrier that Chandra had put up around us.

I woke up with a warm body next to me, entwined limbs and light brown hair in my face. My eyes snapped open as Ally slept next to me. I jerked my arm away from her and stood up from the pull-out sofa and looked at Hunter that slept on her other side.

Echo’s tail thumped up and down again. “Stop that.” The thumping stopped abruptly and I almost grinned at him.

I raked a hand through my hair and walked to the bathroom. I stepped into the shower and closed my eyes as the hot water streamed over my head. My hair was longer now and just as I started rinsing the shampoo out the shower door opened.

“Milo!”

“Oh come on, I haven’t done this in three years!”

Milo’s arm came down on my neck and he pressed me against the shower wall as he squirted liquid soap onto my back. He started singing as his hand lathered up the soap and started washing my back. Shampoo ran into my eyes and I gritted my teeth as Milo’s voice went higher.

“I’m going to kill you, Milo.”

“Just admit you missed this and I’ll let you go.” Milo’s face was right next to my ear as he rubbed his chest against my back.

“Milo! I swear …”

“So I see you and Ally kissed and made up.”

“There was no making up.” I moved closer to the wall and Milo lost the grip he had on my neck and I pushed him away from me.

“So there was a kiss.”

“What is with you and that shower cap?”

“I washed my hair last night, it frizzes if it gets wet and wasn’t washed.”

“Milo, you barely have hair.”

He laughed as he lifted my arm and his hand trailed down my side. “That one’s new. I like it.”

“I got it the first week in Chehalis.” Milo was referring to the tattoo than ran down my ribs, Riley’s name.

“What the hell are you two doing in the shower together?”

“Dad, it’s not what you think, I just …”

“Shut up, Milo.”

I got out of the shower and wrapped the towel around myself as Ryder leaned against the bathroom counter. I grabbed my toiletry bag and brushed my teeth as Milo started singing again and finally switched the water off and climbed out of the shower.

Ryder cleared his throat, looking a bit uncomfortable. “So … you and Ally …”

“They kissed but there’s been no makeup sex yet.”

“Milo!” Ryder and I said that simultaneously.