The Wolf's Mate Book 3: Callie & The Cats (32 page)

A knock at the door interrupted her thoughts
and Jason went to answer it. Cadence looked at herself again. The
dress was a casual maxi that hugged her curves and showed off her
belly bump. She heard Jason making silly noises and saw he was
holding Linus’ infant son Remy.

“You don’t look well, Cadence, are you
feeling nauseous? I have some crackers in my clutch.” Karly joined
her, looking perfect as usual and suddenly Cadence missed Callie
even more strongly than before.

She settled her flying emotions before
answering, “I’m okay, just tired from the trip I guess.” Kind of
true. But the half of her that was wolf was extremely uneasy. They
were in cat territory after all. She snorted to herself and
adjusted the combs holding her now nearly waist length hair back at
the sides. Cats! Callie was mated to and marrying twin mountain
lions! Even if they were gorgeous as she’d said time and again, it
was just against nature!

“Sweet? We should get going.” Jason called to
her, handing Remy back to his doting father.

They left the Route 77 Inn in their SUV. They
were meeting at a place called Caske Winery, which according to
their website was a five star restaurant about twenty minutes from
whatever podunk town they were in. Her mood was darkening further.
Neither she nor Callie could drink so why the hell were they
meeting at a winery?

Nestled back in the trees, the restaurant
portion of the winery looked like any other expensive restaurant.
Jason held her hand tightly and told the maître d' that they were
with the Fallon party.

“Cades?” She heard Callie’s familiar voice
and turned her head to see her best friend standing in an archway
with two very tall, very handsome men on either side of her. They
each had one of her hands and every fiber of their being said that
she was theirs and they weren’t shy about expressing that.

She would have gone to her, flung herself
into her arms and cried out her frustration at losing her so
quickly, but Jason’s grip on her hand increased and instead they
walked together as a group. The two men, identical twins, were
taller than any of their men, broad shouldered, muscular, and not
entirely happy to see them. And she had a feeling that mountain
lions were bigger than wolves in their shifts and that meant
something, too.

Callie looked wonderful. Different. Her belly
was bigger, too. Callie looked at both men and Cadence couldn’t
help but notice that she was marked on both sides of her neck, and
they silently stepped backwards one step and released her hands and
Callie closed the distance and threw her arms around her neck.
Cadence stiffened slightly – Callie smelled wrong – but then
relaxed and hugged her back. “I missed you, Cades.”

“I missed you, too.” She choked on the words.
Was anyone in more hell?

An unmistakable growl came from in front of
them and her eyes popped open as Callie slid away and moved back to
the men. They put their hands on her, possessively, and the growl
stopped. This had the potential to blow up in all their faces.
Callie smiled as if she were used to their behavior, and she
probably was, “This is Eryx and Ethan, my mates.” She made small
gestures with her entwined hands but Cadence couldn’t tell them
apart for anything. They were even dressed identically.

Callie introduced Jason as alpha and her as
alpha female and waited for Jason to make the introductions, which
he did with his normal authoritative tone. Callie suggested they
head into the banquet room and Cadence was surprised to see a lot
of men at the table and only one woman. Callie introduced everyone,
starting with her future father-in-law, James, the twins’ brother
Alek who scowled unhappily, and then several uncles and one aunt
who was clearly human. Pack introductions were made again and the
wolves sat down on one side of the table and the cats on the other,
with Callie and her two men at the head.

A waiter wearing a long white apron and all
black dress clothes filled up water goblets and took drink orders.
All the wolves got beer, all the cats got wine, and since Cadence
was relegated to something caffeine free and boring, she just stuck
with water. She looked at Callie and her men with annoyance. The
twins had waited for her to order a lemon lime soda and then
ordered the same thing themselves. Clearly they weren’t going to
partake in alcohol when she wasn’t able to and a shiver of jealousy
spiked through her. Something about the whole thing was off. They
were too – devoted – to her. It was all over their faces.
Over-the-top possessiveness that put the wolf males to shame. These
men, these cats, didn’t do anything without considering the needs
of their mate.

Cadence twirled the straw in the glass and
stared into the depths of the water. Callie had told her that they
were very affectionate. That it was the males that raised the
children and supplied the love and nurturing for the children, that
the female lions were dispassionate to the extent of being cruel.
She had never heard of such a thing before. The whole thing smelled
rotten and for a long minute she regretted that she’d pushed for
them to come. Callie hadn’t seemed to care one way or the other and
maybe that hurt the most...that she’d moved on so easily while
Cadence still felt the loss of her friendship so sharply.

James stood up and raised his glass. “A toast
to my sons and future daughter. I’m thrilled to see the day when
lions find mates.” He raised his glass further to the trio, “A
better mate for my sons I couldn’t have described, Callie. Welcome
to the pride.”

They all clinked glasses and Callie kissed
first one of them and then the other, and the cats clapped happily
and Cadence bristled. Callie was not pride. That word was
ridiculous. Callie was a wolf, no matter what was growing in her
belly, and that meant she was supposed to be pack.

“How was your trip?” Callie asked after
several quiet minutes when the waiter had taken their orders and
left again.

Cadence waited for Jason to answer, but he
didn’t seem inclined to do anything except try to find the bottom
of his beer. “Not bad.”

“I’m glad you could come. It means a lot to
me that you’re all here.”

Cadence stifled the snort of derision at the
statement and nodded stiffly. She caught a dark look from one of
Callie’s men, as if he sensed that she wasn’t pleased about the
situation, but suddenly she didn’t care. She
wasn’t
pleased.

Callie seemed oblivious to her discomfort at
the situation, which Cadence was having some trouble sorting out
herself. “How are things at the garage, Jason?”

He looked at Callie, “Good, thanks.” He
paused and then said, “So you live on a farm?”

All three grinned at the same time. It was
eerie. Callie answered, “Yeah, in a converted apple barn at the
back of Uncle Rhett’s farm. We were planning to work his farm for
him, but that didn’t quite happen.” She gave a sweet look to the
men on either side of her and they returned the look with warm
smiles that made her jealous. Jason didn’t look at her like that.
Unless he was planning to take her clothes off.

She ground her words out, “Why is that?”

“Well, when we got to town the mayor found
out that Ethan and Eryx were cops so they asked them to take over
the police department, and Eryx is sheriff now and Ethan runs the
ambulance for the police department as their on-staff EMT.”
Callie’s smile was so genuine and full of pride that it almost hurt
to look at it. Had she ever been proud of Jason like that?

The conversation swirled around her, with
Karly talking the most to Callie. Cadence couldn't put her finger
on what was bothering her so much about everything, but she was
feeling completely petulant and the whole scene in front of her
left her with a bad taste in her mouth. She listened as Callie
talked about the town, the lions moving from Pennsylvania with
them, and the cats all joined in with the chatter. Except for
Karly, none of the wolves were really saying anything. Jason wasn't
feeling anything much one way or the other, he just looked
bored.

Their food arrived and Cadence was glad to
have the distraction. She could feel Callie's eyes on her, but she
hadn't been able to meet her gaze. She was afraid she'd say
something terrible to her or that she'd cry.

"Oh no!" Callie slapped her hand over her
mouth and lurched from her chair and ran out of the banquet room.
Cadence looked after her in alarm and then back to her mates. "What
did she just take a bite of?" One of them asked, looking over her
plate with a frown.

“I think it was the chicken this time," the
other said, and made a motion to the waiter.

"I'll go take care of her," the first one who
spoke said, putting down his napkin and standing up.

The second one said, "Do you have her
mouthwash?"

"Yeah," the first one patted the pocket of
his dress shirt and left.

The waiter appeared and the second one lifted
the plate, "My wife's pregnant and the chicken didn't sit right
with her. Can you bring out the fillet, rare, lobster bisque and
some crackers or bread?"

The waiter nodded and took the plate away,
and James chuckled, "I thought she could eat chicken?"

The second one said, "Yesterday she could.
She ate two whole rotisserie chickens before we even got home from
the grocery." He smiled fondly when he said it. Cadence bristled
again. Jason didn't have any idea the things that turned her
stomach now. And he'd definitely never joined her in the bathroom.
She almost missed another revelation from the man when he said, "I
think the babies are starting to test her stomach. Every day she
wants something new and something she liked the day before makes
her ill." He wasn't annoyed about it. He was – proud?

One of the uncles laughed, "You know what I
thought was hilarious is when she sent Eryx out on a mission for
non-alcoholic beer, olives, and salt and vinegar potato chips."

The men and the woman, Lisa, all laughed.
Apparently it was Ethan that was still at the table and Eryx that
had gone with Callie. "Yeah, by the time he got back with the stuff
she'd changed her mind and wanted milk duds and orange soda, so he
went right back out again."

Lisa chuckled, “At least he thought to call
first before he headed home the second time.”

Cadence gave a sharp look to Jason. One time
she'd asked him to get her chocolate milk and he'd complained he
was tired. He'd gone to get it eventually, but only because she
pitched a fit.
“There’s milk and hot chocolate mix, Cades, it's
the same thing.”
These men seemed delighted to take care of
their pregnant mate. And the way the lions all reacted to the
situation it was as if they all cared about her and paid attention.
Cadence decided to go check on her, because she wanted to see if it
was true that her other mate was in there holding her hair back and
tending to her. She couldn't believe that was the case. And she
couldn't believe that Callie hadn’t told her about having
twins!

She ducked Jason's hand that he’d thrown up
to try to stop her from leaving the table and stalked to the
bathroom, opening the door and not believing the sight in front of
her. On a small fainting couch in the plush outer area of the
woman’s bathroom, Eryx held Callie in his lap and cuddled her,
smoothing her hair back from her face and talking in a soothing
voice. She was shaking and he was holding a tumbler of something
fizzy in his hand.

Eryx looked at her for a long minute. "I
don't want you upsetting my wife, Cadence."

She couldn't help but bristle again. They
were both calling her wife and they weren't married yet. Why did
that bother her? Did she look as angry as she felt? Why was she so
upset anyway? She took in a few deep breaths and said, "I just
wanted to make sure you were okay, Callie."

Callie opened her eyes. They were bloodshot
and she looked very tired suddenly, but she smiled in a small way.
"They take good care of me. Thanks."

She felt tears prick at her eyes and she
gritted her teeth and fought them. "You didn't mention you were
having twins." That explained why she looked a little bigger even
though she was a month behind her.

"I thought I did." Eryx held the glass to her
lips and she took a sip of the offered drink, probably ginger ale,
and sighed.

Cadence swallowed past the lump in her
throat, but found she had nothing really to say to her, so she
turned and left. The scene in the bathroom had been intimate. Not
sexual, but she felt as if she was intruding on something profound.
Jason was wonderful. Everything she'd ever wanted, but as she
walked sullenly back to the banquet room she couldn't help but
compare. Her own marriage seemed a pale shadow compared to Callie's
relationship with the cats. Jason was a wonderful man, but he
wasn't necessarily the most compassionate man. He was raised to be
alpha and alphas weren’t the most outwardly affectionate men in
public. She had never felt like something was missing from her
marriage to Jason but, still, she wasn’t happy right now. She
detoured out to the front patio of the winery, not hungry and not
interested in conversation or pretense. She just wanted to go
home.

By the time she was chilled from the night
air and not having a jacket, she'd come to the conclusion that part
of what was bothering her was that she felt like an intruder on
Callie's life. They had grown up together, shared everything, and
Callie had given her up in a matter of months as if she were of no
importance at all. And all the men, not just her two mates, looked
at her with complete devotion, as if she were the most important
person in the world to all of them.

"There you are," Jason said, coming out to
join her.

Cadence looked at him. He stood slightly
apart from her, hands in the pockets of his dress slacks, rocking
back and forth on his heels. She knew if she asked him to hold her,
that he would. If she went to him first, that he would wrap his
strong arms around her and kiss her worries away. If she told him
that her heart was breaking and she felt so out of control with her
emotions that she was terrified she was going to say something
hurtful if she opened her mouth, that he would shush her gently and
let her lean on him for as long as she needed to feel grounded
again. But she didn't want to ask. She didn't want to
have
to ask. She wanted...she wanted to have Jason be so worried about
her that he would instinctively cuddle her like she'd seen in the
bathroom. That if she got sick from something she ate that he would
know what she would like to have instead without even asking. That
his father Peter would know just as much as their father James did
about what went on in her life.