Daddy’s Mail Order Mate (Twilight Meadows Wolves #3)

Prologue - Thorn

“If you ever want to see them alive again—”

The voice coming in over my headphones turns into a shrill scream.

I stare at my laptop, tracing the blurry pixels of the men’s faces as the shadowy scene turns to violence. One of them shifts into a huge black wolf and lands on another with a long growl. Even the old security camera microphone picks up the distinctive crunch of tooth cracking through bone as the victim wails in pain.

With a grumbling sigh, I pause the video and lean back into the couch.

Yet another group of rogues needing to be dealt with. It was lucky that the council was able to cover this particular incident up, but I’ll need to hunt down the rest of them and handle them accordingly. It seems as though shifters are getting more and more reckless these days just from the amount of investigations we keep having to do. Between keeping our society hidden from the human world and maintaining order among the packs, the council’s work is never done.

Which means my work is never done.

I've been working in this city for almost a year now. After I helped my sister Paige handle that mess with the Portsmill Pack, it seemed as though the council was inclined to keep me busy far from home. This apartment was one I’d been using off and on for the past few years, as there was always something that needed the council’s attention in urban centers like this. Packs tended to prefer quiet rural communities away from prying eyes, which made it easy for rogues to stir up trouble in the city.

I do wish I had more opportunities to go see my sister and niece, but my work was an integral part of making sure that they could enjoy a peaceful life.

I’d just need to trust that her mate would actually take good care of them while I wasn’t around.

A surly noise slips out of me at the thought of Liam. He wasn’t all bad, and had been doing his part to prove himself as an Alpha and a husband. But I could never rest easy about him, not with my sister’s happiness in his hands.

Just as I think about getting up to go make some coffee, my doorbell goes off.

I stand up and silently swipe my everyday carry knife from the coffee table. As I walk, I slip it into my back pocket, just in case. You can never be too careful, and I’m not expecting anyone.

The digital doorbell’s screen shows a lone woman standing at my door. There’s what looks to be a baby held in one of her arms as well, and I can hear it whining a bit through the door.

I know her from somewhere. My memory hums hurriedly to life, trying to put a name to the face staring dead-eyed straight ahead. Green eyes… A dark freckle right on the edge of her lower lip…

I straighten and open the door by confused instinct.

“... Vanessa?”

“At least you remembered my name,” she mutters.

The thread-bare looking woman in front of me is a far cry from the one I met months ago. She worked at a bar across town behind the bar. I’d commonly stake out there, as I was looking into a trafficking ring for stolen shifter girls. She was gorgeous, though beauty alone failed to move me. It was her sly charm and barside banter which had gotten me inclined to take her right back to this apartment one night. Once that case got wrapped a few days after our tryst, I’d needed to leave town for two months to handle another pack violently crumbling apart. By the time I made it back, I never really thought to make it back to that bar.

But there was none of her usual sleek makeup and flattering fashion that had caught my eye. Instead she is swimming in some oversized clothes and squinting at me beneath a ball-cap with dark circles under her eyes and a pallor to complexion.

She must have hit on hard times, coming to get help from a casual fling with a baby in tow.

“Something I can help you with?”

A bitter laugh sparks out of her with a paper thin smile.

“Yeah, actually.”

And then she holds out the baby towards me, arms fully extended, the little thing squirming restlessly.

“Take this.”

I stare at her with mounting confusion, even though my arms automatically reach out. I’ve gotten used to being handed a baby, what with my sister giving birth a few months ago.

And as I take hold of the little one and bring them close, something shocks through my system like lightning.

It is a realization that is so profound and unexpected that it feels like terror. I know the truth before the words come out of her mouth.

“It’s yours.”

It’s not the looks that gave it away. The baby is young , maybe a week old at most. And at that age, they all look gently alien.

It’s the scent. They smell like family, like me . A wolf always knows its own, and my wolf is far too powerful to not be close to the surface at all times.

“I’m not fit to be a mother, Thorn. And I know you’ll do better than I ever could at taking care of it. You don’t even have to pay me to go away. And if you don’t want to deal with it either, just drop it off somewhere else and spare us both the misery.”

A panic surges in my chest—if she is so detached from the baby that she’d pawn him off heedlessly, who knows where he’d end up?

Her expression is sharp yet exhausted as she glowers at me expectantly.

“From that look on your face, you don’t like that idea. So you’re going to take it?”

“You’re just… You want nothing to do with—him? Her?”

“That’s right,” she states with a hollow finality, before her voice twinges in bitter humor that sounds more like spite than anything else. “And it’s a boy. Congratulations.”

I look her in the eyes, and am greeted with an ashen stare. It feels impossible to be angry at her, somehow. I have seen so many people brought to this state before, laid low by their circumstances and yet forced to keep going on, bitter to the core.

And like many of them before, I was the one who did this to her. But usually that was because I took a life and not because I made one.

“That’s all, then.”

It’s been years since I’ve gone into shock, but it’s not a sensation you ever forget. Especially if you’ve known it as often as I have. Behind the ringing of my skull and the gauze of my overwhelmed thoughts, I watch numbly as she takes one last look at me.

I couldn’t speak now, even if I wanted to.

But what can I say?

What is there to be said?

Something that might be an apology starts to well up in my throat, but before I can string the words together, I hear the hum of a car engine stirring back to life.

My vision whirls, locking in on the little sedan starting to pull away.

There’s an urge to run after her, to demand… Answers? Something. Anything. Some vigilant quadrant of my brain starts rattling off her license plate number.

But then the baby starts to noisily complain, and my whole world jumpstarts just to narrow in on him, and him alone.

“Shhh,” I comfort him by reflex, keeping my voice as soft as I can manage. “You’re alright. I’ve got you.”

My thoughts become more concrete, but they’re mostly… Fear.

I hurry inside and before I know it, my phone is in my hand.

There’s Paige’s face on the screen, smiling brilliantly as always. The back of her own baby’s head pokes up in the corner of the photo, sporting a soft dusting of the black hair that very much seems to run in the family.

The call rings.

My heart hammers.

Another ring.

The baby whines.

“Shhhshhshh.”

Another ring.

“Please, Paige,” I whisper.

Mercifully, I hear her voice next, chipper and bright.

“Well hi! Where’re we calling from today?”

“Paige, I…”

My voice chokes in my throat, and to my own ears it sounds miles away. She clearly hears my distress, as her usual cheery tone immediately crumbles away into concern.

“Thorn? What’s wrong?”

A fresh stab of guilt shoots through me—I have spent my whole life trying to protect her joy. She had been denied so much happiness as a child, and all I have ever wanted is to make sure she knows peace for all her days. But here I am, about to burden her with my own mistakes. I’d only just been able to feel properly satisfied that I’d secured a good life for her. She has a beautiful baby and a reasonably good mate, and is even the Luna of our childhood pack. And now I am about to bring my woes to her door. My throat clenches, and I almost hang up then and there. I can’t do this to her, I can’t make her suffer for my mistakes.

But then her voice, full of worry and fear, cuts through me.

“... Thorn? Please tell me you’re okay.”

I breathe out raggedly, and there’s a little burbling coo from the baby in my arms.

“... Is that a baby?”

My vision blurs down to the red-cheeked little babe, gaze fixating on his drowsy perpetual squint as though he might stare back.

“Yeah,” I eventually manage to croak out. “It’s a baby.”

“You sound really out of it, Thorn. Did something go wrong with the council? Do you need me to—to do some Luna shit and get the pack together?”

I can hear the nerves building in her voice; a sense of urgency hammers in my skull. She’s just going to get more distressed the longer it takes for me to get the words out, but it feels like barbed wire tightens around my throat at the mere thought of burdening her with this.

A growl stirs out of me. My wolf seethes deep in my own skin, impatient and angry to be surrounded by my helplessness. I clear my throat to avoid letting that animal tone slip into my voice.

“No. It’s personal,” I explain. The baby, however, suddenly squirms and warbles in distress. “Shit.” I must have accidentally set him off.

My thoughts spin up in a fresh swirl of anxiety, and I urgently cradle him closer with a pang of intense nurturing and tender guilt. Even my inner wolf, as surly and unflappable as it usually is, feels a bit cowed at the realization that it upset our son.

“Shhh, it’s alright.”

“Thorn,” Paige begins in a forcibly pleasant tone, “I’m doing a really good job at not having a nervous breakdown. Can you please get to the part where you explain what’s going on?”

The babe’s cries are muffled now into my chest, but that just makes it feel so much worse. I bounce him in my arms as gently as I can and avoid looking at the phone as though I was escaping her pointed glare.

“... I have a baby.”

An exasperated noise, something between a laugh and a groan, comes over the speakerphone. “Yes, I can hear that. But uh, why do you have a baby?”

“It’s my baby.”

The line goes silent.

The only thing I can hear is my unsteady breathing and the settling whines of the little life in my arms.

“Thorn.”

Her voice is uncannily calm. I can’t help but swallow nervously.

“Yes?”

And then she does exactly what Paige always does.

“When were you going to tell me?! Who is the mother? Why didn’t you tell me you were seeing someone?! Oh my god! I’m an aunt!! I have to tell everyone! Is it a boy or a girl? When do I get to see the baby?!”

I can’t help but chuckle wearily. As absurd as it is, her whiplash nature seems to dispel some of the fear running through my body.

“Don’t you laugh! You’re in big trouble!”

“I-... There isn’t.”

“Isn’t what?”

“A mother.”

“Thorn, you and I both know how babies happen.”

“She was here, but she—... She left me with him. Doesn’t want him, or anything to do with me. It was some woman I’d—... Once. A human.”

Even though I have living proof of it all in my arms, telling Paige somehow makes it feel undeniably real. And once again, she goes quiet. I always worry when she’s quiet.

“Well,” Paige says with a gentle crack in her otherwise smiling tone, “That’s her loss. You come here to Portsmill and we’ll take care of both of you.”

“No.”

She clicks her tongue at me and I can hear her brows furrow from here.

“I love you big bro. And I know you’re a tough independent man who don’t need no pack, but you need help right now,” Paige teases.

“This— He is my responsibility.”

“Glad you think so, because he is. But you don’t have to manage it on your own. We’re here for you Thorn. We’re family. And if I’m supposed to be a proper Luna, I’m pretty sure leaving my brother and his baby to fend for themselves out there isn’t a good look.”

I grumble wordlessly.

“And you’ve helped with my little girl, sure, but that’s the uncle package. You’ve gotta learn how to be a dad now. Wait, does the council give paternity leave?”

“... I don’t know.”

“Well, we’ll get that sorted out. But for right now… Thorn, I know you do some really scary stuff for your job and you never bat an eye. I’ve never heard you as terrified as you sound right now. So let me help, even just a little bit. And Lily deserves to meet her cousin! Oh my god they’re going to be so cute together. Should we do a baby photoshoot? What do you think would be a good theme?”

“Paige…”

“Right! Haha, sorry. Getting waaaay ahead of myself. But yeah. If you don’t come here and at least let me see my nephew —”

She loses track of her own sentence to squeal with delight, but recovers after a moment, putting on the endearingly formal tone she keeps referring to as her ‘Luna voice.’

“Ahem. So when can we expect you in?”

To me, it just makes me think of her as a little girl wearing a dress and heels far too big for her. My mouth twitches towards a smile, and I sigh with a bit of relief I didn’t think could be possible in this situation.

“Soon.”

“Good!”

“But just to visit while I… Figure things out. Get things sorted out with the council.”

“Learn how to be a dad.”

I grunt in terse agreement.

“I kept telling you every time you’d take care of Lily that you’d be a good dad. I’m sure you’ll do a wonderful job. Especially with your little sister helping you out.”

“Mmn. I’ll call later.”

“Yeah, I can hear those gears turning already. But seriously, don’t take too much on your own. I can come right to you and help with the baby.”

“No,” I insist a bit more forcefully than I’d like.

“Okay. I’m gonna be worrying about both of you, so don’t keep me waiting too long. Liam’ll kick your ass if I get too stir crazy.”

“He can try.”

I hang up the call there. She’s right; my mind is already churning with the multitude of tasks suddenly laid out before me.

A warbling sound brings me back to the present, and I lean the baby off of me gently to look at his furrowed face.

This small, red-faced little life depends on me. Paige had needed me, but never like this. The most simple oversight could be the end of him. He is utterly helpless, and I am the reason he is here at all. It is my duty to take care of him above all else. And I know that even though I had no idea he existed until today, I would die for this precious burden in my arms.

He starts to cry. The shrill tone of it sends a pain through me is one I’ve never known before. I’d honestly take breaking a leg or getting shot again if it meant not feeling this sharp, anxious agony.

I cradle him close and shush him as best I can.

He might be distressed because he was no longer in the presence of his mother, but that was something he was going to have to get used to. But most urgently…

“Food,” I mumble forcefully, already heading towards the door.

Shit, I don’t have a car seat. How am I supposed to drive a baby safely without a car seat? But he needs food, as soon as possible.

I force out a long, slow exhale, willing the anxiety from my body.

I had been an agent of the council for over a decade now. I had orchestrated some of the most sensitive and critical missions necessary to maintain the stability of the shifter world.

I can handle a baby.

My baby.