Delivered to My Elves (Mail-Order Matings #18)

Chapter Ten

Misty

The train was both a good idea and a very bad one. Sure, the rhythm of the tracks and not being cooped up in a flying aluminum can were good for my bear. She’d never had been fond of airplanes. Hell, she didn’t even like long car commutes. She didn’t mind the train since there were views of the outside.

Finicky beast.

The bad thing about the train? I wouldn’t arrive until the afternoon, which meant, I’d spent the whole day and some of the fitful night fretting.

I wasn’t nervous, I was giddy. I’d considered all the reasons not to go forward with this situation. Surprisingly, I found entire threads on breeders and what it meant to be one. There were negatives to every situation, but most were in agreement that as long as all parties were open and honest, it could be a fulfilling way to live and have a family.

It didn’t hurt that my baby daddies were hotter than hot and made my bear absolutely purr with need.

I’d never experienced her making that sound before except when I took a trip up north and lay in the snow.

The speaker above my seat crackled a few times before the conductor cleared his throat and announced that we were arriving at our destination. I closed my eyes and listened as the brakes engaged, but my bear stirred inside me, asking me to look at the view ahead. The landscape with its tall snow-covered pines and the Christmas-decorated platform were gorgeous, but it was something else that captured my full attention.

The place was glowing as though the sun or the brightest lightbulb in the world were the backdrop.

Glowing a bright color that made my polar bear stand up on her hind legs, mesmerized.

What incredible decorations. Aerin and Callon lived in an elf colony and said they really went all out for the holidays, but this was beyond imagination.

This radiance would be visible from the space station.

The conductor called out for everyone to grab their bags and as I stood, opening the overhead bin, my stomach flip-flopped in anticipation. This was it. When I stepped off this train, I would begin a new life. Getting to know my new…friends? Almost mates? I had no labels for them and didn’t intend to. We were all walking into this with our eyes wide open.

I didn’t have to call it anything, but my mind found ways to do it anyway.

I held my bag tightly against my chest. Peeking out the window, I tried to calm my heartbeat and my breathing. The doors hadn’t opened yet, giving me a moment to collect myself.

“Are you visiting family?” the older woman next to me asked. She’d ignored my efforts to speak to her earlier. Even when I said hello the first time I sat down. Maybe she was hard of hearing.

“No. Friends?”

She laughed. “Are you sure? That sounded like a question.”

“I’m sure?”

We shared a laugh, and she put her hand on my arm. “Whoever it is, it’s going to be okay, and if it isn’t, you get back on this train and go somewhere else.”

“Simple as that, huh?” I said, waving for her to get off before me. I had worked myself up so much that I would let the whole train full of people get off before me, delaying the inevitable.

“Simple as that.” She patted my hand, stood, and shuffled down the aisle. Following, as I stepped down from the train and onto the platform, I saw at least a dozen children of all ages, barreling toward her, calling out for their honey—I assumed their form of grandma.

If this worked out, one day I would be a honey.

I glanced down the platform. The entire thing didn’t glow any longer. The pale-yellow light was concentrated toward the end where I could make out two bodies.

Was it Aerin and Callon? Were they glowing? If so, they left that little detail out.

Goddess, would our children glow?

I had to find out.

Slinging my bag over my shoulder, I walked toward them, more curious by the moment.

The closer I got, the more the glow diminished until it faded, leaving only a faint aura around the two males in front of me.

My cheeks filled with heat, and the swirling in my belly was no longer from anxiousness but from raw desire.

They were handsomer by video chat than in pictures but in person? In person, I was having trouble getting a deep breath.

“Misty.” Aerin stepped forward and put his hand on my cheek. “Are you okay?”

His touch made everything inside me relax. My shoulders dropped. My jaw opened. My breathing resumed its normal course.

“I…yeah. I am now.”

Callon took my bag and put it on his shoulder. He reached forward and embraced me. Aerin soon joined him. I could’ve stood like that forever, with them holding me.

“Um, I have bags,” I said. “Let me get them.”

“Nonsense,” Aerin answered. “Show us which ones they are.”

“Are you sure?” I asked, laughing.

“Sweetheart, you might not lift anything else in your life as long as we’re around.”