He had grown up with the knowledge that he and his father were the only ones he could trust. Nobody else was safe. And when his father had died, Marco had been on his own in the world.
It had been painfully lonely. And for the first time ever, Marco had been forced to contemplate the idea that perhaps he wasn’t cut out for the life he was living. He was a young man still, with many years left ahead of him. How could he get through those years with no one by his side, no one to talk to, no voices at all besides the one in his own head?
Even pure wild wolves didn’t live that way. It wasn’t natural.
He had begun contemplating the idea of finding a female wolf in the woods and banding together with her for companionship and survival. The two of them could be mates to one another, he had thought. But even in those imaginings, he had never thought of anything more powerful than an ally, someone to watch his back and keep him warm at night.
In a way, he mused now as he gazed into the flames of Sophie’s mating ceremony fire, being attacked by a bear was the best thing that had ever happened to him.
He traced the tips of his fingers over the long scar that ran the length of his torso, remembering the day he had gotten it. The bear had been on him out of nowhere, ready to murder him for accidentally crossing its path. After he had been slashed, Marco had sprinted away as fast as he could, knowing that as a wolf, his speed outstripped that of any bear. But he also knew he wouldn’t be able to keep that speed up for long, and sure enough, he had quickly begun to lag.
And then Sophie and Ryker had found him.
It was Sophie who had wanted to bring him home. She’s too kindhearted for her own good. But he would always be grateful that she had taken the risk on his behalf.
Not twenty-four hours later, he had imprinted on her.
She had become his mate, and so much more than just the ally he had imagined finding. She was his best friend and lover, someone with whom he could share all his thoughts and fears. She made him feel stronger, more powerful. The trust she had in him was everything in the world.
And Ryker—and Burton, when he had come along a few days later—had become Marco’s brothers. That was something he had never dared to dream he could have. It was a new kind of love, a new kind of family, unlike anything he and his father had shared.
Marco had thought he might understand what it meant to be a father when the four betas had joined their pack. After all, he was responsible for them, just as his father had once been responsible for him. It was his job to teach them to hunt, and to fish, and to keep themselves safe. Surely that was fatherhood. What more could there be?
And then his children had been born. And that had changed everything once again.
From the moment he had held them, Marco had been a different person. Suddenly he had understood his father in a whole new way. He would do anything to protect these babies, to keep them safe from harm. At that moment, he had been so utterly grateful for the fact that the bears had been driven south, out of their pack’s lands, that it had been hard to breathe.
No one will ever hurt my children the way I was hurt, he’d vowed. He would teach them to defend themselves, but that defense would never be necessary because no one would ever attack them. Now that the bears were gone, the Arctic Circle had been made safe. There was no better place for a group of young wolves to grow up.
Now it felt as though they had been a part of his life forever, even though in actuality, it had only been a couple of months. He couldn’t imagine a world without them anymore.
Having them out here, camping beside the river, had been amazing. This was the kind of thing they would never have been able to do before. Staying in the cave at night had been the only way to guarantee their safety while it was possible that bears were prowling around.
But this was a different world. A safer world.
Burton came over and sat beside him, passing Caleb into his arms without comment. Marco accepted the baby, looking down to see that he was wide-eyed and totally alert. “Has he slept at all yet?” he asked.
“Don’t think so,” Burton said, yawning. “I’m about to, though.”
“How long has he been awake?”
“I don’t know. Maybe eight hours?”
“That can’t be normal for a baby.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Burton said. “But I guess he would sleep if he was tired.”
Marco sighed. “That’s the one thing my father never taught me,” he said. “He never gave me any parenting advice.”
“Well, yeah. He probably never figured you’d be a parent,” Burton said. “Certainly not to nine babies at once. I’m sure he thought, if it ever did happen, it would be because you met a nice beta, and the two of you would figure out how to raise your one baby as you went along.”
Marco shook his head. “My father probably wouldn’t have had any idea how to cope with this situation,” he was forced to admit. “He would probably think I was crazy for even getting myself into this.”
“Well, yeah,” Burton said. “On paper, it looks crazy. Have you thought about the fact that we have no idea whose son Caleb actually is?”
“He’s all of ours,” Marco said.
“I know that,” Burton said. “But you know what I mean. All nine of these babies...some of them are biologically mine, and some are yours, and some are Ryker’s. And we have no idea which are which.”
“Does it matter?” Marco asked.
“No,” Burton said. “But if you had asked me a year ago if something like that would matter to me, I probably would have given you a different answer. You know?”
Marco saw what his friend meant. “That’s true,” he said. “I guess nothing really could have prepared me for what it would be like to raise a family under these conditions.”
“It’s occurred to me that it might become more obvious whose babies are whose as they get older,” Burton said. “We might start to see them look more like one or another of us.”
“I can’t imagine it making a difference, even then,” Marco said. “Even if it was completely obvious that Caleb was Ryker’s child biologically, he would still be my son. And the same is true for the others as well. It’s just so hard to picture this family without all three of us that I think I would only be happy at the realization that one of these children was yours by blood, or Ryker’s.”
“Yeah,” Burton said. “I feel the same way. But if someone had tried to explain that to me before they were born, I definitely wouldn’t have bought it.”
Marco nodded. “I never thought I would be a part of a pack like this, that’s for sure.”
Burton snorted. “I never thought I would be a part of a pack at all,” he said.
“I remember,” Marco said. When Burton had first joined them, he had been disgusted at the idea of forming a pack. If it hadn’t been for the fact that he had imprinted on Sophie, Marco knew he would never have stuck around. “We wouldn’t be the same without you, though,” he added.
“Yeah, I know,” Burton said. “We wouldn’t be the same without any of us. It feels like this group was meant to be together, doesn’t it?”
“It does,” Marco agreed. “I don’t know that I even believe in things like that—fate, destiny—but it does seem like something brought us all together. I don’t think there are any modern packs that are organized the way ours is, with the omega as the lynchpin.”