Page 33 of His Treasured Mate

Lily wasn’t always great at telling people when we were coming to visit. She said she liked to surprise them. It probably paid a big role on why my wolf never fully rested here. It was one thing to have an open invitation into another Alpha’s territory and an entirely different thing to find out you’d snuck in completely unannounced. Kyle never seemed to care, but I did.

Relief flooded me when her parents met us at the door and were actually expecting us for once.

“My baby girl is finally home. It’s been too long,” Mary Westin gushed, hugging her daughter.

Lily had four siblings, three brothers and a sister. She was very close to all of them. In contrast, I had six sisters. Sure, I was close to them, but the dynamics were all very different. I was the youngest of seven and the only boy, so my relationship with my sisters was nothing like the closeness Lily experienced with her siblings.

Actually, being with Lily had helped bring me closer to my family. She was not only the glue that held our Pack together, but the one who embodied family, setting an example that affected everyone who had the privilege of knowing her.

I hugged Mary and shook hands with Jason before they turned their attention to the girls.

“Cammie, I swear you need to slow down. You’re going to be as tall as I am the next time you visit at this rate.”

She giggled. “I’m going to grow big and strong so I can help protect our Pack,” she informed them.

Jason shot me a questioning look that I chose to ignore.

My daughter was growing bold in her assertion that she would one day be Alpha of Collier. I had no idea how that would all play out. Lily could very well be carrying a son right now. I nearly cringed at the thought. The last thing I wanted to do was break my little girl’s heart, but while there were Pack’s far more open to the idea of female Alpha, I was not sure my Pack had progressed to such a point.

Fortunately, the topic passed quickly, and they were on to more important things, like helping their grandmother bake cookies for the picnic.

As we made it to the living room, we found several other familiar faces.

Kelsey rose and walked over to hug us with a huge smile on her face.

“I am so happy you guys made it.”

“Is Jason here?” Cammie asked hopefully. She was referring to her cousin, Kelsey’s youngest, and not her grandfather, in this case.

“He and Zander are helping in the kitchen. Sara’s in there too.”

Cammie squealed and ran off in search of her big cousins.

In total, there were fourteen Collier grandkids, for a few more weeks at least. Half of them were also Westin grandkids thanks to Lily’s twin brother Liam mating Madelyn, my youngest sister. The Westins now numbered twelve, with two more on the way.

“Hey everyone. Sorry I couldn’t get freed up to meet you when you landed. How was the flight?”

“Uncle Kyle!” Willow squealed as she abandoned us all to run over and leap into the air knowing damn well her favorite uncle would catch her.

I was pretty sure Willow thought he was a true flesh and blood prince from one of her fairytales she was always reading. Kelsey told their mating story like it was something in a book, with Kyle always staring at the prince who rescued her.

Kelsey Adams Westin was no damsel in distress. She was the strongest person I knew, aside from my mate. But Willow ate up every word every time she recounted how they’d met and fell in love, which had contributed heavily to my third daughter’s infatuation with Uncle Kyle.

“You brought my best girl with you,” he cooed, nuzzling her and, no doubt, rubbing his scent on my daughter.

My wolf should have been furious, yet the knowledge that my kids had the double protection of two Packs had always given me just a bit of peace, which was in stark contrast to everything else I felt being here.

Life didn’t always make sense, but at the core of it all for me was the importance of family.

“I can’t wait for everyone to arrive so we’re all together at last,” Lily whispered, echoing my thoughts exactly.

Lily

Chapter 9

It was so good to see everyone. Once upon a time, I would have said it was so good to be home, but this wasn’t home to me anymore. It was comfortable and familiar, but not home.

I could feel Thomas’s nerves and discomfort as we rode into town. It had put my own wolf on edge a bit. It wasn’t that I hadn’t been able to read his emotions for a long time. The man was practically an open book to me. But this was different. I wasn’t just sensing how he felt; I was feeling them, too. It was like he was projecting them right into me.