Chapter 8
1757 Words
Chapter 8
“What do you mean they’re going shopping?” Poseidon asked, his brow furrowing as he glanced in the rearview mirror.
He had just driven out of the pack territory gates, heading down the main road toward the office, when he noticed Margot’s car tailing them before abruptly veering off in the direction of the highway with both Margot and Arden inside. When he questioned Fury and Warlord in the backseat about where exactly their mates were heading, they broke the grim news: Margot had successfully coerced Arden into a shopping spree to repair Warlord’s apparently dreadful and depressive wardrobe.
“They’re currently recruiting your mate and Sarah to go with them,” Warlord replied from the back, shaking his head in mourning for his bank account.
“I literally just dropped Candy off at work! How the hell is she supposed to go shopping?” Poseidon exclaimed, throwing a bewildered glance at Warlord through the rearview mirror.
“Dude, the Gamma is in charge of the daycare,” Fury chimed in from the passenger seat, leaning back comfortably. “All the girls have to do is tell her their plan, and she’ll be more than happy to give Candy the day off to go cause some trouble.”
“Oh, man. Watch. Just watch,” Poseidon grumbled, gripping the steering wheel. “Now she’s going to text me and ask for—”
DING.
Right on cue, the center console lit up. Poseidon glanced down at the car's screen and saw a fresh, incoming text message from Candy.
“I called it,” Poseidon muttered under his breath. He pressed the steering wheel button, prompting the car’s automated system to read the message aloud.
“Hey, baby! The girls invited me to go shopping, and the Gamma said it’s perfectly fine since it’s Friday and a lot of the parents aren’t dropping off their little ones today. Can you send me some money so I can buy something, too? Thank you, baby! I love you!”
Fury and Warlord instantly burst into a fit of laughter from the backseat. They had called it, too. Sin was easily the coolest, most laid-back boss the daycare workers could ever ask for. She regularly approved random days off for everyone, mostly because they had an absolute abundance of staff compared to the actual number of pups dropped off on any given day. As long as a staff member had the PTO to cover it, Sin's policy was always a green light.
“You’re whipped, bro,” Fury teased.
“And we’re not?” Warlord asked from the back, instantly shutting Fury up.
Poseidon ignored them, pulling up to a red light. He quickly tapped out a reply on his phone before the light could change.
Sure, baby. I’m driving right now. I’ll send you some money when I get to the office. Have fun. Be safe, but please don’t go completely overboard.
No promises!
Poseidon rolled his eyes as her immediate reply lit up his screen. He knew the unspoken rules of this game all too well. If he didn’t transfer enough cash, Candy would drain whatever she had left in her own account from her daycare shifts. And if she still ran short? Sarah, Margot, or Arden would instantly whip out their own mates' credit cards to spot her, and then he’d be stuck paying the guys back anyway.
No matter how he sliced it, there was no escaping the inevitable. He was officially standing on the losing side of a high-stakes shopping spree.
“You guys just had to let them talk her into shopping, didn’t you?” Poseidon grumbled at his friends, fully blaming them for the impending disaster about to hit his bank account.
“Dude, it’s not like we gave them an itinerary and told them to go shopping,” Fury responded, throwing his hands up in mock offense from the passenger seat.
Warlord leaned forward between the headrests, completely unfazed. “Since when does telling a woman ‘no’ to a shopping spree ever actually work anyway? Let’s be real—even the Alpha can’t stop the Luna’s shopping addiction when she gets a craving. We never stood a chance, ass-wipe.”
Poseidon was about to shoot back a response when his phone suddenly started to ring, interrupting the bickering. The caller ID on the center console lit up: Carter.
“Oh, boy… They got to Sarah,” Fury mumbled from the passenger seat, biting his lip to keep from laughing out loud.
Poseidon rolled his eyes, letting out a heavy sigh before answering the call through the car’s Bluetooth speaker. “What’s up?”
“What’s up? What’s up?!” Carter’s voice practically exploded through the car’s speakers, sounding completely bewildered. “Are you guys seriously trying to tell me you had absolutely no idea that your mates were going to drive over, kidnap my mate and daughter, and convince them to go on a massive shopping spree at nine in the morning?!”
“Bro, I am a victim here, too,” Poseidon responded instantly, completely deflecting the heat. “If you want to blame someone, blame Warlord and his absolute s**t sense of style. His obsession with wearing black and blue is the entire reason Margot convinced Arden to go shopping in the first place. Then Margot just decided to drag our mates into the vortex with them.”
“Ugh!” Carter groaned loudly through the speakers, which instantly sent the other three men into a fit of laughter.
They all knew they were fighting a losing battle. If there were two things all of their mates had in common, it was a profound love for eating and shopping. And despite everything Sarah had been through lately, she never turned down a good meal or a prime opportunity to spend Carter’s money.
Lately, though, her shopping habits had shifted. Instead of clothes for herself, almost everything she bought was either for their house, thanks to her sudden, fierce obsession with interior design and home renovation, or a mountain of new things for their daughter.
“See? You’re in the same boat, man,” Fury called out toward the dashboard. “Just accept your fate.”
“F*ck you, Fury. I’ll see you guys at the office,” Carter snapped grumpily, immediately hanging up. The sudden click of the disconnected line only made the three of them burst out laughing all over again.
“I finally get why the Alpha always said you’ll never truly be able to tell your mate no,” Warlord chuckled from the backseat, leaning back against the leather.
“For real, man,” Fury sighed, rubbing his face. “And with Margot being pregnant, she’s also been completely obsessed with buying sh*t for the baby lately.”
“She’s only three months along,” Poseidon noted, eyeing the road as he navigated the winding desert highway with effortless expertise. “You guys don’t even know what you're having yet. What in the world is she buying?”
“Oh, you know—neutral stuff. And 'necessities' like wipes, diapers, a crib, a stroller, and a bunch of other random sh*t I didn’t even know expecting mothers needed,” Fury explained, shaking his head in mild bewilderment. “At this rate, the kid's room is going to be fully furnished before the first trimester is even over.”
“Is it really going to be the length of a human pregnancy and not a werewolf one?” Poseidon asked, casting a curious glance toward the passenger seat.
“It looks like it,” Fury shrugged, completely unable to fully comprehend the medical jargon. “She’s barely showing at all, and Dr. Quinn said the baby’s development is completely on par with a human gestation period—whatever that means. Apparently, the witch side is more prominent with our kid.”
“Hey, look at the bright side, bro,” Warlord chimed in from the back, a teasing smirk on his face. “That just means you get an extra four to five months of mood swings and late-night snack runs. Truly, a blessing.”
“F*ck you, Wes,” Fury shot back with a grin. “Just wait until you and Arden have your own pup. Then we’ll see who's laughing.”
“How would that even work?” Poseidon couldn’t help but ask, tapping his fingers against the steering wheel. “With her genetics, would she even have a live birth?”
Warlord’s teasing smile instantly vanished. He furrowed his brows, leaning forward between the front seats. “What do you mean by a live birth?”
“She’s a Phoenix, man. Her animal counterpart is a bird,” Poseidon stated matter-of-factly, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “Birds lay eggs. Ergo, I’m asking: would she lay an egg, or would she give birth to a live baby?”
Warlord looked between Poseidon and Fury, his face completely blank, utterly stupefied. That thought had never once crossed his mind. He hadn’t read anything of the sort in any of the lore books at the Vatican, and the sudden visual of his fierce, beautiful mate sitting on a giant nest completely broke his brain.
Fury took one look at Warlord's horrified, malfunctioning expression and absolutely lost it, slapping his hand against the dashboard.
“Shut the f**k up, Odin!” Warlord snarled, reaching forward to slap his comrade across the back of the head.
The hit did absolutely nothing to sober Fury up; in fact, he ended up laughing even harder, clutching his stomach.
“Dude, I can’t—I can’t even imagine you—You sitting on a giant egg for however long it takes to hatch!” Fury wheezed, tears practically welling up in his eyes. “Are you gonna build a nest in the living room, Wes? Grow some feathers?”
The mental image of the terrifying, stoic Warlord meticulously guarding a nest had Poseidon pressing his lips tightly together, desperately trying to keep his eyes on the road as silent, chest-heaving laughter threatened to break through.
Warlord glared at the side of Poseidon's face, his eye twitching. “Don't you dare start, Percy. I swear to God, I’ll kick both of your a*ses to kingdom come!” His outburst had Fury nearly rolling in the passenger seat, and poor Poseidon had to concentrate on driving, but deep down, he was dying of laughter.
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