#Chapter 1 - Curiosity about Dad

“I need to taste you right now, Evelyn.” Mark’s voice is thick with desire. “Get your ass up here.” Mark is all stretched out on my bed, six-foot-five inches of tanned, brawny lycanthrope handcuffed to my headboard. He’s all mine, for now.

“Uncuff me,” he pants. “I have to fuck you. Now.” I kiss him slowly and move my hand to the bowl on the bedside table where I keep the key, but my fingers slip against empty porcelain. I pull away from Mark in confusion.

“Did you move the key, Mark? It’s gone.”

The muffled sound of giggles erupts from the hallway. We have our answer. “Boys,” I call, glaring at the door. “You owe Mark an apology.” The door cracks open and two pairs of impish eyes peek around the corner.

Ian, slightly braver than his twin Alvin, laughs and pushes the door open. “If he can’t get out on his own,” he says, bounding into the room, “he deserves to stay locked up!” His eyes are bright as he leaps onto the bed.

“We know this is mommy’s favorite game - we added a twist!” He smiles wickedly as he begins to bounce around. “It’s no fun if there’s no challenge.”

Alvin tiptoes softly into the room, characteristically cautious and shy. “We won’t do it again,” he says, making his way to the top of the bed and artfully unlocking the cuffs with a bent paper clip.

“We hid the key!” Ian says, bouncing higher. “We don’t remember where we put it! But we don’t need it anyway.”

I narrow my eyes at my boys - I didn’t raise them to be rude. I reach out a hand to snatch Ian by the waist and pull him down to me in a hug.

“Enough jumping,” I say, placing a kiss precisely on his nose. “Too early for that, and I haven’t had my coffee. Plus, Mark is waiting for his apology.”

“Sorry, Mark!” The boys chorus, Ian’s voice bright and insincere, Alvin’s soft and earnest.

“Um…” I hear Mark say from beneath me, his voice unusually timid. I look down and am surprised to see that he’s bright red. “Can I…” he murmurs, “have my pants, please?”

I laugh gently at him and reach forward to caress his face, enjoying the feeling of his rough stubble against my palm. “No need to be a prude, Mark, it’s nothing they haven’t seen before. We’re not shy about bodies in this house.”

“Yeah!” Says Ian, smiling down at him. “It’s natural! Hey, are you our dad?” Alvin perks up at the question and turns wide, hopeful eyes towards Mark.

I laugh at both of them and give Ian a nudge. “Okay, now you really are making him uncomfortable. You know he’s not your dad – the man who sired you is far, far away, and he’s not coming around anytime soon. Uncle Mark is just mommy’s friend,” I say, smiling. “Sometimes he sleeps over.”

They’re so curious about their father’s identity, and I don’t mind. They’re just kids. But no way in hell will I ever tell them that secret.

“Go on, babies, get ready for school and I’ll come make you breakfast,” I say, ruffling their hair and pushing them towards the door. Mark rubs his wrists and watches them go.

“You have a…unique way of handling things, in this house,” he says. I don’t take it as criticism.

“It’s true,” I shrug. “But there’s no reason they should grow up with outdated, old fashioned ideas about sex and relationships. I am an independent woman,” I say, leaning my body forward and stretching out against the length of him. “And I’m not going be ashamed of that, especially not in front of my boys.”

I run my hand down the length of Mark’s obliques, and then lower, feeling him harden against me. “Now,” I murmur, wrapping my hand around his thick cock. “I still have time before the boys go to school. Where were we?”

“Homework done?” I say.

“Yes!” The twins chorus. “We have good news, mama,” Alvin says, beaming up at me. I raise my eyebrows at him, inviting him to say more.

“We’re going to be in a quiz competition!” Ian takes up the conversation seamlessly, something he’s been doing since the twins learned to talk. Alvin and Ian are so different, I think, looking them over as I put their bowls in the sink. But sometimes they seem like they’re two halves of one person, able to speak each other’s mind.

“Oh really?” I ask, “a quiz competition? How did you enter that?”

“They invited us,” Alvin says, stepping away from the table and neatly pushing in his chair. “After we played so much on the quiz website and did so well.” He shrugs slightly. “We always know all the answers.”

I frown and lean against the counter. “Quiz website? When did you do that?”

“At school,” Ian says, collecting his army men and putting them – still wet – in his pocket. “We get bored in kindergarten, and the teacher lets us use the computer. We found the quiz website all on our own, and we got all the answers right, and they want us to come compete!”

I nod and smile at the boys, making a mental note to have a conversation with their teacher about how they spend their class time. “Okay,” I say, “Let me look at the details and we’ll see. In the meantime!” I clap my hands twice. “Get your backpacks! Time to go!”

“Mama,” Alvin says softly. “Do you think Daddy will see us in the quiz competition?”

I am surprised by the question and look down into his big brown eyes. I run my hand over his hair and cup his cheek in my palm. “Why do you ask, Alvin? Why all these questions about your dad today?”

He shrugs and looks away; I can tell he is a little disappointed. Ian is suddenly next to both of us, though I didn’t notice him listening or looking back. “We just want to make him proud,” Ian says, smiling wide and revealing the gap left by the loss of his front tooth just last week.

“Don’t worry about that, boys,” I say. “I’m proud enough of you for two parents, all on my own. A thousand parents!” I wrinkle my nose at them, and we hear the school bell ring softly in the distance.

“Oh no!” Alvin says, genuinely concerned. “We’re going to be late!”

The walk home after I drop the boys off at school is some of the only me-time I get during the day. After this, it’s all work, work, work. As I walk, I pull my phone from my back pocket and open my favorite guilty pleasure app, CelebGoss.

Unfortunately, the first thing pops up on the page is not an anonymous, vapid celebrity arrested for a DUI. Instead, it’s Victor.

Victora and Amelia, Back Together, Hotter than Ever, the headline reads, followed by dozens of photos of our future Alpha King and his supermodel mate lounging on the beach, her sipping cocktails, him groping her ass.

I feel my cheeks turn red and return my phone to my pocket. “Not interested,” I mutter. The last thing I need to see are pictures of Victor and his mate in the next chapter of their toxic relationship.

What are the chances that today, of all days, my sons ask twice about their father and then his picture is the first thing I see when I open my phone? Is the universe trying to tell me something?

I shake away the anxious thought and hurry home. I promised myself a long time ago that Victor would never know about our children. It’s a secret I plan to take to the grave.