Something Like Family

WILLOW

The nursery was too still for a place meant to hold life.

The air was thick with dust motes. Toys lay scattered across the carpet, remnants of forgotten memories. The walls were painted with clouds and trees and something meant to resemble sunlight.

But the real sun never touched this place; it was buried too deep.

One of the kids, a boy with copper curls and impossible golden eyes, was half asleep on my lap. He looked like me, his nose, cheekbones, and the shape of his eyes. What would he have been if they hadn’t grown him in a lab like a goddamn science project?

Another pup with raven hair leaned into my side, her small hand tangled in my hoodie drawstring.

Connor sat across from me on the low couch, his legs folded, looking too big for the space. A toddler with dark hair and little teeth had climbed into his lap and fallen asleep there without hesitation. Another was curled at his feet.

And somehow, with all these kids surrounding me, it didn’t feel foreign.

It felt natural, easy as breathing.

Neither of us had spoken since the doctor had told us about BioBridge’s program of controlled breeding.

They’d harvested eggs right from the beginning, nearly forty years ago, from the first female taken from Iron Ridge. They’d found, however, that a wolf who shifted in captivity turned feral, couldn’t be tamed, so they’d abandoned that project almost immediately.

Connor had confirmed for him that wolves without an alpha turned rogue.

The doctor had then said that it’d been my mother who’d changed everything. They’d noticed her differences—stronger, more resilient, more tolerant than any other wolf. So, they’d harvested her eggs.

And that had been when they’d discovered she was pregnant.

After she’d passed in childbirth, they’d considered terminating me but had chosen instead to see if I, too, would turn feral after my first shift.

I hadn’t, and my wolf had actually given them their eureka moment.

The alpha gene, a specific gene that only activated with the first shift, had been the key to everything.

They’d seen in me that an alpha wolf could be taught, tamed, and controlled, so they’d begun fertilizing my mother’s eggs, as well as mine, to breed alpha pups to be raised as supersoldiers.

When I’d asked him about the clones, he’d said he hadn’t been part of that project. Connor had then ordered his men to remove the doctor and the three nurses while we’d stayed with the pups.

It’d been a lot to digest, but the cuteness all around helped.

Finally, the silence was broken. A snore escaped the nose of the boy in Connor’s lap. I glanced at him, recognizing my nose, as his tiny chest rose and fell steadily.

“How are you feeling?” Connor asked, his voice soft and careful.

I huffed a breath that wasn’t quite a laugh. “About which part?” I kept my voice low so I wouldn’t disturb the boy. “That half or more of these kids are my children? Or that the rest are my siblings? Really hard to pick a favorite violation.”

Connor chuckled, rubbing his jaw. “Yeah, I get it.” He didn’t push me to talk more, but his gaze told me I should.

Sighing, I continued, “I wish I’d known my mother. Really known, I mean. I read only what they let me read in her file. There wasn’t even a photo. No mention of my father, either. When I look in the mirror, I don’t know what’s her and what’s him.”

A lump formed in my throat, and I swallowed it. “But here, now, having even a part of her with me—in them—feels… I don’t know. It’s comforting.” I met his gaze. “Does that make sense?”

Connor nodded, his expression turning into a mix of fury and tenderness. “Trust me, it does,” he said before clicking his tongue. “Fucking monsters. Experimenting on wolves was already beyond the line.

“But harvesting—~stealing—~eggs, fertilizing them, and growing them to be soldiers, to sell like trained dogs to the highest bidder? That’s ~obliterating~ the line!”

My hand moved instinctively, finding his where it rested on the arm of the couch. I squeezed it, hoping my touch could calm him the way his always calmed me. “It’s done now,” I said. “We put an end to it.”

He nodded again before his eyes flicked to the kids around us. One of the older girls was drawing shapes into the dust on the coffee table with her fingertip. She looked up at him and smiled, a soft, shy thing. He smiled back. “What do you want to do next?” he asked.

And just like that, the world tilted again.

Because I hadn’t thought that far ahead.

My eyes scanned the room. All these tiny people were about to escape hell, but what came next? I took in their hands and eyes and the faintest shadows of wolves inside them. “I want to bring them home,” I said, my mind made.

Connor’s gaze snapped to mine.

“If you’ll have me,” I added. “If you’ll have ~us~.”

He didn’t hesitate, not even a beat. “Of course I will! You, them, I want all of it!” His smile was pure conviction. “We’ll raise them together, Willow. Give them the best home they could ever dream of.”

Dammit. There they were—the tears.

My vision blurred as I asked, “Are you sure?” My voice cracked in that stupid, vulnerable way it did when hope tried to creep in too fast. “You barely know me. And this…this is ~a~ ~lot~.”

He gently moved the sleeping pup to the space beside him and then stood—and immediately got down on one knee.

I had no idea what he was doing, but for some reason, my heart tripped over itself.

“I’ve known you long enough to know I don’t want to spend another day denying this,” he said. “You’re my mate. My equal. And the only person in the world who could survive what you have and still sit here, holding kids you didn’t ask for and loving them anyway.”

He pulled a simple gold ring from the pocket of his jeans. “Willow, will you marry me? Will you be my mate and my luna?”

The words knocked the air out of my lungs, but I could still answer him.

“Yes,” I said without needing to think. Because my heart already knew.

He slid the ring onto my finger and pulled me into an awkward hug. I didn’t hold back the tears this time. Instead, I smiled through them and kissed him something fierce until the boy in my lap stirred and curled in closer.

Connor released me and moved back to the couch. We sat there, wrapped in this quiet, unreal joy.

I didn’t know what the next day would look like. But I knew one thing for sure: These kids? They weren’t experiments. They were mine—ours, now.

And we were going home.

***

Werewolves moved fast when it mattered, I’d discovered.

While we’d watched the BioBridge compound burn to the ground, Connor had notified the pack about the kids’ arrival.

By the time we’d gotten home, they’d already started making preparations.

The kids had been placed temporarily with the pack elders while rooms were being prepared and new homes planned. Every single little one already had someone caring for them.

But here in Connor’s room—now mine too—it was just us.

He kicked the door shut behind him, and before I could exhale, I was in his arms. The kiss was not gentle, polite, or sweet.

It was hungry.

Too many weeks of tension, stolen glances, too-long touches, and unsaid things poured into that kiss like lightning finally released from storm clouds.

And he tasted like home.

I growled and gripped the back of his neck, pulling him closer. But he broke away to press his forehead to mine, panting.

“I meant it.” His whisper was hoarse, and his eyes held the heat of smoldering embers. “We’re going to do ~everything~ together. And I’ll start right now.” His voice dropped low, wicked. “By showing you how the best part of that works.”

My breath hitched before my knees buckled. He didn’t give me time to fall.

His hands were on my waist, my ass, and the backs of my legs. He lifted me like I weighed nothing. I wrapped around him, caught between a laugh and a moan as he pressed me up against the wall, his mouth claiming mine again.

His scent was overwhelming in the best way—cedar and storm and that undercurrent of alpha heat. I wanted to drown in it.

“Connor,” I managed to say when his lips brushed down my jaw and found the sensitive spot beneath my ear, “I’m ready.”

That stopped him.

Pulling away, he looked at me. Intensely. Glimpsing every wound, every memory, every fractured piece I’d carried out of that facility and wanting all of it. “You sure?”

“Yes.” I cupped his face. “I’ve never been more sure of anything.”

His smile was slow, dangerous, and devastating. “Then hold on to me, baby.”