Delilah threw just a happy grin over hers.
Abel tossed out an arm and muttered, “Let’s get set up.”
His blood brother jerked up his chin and moved forward.
Abel followed.
And he did it knowing he, too, was wearing a happy grin.
* * * * *
“It no longer matters,” Jian-Li whispered to the window.
“Sweetheart,” Abel whispered to her profile.
“It no longer matters,” she repeated, not looking to him.
Abel had just told her about Ming.
“Ma—” Chen, close to her other side, started.
But he stopped when she suddenly turned her head and tipped it back to look up at Abel.
“He would die for you.”
Abel clenched his teeth to beat back the emotion her words caused, emotion that was threatening to bring him low.
“He would, tian xin, for all of you boys,” she told him gently. “He’s at peace having died for you, Abel. And you know this is true.”
He knew it was true.
Wei and Xun, who were at their mother’s back, close to their huddle, got closer.
They knew it was true too.
Abel lifted his hand and touched her chin with his finger. When he did, it was the first time in a long time sadness didn’t sift into her eyes. Her gaze simply held his steady.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly.
“You had no control over it,” she replied.
“It was senseless,” he told her cautiously.
“Nothing is senseless,” Jian-Li returned. “We may not be able to make sense of it, my Abel, but that doesn’t mean it was senseless. We moved soon after that. We moved to a place we were all much safer for we were all possible targets. If that’s the only purpose of my husband’s death, and he knew it, he would die a million times to make that so.”
That was true too.
Knowing it, Abel swallowed and slid his finger along her jaw to curl his hand around the back of her neck, pulling her into his chest.
She wrapped her arms around him.
Her other sons drew closer. Chen lifted his hand to rest it on the small of his mother’s back. Wei drifted a finger through her hair, over her ear, to the bun at the base of her neck. Xun pulled one of her hands from around Abel so he could hold it.
Jian-Li allowed this affection for a few beats before she pulled away from all of them and looked through them, saying, “Enough sorrow. There’s a celebration happening. Sorrow has it’s time. That sorrow has had its time. Now, we celebrate.”
As ever (well, mostly), when Jian-Li spoke, her sons listened.
This time, she made them do it by promptly walking out of the room on a trajectory to rejoin the party, which was in full swing.
After exchanging looks, her sons followed.
* * * * *
“Can you believe Teona is ninety-eight years old?” Delilah asked, leaning heavily on Abel as he opened the door to their bedroom.
His woman was sloshed.
Suffice it to say, a biker and the queen of werewolves could throw together a fuckuva party. It was three in the morning and Ryon, Moose, Jabber, Poncho, Calder, Caleb, Regan, Jian-Li and the boys, Hook and his vampire, Ursula, Barb, Ruby, Jezza, and Flo were still at it.
The rest, having mates, decided to take their parties elsewhere.
Cain and Teona had taken off five minutes before Abel and Delilah.
Abel knew why he stayed as long as he could. He wouldn’t have guessed it, but getting to know his brother and hearing about his parents far from sucked.
What also didn’t suck was the fact that Cain, even while getting cues from Teona like Delilah was giving him that they were in the mood for a different kind of celebration, stayed as long as he could.
This meant Cain thought sharing with his brother far from sucked.
Abel liked that.
But a brother was a brother, long lost or not, and a mate was a mate.
Eventually, you couldn’t ignore the call of the wild.
“Yeah, pussycat, I was there when she shared that tidbit,” Abel murmured, a smile on his face as he guided his mate into their room and shut the door behind them.
He watched Delilah take two unsteady steps in front of him before she turned, whirled (his hands flew out when she started teetering, but she got herself sorted), then planted her fists on her hips and tipped her head saucily to the side.
“I’m so gonna love being young forever,” she declared, and his smile got bigger.
There were many times in his life he’d thought that sucked.
Being the same, young forever, but doing it with her, finally, he was looking forward to it.
“Yeah,” he agreed, getting close.
When he got close enough, she put her hands on his chest and leaned into him.
“In case you’re keeping track, that’s something else I love about you. That you can give me that.”
Her words were kind of slurred, but they were still beautiful.
“Me too, bao bei.”
She tipped her head to the side again and asked, “You know, there’s something else I left off my list.”
He rested his hands on either side of her neck. “What’s that?”
She slid one hand down his chest, his stomach, to cup his crotch.
He pulled in a hissed breath, but his breath snagged when she gave him a squeeze.
“This,” she whispered.
“Baby,” he groaned.
Her other hand slid down and she undid his zipper.
“Mama feels like sucking cock,” she shared, her voice hot, her eyes bothered, all of it telling him she really wanted that.
“Not me gonna stop you,” he told her.
She grinned, cute and inebriated.
Then she dropped to her knees, pulled him out, and hesitated not a second before she commenced going down on him.