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.