Bloodlines: Fated Mates (Book 6 Of The Regal Eclipse Pack Series)

Chapter 4

Aria said goodbye to Mitch and walked up to her parents apartment and opened the door. The smell of newborn pup hit her almost instantly, followed by chaos.

She could hear one of them crying in the other room. She followed the sounds down the hall to her sister's old room and poked her head inside.

Jenna, her mother, was seated in a rocking chair, feeding one of the pups, while Daniel, her father, was holding the one that was crying, rocking him back and forth in the other rocking chair. They both looked up and smiles lit up their faces.

"Aria! You're home!" Jenna smiled at her.

"Hi Mom, Dad. I see you guys have this completely under control," she said with a smirk.

Her dad looked a bit flabbergasted and her mother overwhelmed. They both looked tired.

"Perfectly under control," Daniel muttered as he looked down at his crying son.

Aria left the room and dropped off her suitcase in her own, then came back and took her baby brother from her father. He instantly stopped crying, as she held him close to her, cooing softly at him. "Hi Ethan."

Daniel looked at her in disgust. "How did you do that?"

She shrugged. "You're the one with five pups."

He rubbed a hand over his face and she noticed his stubble was much longer than normal. He looked rather exhausted. "I'm glad you're home." He wrapped an arm around her, and kissed her forehead.

"I am too," Jenna said. "I've missed having you around."

"I've missed being here. Where's Oliver?" Aria asked.

"With my parents," Daniel said.

"Dad, why don't you go take a nap. You look worn out," Aria suggested. "I can help Mom."

"I agree with her, Daniel. You push yourself too much. Please go take a nap," Jenna said.

He walked over to her and kissed her on top of her head as well. "Are you sure?"

"Yes. We'll be fine," Jenna reassured him.

He nodded and left the room and Aria heard the back bedroom door shut.

"He gets up at night with them all of the time. Not that they get up as much as they used to, but he does too much," Jenna said with a sigh. "They've just been overly cranky today."

Aria walked over and sat in the other rocker. "Well, I'm here now to help. I've heard there's been a lot of new pups."

"Yes. It's been chaos." Jenna smiled.

"School was chaos. I'm glad it's over," Aria grumbled. It wasn't the complete truth, but she couldn't say that. She was going to miss her close relationship with Matt. She couldn't keep that up, not anymore. She'd promised herself that once school ended, she'd stop clinging to him as much as she had been.

She'd had a crush on Matt for as long as she could remember. Aria had always been a bit boy crazy, and werewolf males were her favorite. She'd always admired them all through her teenage years.

There had been a lot of speculation that Matt might possibly be Noelle's mate, and she had a feeling both her mother and Matt's mother, Talia, had been secretly hoping for it. But Matt's eighteenth birthday had come along, and he wasn't Noelle's.

Noelle hadn't cared, but Aria had been glad. She wanted to be Matt's mate. She'd flirted with him and had ended up becoming his best friend. She'd been disappointed when she found out he wasn't her's on her eighteenth birthday. It was when she'd realized he never would be.