Mine for Eternity [Council Enforcers] (Siren Publishing Classic)

anything. Instead, he pulled Tessa down in the bed and curled up behind her. “Sleep, baby. We’ll talk in the morning and figure out what we need to do.”
    It was all the permission she needed. Curled up with Nico tucked in front of her and Mitch behind, Tessa had never felt safer. She was warm, and for the first time in two weeks, she wasn’t worried about what the next day would bring. She had Mitch to help her keep Nico safe, and that was all that mattered. Tessa sighed into her son’s hair and closed her eyes.

Chapter 5
     
    Mitch held Tessa and Nico for most of the night. His lion refused to let him sleep, grumbling about how they needed to stay on guard to protect their pride. Mitch wasn’t about to argue. Tessa and Nico were his family now. He hadn’t been a member of a pride for a very long time, but now he had his own. It was small, but Mitch and his lion would protect it with their lives.
    Breathing in Tessa’s sweet scent went a long way in soothing him and his beast, but Mitch was still on edge. After what Tessa had just told him, he wondered how she had managed to get away from the rogue in the first place. He knew the rogue had to be playing with her. To think he could have lost his mate before he had even met her was something he didn’t even want to consider.
    Let’s hunt him down and tear him apart.
    Mitch agreed with his lion. He wanted nothing more than to go out and hunt the rogue shifter down at that moment, but he refused to leave his mate and cub alone. He never again wanted to smell Tessa’s fear and hear her scream like she had. His fangs and claws had popped out as he ran to fight off the danger. After what Tessa had seen, he was glad that she had been asleep when he busted in the room. He didn’t even want to think about how she would have reacted if she had seen him partially shifted. As it was, Nico had seen him. When Mitch ran into the room, Nico had been sitting up in the bed crying as he watched his momma scream in her sleep. He turned those wide eyes on Mitch and hesitated all of two seconds before throwing himself in Mitch’s arms.
    It made him feel good to know that Nico wasn’t scared of him. If he could convince the cub that he was safe, then maybe he had a chance with Tessa. She was running scared from one of his kind, but he had to find a way to convince her that he wasn’t the same as the rogue. She needed to see that he would never hurt her or Nico. Mitch just had to find a way to prove that.
    Hopefully you’ll do it soon. I want my mate.
    His lion was riding him hard to claim Tessa, and Mitch refused to until she knew the truth about him. He knew if he didn’t confess sooner rather than later, then his lion would take things into his own hands. There was no way he could bind her to him without her permission.
    Settle down. I will tell her tomorrow, but you still have to give her time once she knows. We can’t show her what we are and expect her to let us claim her right then and there. We have to give it time to sink in. Mitch hoped his lion would listen to reason.
    Fine. His lion pouted but settled down after agreeing.
    Mitch settled down as well. He closed his eyes and tried to get some sleep. Although he knew he would hear anyone as soon as they set foot in his territory, sleep was a long time coming.
    It seemed that he had just closed his eyes when he felt the bed move. Mitch cracked an eye open and looked up to see Nico hovering over him.
    “I wanna play with kitty.”
    At first Mitch wondered how a two-year-old child put two and two together and realized he was the lion the boy had seen. Sure Nico had seen his claws and fangs the night before, but it shouldn’t have been that obvious. When Nico kept looking over at the door like he expected the lion to walk through it at any time, Mitch realized the cub was asking him for permission to play with the “kitty.”
    Mitch almost denied the boy outright, but he caught himself. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea to let the cub get used to his lion. If Tessa could see Nico playing with him in lion form and him not hurting the cub, then maybe she would accept him a little easier. His normally stubborn and surly lion shocked him by pouncing around in his head ready to play.
    Sighing, Mitch got off the bed and picked Nico up. “Come on, cub. Let’s get you some breakfast, and then we’ll see if we can find the kitty.” He smirked when his lion roared in his head over being called a kitty by him. Mitch