Free [Psy-Changeling 10.7] Naya's Most Important Visitors by Nalini Singh

Naya’s Most Important Visitors
    by Nalini Singh
    “Naya’s most important visitors are about to arrive.”
    Sascha smiled at that announcement from the panther in human form lounging in the bedroom doorway, his black hair tousled from the way she’d run her hands through it earlier. “I wondered how long they’d last.” Julian and Roman had been talking to the baby in her womb for months, telling her all the things they were planning to teach and show her.
    “I’m surprised it’s three days later,” Lucas said, his sun-bronzed skin strokable against the deep green of his favorite T-shirt. “I expected them here in twenty-four hours or less.”
    “Tammy probably didn’t tell them.” Sascha folded away a soft one-piece in sky-blue that had been a gift from one of the elders in the pack. “I think she was worried I was getting overwhelmed.”
    “Are you?” Lucas came over to massage her nape. “We’ve had a lot of visitors since the birth.”
    “No.” She turned into his body, drawing the quintessentially male scent of him into her lungs. Always she’d loved him for the man he was. Now, she loved him for the father he had become, a predatory changeling alpha who made no bones about adoring his child. “It’s wonderful to have everyone so excited about the baby.” To live in a pack that showed affection with wild openness.
    Lucas nuzzled a kiss against her ear and allowed her to turn to face the bassinet—located in the bedroom because neither one of them could bear to be parted from Naya.
    Reaching into it, she gently touched their sleeping baby’s cheek with a careful fingertip. “I still can’t believe she’s ours.”
    Chin propped on her shoulder and muscular arms wrapped around her, Lucas said, “What are you talking about? She belongs to Rome and Jules. They were very clear on that.”
    Sascha was still laughing at that affectionately feline comment when the twins tiptoed into the cabin, whispering, “Sascha darling,” as they came in, instead of yelling it like they usually did, cheeky grins on their faces.
    Mystified, she crouched down to their level. “Why are you whispering?” she whispered.
    They bent identical heads toward her, all hair of rich brown and eyes of midnight blue. “Because,” Julian replied, “Mommy said we had to be quiet because the cub was very small.”
    “Really, really small,” Roman put in, forgetting to whisper until the last word.
    Her heart filled with love for these two babies who weren’t her own but who belonged to her as Naya belonged to the rest of the pack, Sascha cuddled them close. “Want to meet her?”
    Enthusiastic nods.
    Tamsyn appeared in the doorway a second later, Nate beside her. “Sorry about that,” she said with a smile as warm as the twins was infectious, the dark amber of her gaze lit from within. “They escaped soon as we got within sight of the cabin.”
    “They were quiet,” Sascha told Tamsyn solemnly.
    The twins beamed, neat little angels in their checked shirts—red for Roman and yellow for Julian—paired with jeans.
    Sascha wanted to pick them up, but her body wasn’t quite ready. Rising, she held out her hands and the boys took one each. Once in the bedroom, she had them sit on the bed. Then, reaching inside the bassinet, she lifted Naya and came to sit between the two, conscious of Lucas returning to the bedroom after greeting Tammy and Nate. “This is Naya.”
    “She  is  small,” Roman pronounced after staring carefully at the baby. “Does she have a long name, too, like me and Jules? Like I’m Roman.”
    “Her long name is Nadiya.” She smiled as Julian touched the baby’s fisted hand with a little finger of his own.
    Roman petted her silky cheek.
    Naya yawned in her sleep.
    Giggling, Roman said, “She smells all soft.”
    “Is that going to be her real smell?” Julian didn’t sound too enthused about the baby scent that made every maternal instinct in Sascha’s body sigh in wonder.
    She glanced