Author's note; for all those breathless with anticipation, I apologise that this chapter is not the chapter where Alex pops his cherry. Michael and Eric are being gentlemen, wanting to make Alex's first time memorable as they know the moment they fully do the deed, they will mark him. So we will all have to be patient with them. Thank you for your time. Ps You won't have to wait too many chapters, that I am sure of x.

"So where are we going?" Alex asked as he strapped himself into the back of Michael's car. I sat in the passenger seat and glanced at Michael with a grin. So far we had been successful with hiding our small surprise from our amazing mate. Although we had almost broken down and confessed when Alex revealed that surprise of his own.

Male cats have always been a little nonchalant when it came to offspring; we might strut around a little if it turned out our sperm had done their job and impregnated the female we had just banged, but the kids themselves.. well once they could fend for themselves, time to send them on their way. If there was no offspring, no worries. Our neighbours had probably had enough kittens or cubs to cover our lack.

But family meant so much more to Michael. His protectiveness of our mate was strong anyway and had been almost stifling this morning. He questioned every yawn, apologised for the ache Alex complained about and would have refused to let the boy lift a finger if I hadn't warned him to back off and let Alex breathe. Alex hadn't seemed to notice; he was still floating down from numerous intense orgasms we had caused between us last night as we had tried to show him just how much he meant to us physically. He had even turned his slightly clumsy attentions onto me, but damn he was a quick learner and my fangs had protruded from my gums, piercing my lip as I came into his mouth.

"Like all good shifter's before their mating," Michael said, cheerfully, "we are going to meet the in-laws before we whisk you away."

There was a slightly stunned silence from the back seat for a moment. "We are going to visit my parents or yours?" He asked.

"Yours," Michael confirmed. "You'll see Eric's later, next week." He didn't mention his own, naturally and I saw the flicker of sadness in Alex's face with a surprising burst of anger before he calmed.

And then he smiled. "Good," he said. "I can't wait to introduce you to my mum and dad as the best things to happen to me ever."

"Me too!" I grinned. My parents would likely give me the thumbs up as simply as they had with Michael. They were pretty laid back parents, especially if you considered my dad was a warrior for the pride and my mum was out and about doing her own thing.  She was often not on the Pride lands for days at a time.  They had only had me, but that was okay, I had plenty of cousins to rough and tumbled with. They handed me to my maternal uncle the moment he saw I had potential as a Second, probably glad to get my boisterous, arrogant self out of their fur.

The drive down to the town of Alex's birth was fairly smooth.  I switched to sitting in the back with Alex after a toilet break, enjoying snuggling against him for part of the journey and singing along to the radio.  Michael didn't sing, although I caught him humming along a few times. I rubbed Alex's back when he began to complain that it ached there, just above his hips.  Eventually, Alex fell asleep, the lack the night before catching up with him. He didn't wake until we were close to our destination and that was only so as we needed him to give us directions; we didn't trust the satnav. We once ended up travelling down the narrowest and poorest excuses of roads imaginable thanks to that infernal machine.

The Rivers family home was huge. Three stories, detached, with a triple garage attached and a drive that could have been mistaken for a car park. It wouldn't have looked out of place on a newly established shifter territory. In fact, if its plot wasn't so small for the amount of house, it probably would have been mistaken as such.

Alex yawned as he exited Michael's car, before freezing as we heard the front door to the property opening. Within its entrance stood two individual's, a tall, willowy woman with a stern face and white blond hair and a man equally to her in height, but much rounder of build, with brown hair and beard peppered grey and warm smiling, hazel eyes. It seemed Alex was the perfect blend of these two people.

"Hey mum, dad," Alex greeted them, the nervousness of his tone hard to miss. He played with his fingers as he sought something in their expressions before he turned slightly to introduce everyone. "Mum, dad, these men are Michael Haze and Eric Quinn, my mates. Michael, Eric, this is Beth and Karl Rivers, my parents." There was a seemingly long silence as the older couple looked over us, causing Alex to squirm slightly. Then almost imperceptibly, the man's warm eyes crinkled in the corners as they curved and the woman walked forward, her hand outstretched.

"Nice to finally meet you both," she said, reaching Michael first as I pressed against Alex's back and encircled my arms about him to reassure him. He relaxed in my hold as his mother turned to offer me a handshake as well.

"Good to meet you as well, ma'am," I greeted her.

*****

Michael and I took the luggage to Alex's room, which was equal to the size of ours, but with an ensuite that was less than half the size of ours and no walk in wardrobe.  That wasn't much of a surprise, really; we'd converted the second bedroom in our place to create those two accessories.  Alex's room was on the second floor, to one side of the property, while his parents resided in the master bedroom at the other side of the house.  There were two other bedrooms and a bathroom in between, which Michael and I were offered, but there was no chance of us staying away from our mate for the night.

His parents had planned for us to eat out in the evening, but we still had a few hours to go until the reservation, so Alex decided to show us around a few of his old haunts.  It was obvious from the get go that these places were pack run.  I couldn't help but wonder if our boy knew, seeing as he had stated in the car, on the way down here, that he still wasn't sure if he was ready to meet with the pack he had grown up along side as yet.  Ready or not, he wasn't given a choice.

The fast food restaurant that we sat down in after walking through a open, green park, smelled of grease, beef and wolf.  Alex told us that he used to eat here sometimes with his old school friends, if they weren't tossing back popcorn at the movies or hanging out at the skating park that was located in the place we had just been walking through.  A waitress came over to take our order after we sat in an available booth, sniffing the air visibly as she clapped eyes on us, but what ever her nose sought, she was clearly disappointed.  Alex narrowed his eyes at the woman and draped himself over our mate, causing me to snigger. 

"Hey, Kelly," someone from another table called over.  "Are you going to take their order, or keep drooling over 'em?"  There were chuckles from his friends.

She huffed and proceeded to ask in a deadpan voice; "Can I take your order?"

"Steak, medium rare," Michael said, before turning to Alex and asking; "How about you, my love?"

"Townsend special," he replied, causing me to wonder what exactly that entailed. 

"Chicken burger," I gave in my order.  The woman walked towards the kitchen, trying to swish her non-existent hips as she went; basically she looked like had cramp in both legs.  The food showed up pretty promptly and I found out that the Townsend special was a beefburger oozing with cheese, crispy bacon, lettuce, onions, heavy with barbecue sauce and served with sweet potato fries, deep fried mushrooms as well as a whole separate portion of normal fries.  But before I could ask why the extra portion, the door to the place swung open and there was a loud squeal.

"Alex!" A small, pale man and probably the smallest male wolf I had ever seen in my life, launched himself at Alex.  Michael instantly growled beneath his breath and I felt my tiger rumbling in my throat.  But Alex just laughed and returned the hug this small person was giving him.

"Hey Adam," he said, happily.

"You promised to text next time you were in town," the young man pouted as a huge mountain of a black man appeared in the restaurant.

"Adam!  Shit, what's the rush?" His voice was so low pitch you felt it before you heard it.  "I thought you wanted pizza, not burgers!"  He suddenly came to a pause as his black eyes clocked onto Alex, but not a moment later, he was lifting our boy out of his seat as if he was a mere feather and crushing him to his chest.  That caused both Michael and I to jump out of our seats.

"Um, Charles," the smaller man tugged at the t-shirt of the larger, his eyes widening as he saw us preparing to defend our mate.

Again, Alex simply laughed off the situation. "Put me down Charles or you are seriously going to trouble my mates!" He wriggled out of Charles grip, whose jaw seemed to drop as Alex's words sank home. Michael grabbed Alex into his arms, which allowed the beasts inside us to settle slowly.

"Mate?" the smaller man squealed. "The Goddess granted you a second chance mate? That's so awesome!" He jumped up and down like a child, his grip still upon the other man's clothes, but that guy didn't seem to mind it as I soon realised why. His muscular arms curled around the pale wolf affectionately as he smiled at Alex. They were definitely an odd couple, completely the other's opposite and yet seemed to be perfect for each other.

"Yeah," Alex smiled, glancing at both Michael and I in turn. "This is Michael and Eric, my mates." We nodded, still somewhat cautious of the two wolves before us, the larger Male did the same, sniffing the air to catch our scents.  But the little guy had no inhibitions.

"Wait, two?" Adam asked, his eyes wide and becoming wider when Alex nodded. "Is that possible?"

"You said the same thing when it turned out that I was your mate," Charles murmured to the smaller man. Alex reached for his cooling burger with a laugh and my stomach made itself known quietly, so I did the same.

"Would it be alright if we join you?" Adam asked. I shrugged and scooted over on the bench, the little wolf happy to claim the space I vacated, while his mate grabbed a spare chair and pulled it around. They called over the waitress to order food, but in the meantime, Alex nudged over the extra portion of chips, almost as if he was expecting this and the pair didn't hesitate to dig in. "Does Marcus know that you are back yet?"

"No," Alex shook his head before explaining to us that this Marcus was the Alpha in waiting. I think he actually had mentioned this before, but I didn't bother to recall all of the names he had previously spoken of. They were his past, we were his future. "We only arrived in town a couple of hours ago."

"Ah, I think he knows now," Charles said nonchalantly as the door swung open yet again and a man with an aura just a little less potent than my hunky older mate's came rushing in. He was kind of handsome, in a boyish sort of way and yet again my tiger was riled up at seeing another man grabbing Alex in his embrace, this time from behind as he leaned over from the other booth.

"Alex! You're finally back!" He said, breathing in my boy's scent. Seriously, this pack is pissing me off! Michael was barely containing his wolf at that moment. A flash of something appeared in Alex's eyes, concerning me more that the Alpha pup's actions.

Alex patted the arm grasping his shoulders. "Hey Marcus."