Chapter One
Finlay Stewart stared at the folders in his email account and tried to ignore the number of messages in the "Family-related Complaints" folder.
Fifty-one.
Fifty-one messages in the last week from clan members voicing a concern or complaint related to his three cousins: Faye, Fraser, and Fergus MacKenzie. Their recent behavior only highlighted how much of a taming influence their mother—his Aunt Lorna—had over her brood.
Aunt Lorna had been gone just over a week, taking a much-delayed honeymoon with her human mate, Ross. Chaos had erupted shortly thereafter.
His dragon grunted. It's not chaos. Just a few incidents, which you should expect from our cousins. If we weren't clan leader, you would probably be up to a few things, too.
But I am clan leader. That means I need to sort things out.
A quick call from Aunt Lorna would put everything back to rights.
Since he wasn't about to call his aunt and ask her to cut her holiday short, he ignored his beast and focused back on the emails. Clicking the latest one related to Faye, from Sylvia MacAllister, he read:
Faye's most recent argument in my restaurant went beyond social acceptance. She yelled, tossed a plate at her mate, and eventually stormed out. I understand she's pregnant, and she's also my daughter's friend, but if she keeps this up, I won't have any customers at all.
Faye was his youngest cousin and had always been the most temperamental of his kin. However, in recent weeks, her pregnancy had turned her explosive whenever she was around her mate, Grant.
And considering Sylvia was the mother to the five MacAllister siblings and daughter of the notorious troublemaker Archie, Faye's display in the restaurant must've been something indeed to merit a complaint.
His dragon spoke up. Talk to Faye's mate. He's the only one who can keep her in line.
He's been busy. Besides, she should listen to me. I'm family and clan leader.
Right, because Faye has always listened to us in the past just because we said she had to.
Not dignifying his dragon with a response, Finn moved on to an email with the subject line: Fergus MacKenzie lost another contact. He read it:
Fergus didn't show up for work today and missed an important call with one of our clan's contacts. A Protector mentioned seeing him fly off into the sunrise this morning. I don't know what's going on, but this is the third time this week he's flown off without a word. If he keeps it up, I will have to replace him.
Fergus worked as an intelligence analyst for Clan Lochguard. Usually, he was a model employee, always the first to arrive, and completed the work of two males in the same amount of time it took one average employee to do the same.
However, Fergus had been fighting off a mate-claim frenzy for months, allowing his human mate, Gina, to rest after the birth of her son.
His dragon huffed. Why doesn't he listen to Gina? She says she's ready as soon as someone is able to watch wee Jamie for the duration of the frenzy. Aunt Lorna has offered several times.
Fergus has always believed he knows better, especially when it comes to protecting those he loves. His mating is still new, and with a baby since the beginning, they probably haven't had as much time to get to know each other as we and Ara did.
Arabella MacLeod was Finn's mate, and mother to their young triplets.
His beast grunted. Then talk with him. You're the only one Fergus listens to about such matters, apart from Aunt Lorna.
I've tried, as has Fraser. I think I need to discuss this situation with Ara. She always has new suggestions on how to handle my cousins.
At the mention of Arabella, Finn paused and listened for the smallest sound of an infant fussing. However, the silence meant that the triplets and his mate were still asleep, so he needed to do as much work as he could while he had the chance.
If there was one thing being a new
father had taught him, it was that he'd wasted a lot of time in the past. But no longer. The more he wasted, the less time he would spend with his mate and children.
Since his current task was to find a way to rein in his cousins, he clicked one more email related to his last cousin Fraser. It was from the clan's head doctor, Dr. Layla MacFie:
Fraser spends every moment he can shadowing Holly. Holly was Fraser's human mate. I understand that she's eight months pregnant with twins, but I check her health daily and continue to monitor all three of them. Holly is healthy and merely waiting for their bairns to be born. And as we're still trying to find more staff for the surgery, I need Holly's help more than ever. Is there nothing else that Fraser should be doing? I need him out of my surgery.