Once My Mate, Always My Mate novel Chapter 5

Sabrina's POV

Happiness.

It is the feeling that has stuck with me since Xander and I decided to get back together and make it work. Happiness is how I feel when I wake up in the morning to see his face close to mine. Happiness is him talking to me with his morning breath and me, turning away in disgust but laughing my way through that horrible smell. Happiness is watching my chosen mate get my son ready for the day, playing around with him and just watching them run around this house, filling the walls with so much laughter.

Happiness is hearing my son laugh and seeing that he has not forgotten Xander at all. Even after the time that has passed with us being in this realm, my son still had the fondness for him. Happiness is seeing Xander be so happy, waking up every day just so happy, so jolly in all his actions.

I wake up to a big smile and a little one running in to our room, jumping on our bed, excited to start the day with Xander, their little crazy adventures always involve the outdoors and coming back home a mess but I can never get angry at them... not when my son looks so happy being reunited with Xander.

"Open your eyes beautiful, big man over here would like to show you something." Xander says to me. I could feel his body standing over me and I hear a giggling Adrastos right next to him.

I keep my eyes closed, wanting to make them wait a little bit and pretend to still be asleep. Xander may not buy it but I know Drastos will and just like clockwork, my little boy jumps on the bed, landing on me with a piercing scream. My eyes shoot open, done playing games after that painful ordeal.

“What the...?” I say as the shock registers. My son jumped on to the bed, his body and clothes covered in paint and now my beautiful bed with its soft white sheets was a bloody crime scene. Drastos gets off the bed, running out of my room before I had time to react to him and my anger quickly shoots up to the adult, who appears to also be covered in paint.

Xander looks at me, puppy dog eyes on full display as he raises his arms in surrender. My body was boiling and he knew it, his messy paint-stained hand pulls me out of bed and I follow him out of our room.

We follow the laughs and giggles of a little naughty boy, all the way to his room and upon walking in, I see a mess but I breathe my way through it and through the room until we get to Drastos who was standing in front of a covered wall. Xander smiles sheepishly before removing the cover, which I think is one of the bed sheets in the house and reveals a mural.

Within seconds, my anger dissipated. A flood of emotions swooped up inside of me and I could feel myself on the brink of tears. Xander had painted us, all together as a family, my family. Xander on the left and I was on the right with little Drastos in the middle... A little down below the mural was my son’s handiwork, which sort of clashed with Xander’s work but he stood tall and proud, how could I not love it?

My boys had been working for days on this, telling me to never uncover this wall until they said it was time. This is what they were working on... I never even knew my Xander could paint.

“I don’t know what to say.” I say to my boys... feeling so blessed to have been blessed with such wonderful people and the feeling Is short-lived when Josey runs in to the room covered in blood stains.

"We have a problem." She says and we all just look at her, dumbfounded.

Xander reacts first and throws her a towel to wipe off the blood stains on her face. She wipes off those that can come off, the rest having dried off on her...

"What problem?" Xander asks and Josey closes her eyes for a second before they land on me.

"The humans. We, well you know, Cayden and I are trying to create a new world of vampires seeing as you killed the last of them but you know baby vamps and the thirst." Josey tries to casually say to me. I walk closer to her.