Daddy Alpha I’m In Heat (Lily and Connor) novel Chapter 78

Three Years Later

~Connor~

“PUT THAT DOWN!”

I didn’t even get a full breath before I was yelling across the damn house again.

And of course, he didn’t listen.

Because why would my son, my own demon–in–cute–disguise, listen to me?

No.

He just cackled like a little criminal, clutching the fucking lipstick like it was a sword, and took off running butt naked down the hallway with pink smudged all over his face and a diaper halfway off.

“Luca!” I shouted, stepping over a trail of glitter and baby wipes like I wasn’t seconds from a goddamn mental breakdown. “That’s your mom’s limited edition no, do not draw on the DOG-

Luca!”

The dog, to his credit, didn’t move.

She just blinked at me with the same dead–eyed exhaustion I felt in my soul, tail thumping twice in solidarity before giving up and collapsing on the couch like she paid the rent.

“Daddy, he’s doing it again!” a high–pitched voice squealed from the kitchen, followed by a crash.

I whipped around.

“What did he break now?”

“It wasn’t me!” came another voice–higher, more guilty.

I turned the corner just in time to see my daughter–my angel, my blessing, my bossy little menace -standing on the counter in a tutu, holding a broken egg in one hand and a wooden spoon like a weapon in the other.

“We were making pancakes,” she said proudly, like I wasn’t watching flour and chaos explode all over the kitchen island.

Lily’s voice came from upstairs.

“Connor, can you PLEASE handle them? I’m trying to shower before they burn down the house!”

“They already started the apocalypse!” I shouted back.

Luca zoomed past me again. Still naked. Still pink. Now with an empty juice box in one hand and a war cry on his lips.

“LUCA, YOU NEED PANTS TO LIVE IN THIS HOUSE!”

“I’m not wearing pants! I’m a dragon!” he howled, and then he bit me.

He bit me.

And I was just standing there in the wreckage of my own bloodline like what the fuck happened to my life?

One minute I was brooding and broken and hiding in my own guilt, and the next minute I was being gnawed on by a glitter–covered toddler who thought he was a mythical beast.

And the worst part?

I loved it.

I fucking loved it.

Even when my daughter put syrup in my shoe because she thought it was funny. Even when Luca painted his brother’s face with peanut butter. Even when I stepped on Legos so sharp I saw the afterlife flash before my eyes.

I’d take all of it.

Every chaotic, messy, screaming, crying, heart–bursting second.

Because this was mine.

My family. My future. My miracle.

And then I heard her voice again.

“Connor?”

I turned.

Lily was standing at the top of the stairs in one of my shirts, towel on her head, baby bump round and glowing under her hand.

And I swear to fucking God, the whole world slowed down.

Even the kids. Even the dog. Even the screaming.

She looked like magic.

“I have aged ten years,” I muttered, dragging a hand through my hair. “And your son is trying to destroy me.”

“My son?” she smirked, walking down the stairs slowly, hand still on her stomach. “Oh no. That’s your DNA.”

“He bit me, Lily.”

She gasped dramatically. “Again?!”

“Again.”

She was still laughing when she reached the bottom and leaned in to kiss my cheek.

And just like that… the chaos didn’t matter.

Not the syrup. Not the flour. Not the dragons or the broken eggs or the mysterious stain on the ceiling that no one confessed to.

Just her.

She kissed me like the world hadn’t ended and restarted around us. Like we hadn’t lost and loved and broken and healed.

Like I was still the boy who made her burn.

“Welcome to another day in paradise,” she whispered.

I kissed her back.

“Hell,” I corrected. “But your version of it.”

And then Luca came barreling back down the hallway, this time with a cape made from my favorite hoodie, screaming, “I HAVE TO PEE!”

“OH FOR THE LOVE OF-”

I didn’t even finish the sentence before I scooped him up mid–run like a sack of sugar on fire.

“Too late!” Luca screamed, already peeing. On me. On the floor. On the cape.

I just stood there. In my own house. Holding my son. Covered in warm betrayal.

“Connor!” Lily shrieked from the stairs. “Is he–oh my GOD–he’s peeing on you?!”

I turned to her, dead inside.

“Your son just baptized me in urine.”

I just dropped to my knees right there on the living room floor, holding a grinning, pantsless toddler and staring into the abyss of parenthood.

“I’m done,” I muttered. “This is it. This is how I go. Death by tiny penis.”

“You’re so dramatic,” Lily wheezed, wiping tears from her eyes. “It’s just pee!”

“It’s not just pee, Lily,” I said, voice rising like a man on the brink. “It’s round three. This is the third time this week. He has aim. He has intention. He waits until I’m wearing something clean!”

Luca giggled like a maniac and slapped both his wet hands onto my cheeks.

“Dragon Daddy,” he said sweetly, like he hadn’t just ruined my morning and my favorite hoodie.

And I sighed.

Because damn it, he was cute.

Even if he smelled like a feral puppy.

I stood up and walked straight toward the stairs.

“Where are you going?” Lily called.

“I’m gonna burn these clothes, shower in bleach, and maybe scream into the void.”

“You can’t!” she shouted back. “I need help–there’s flour in my bra and our daughter tried to turn the blender into a volcano!”

I froze mid–step. “What?”

“Nothing!” she said too fast.

But I was already turning around, because I knew that voice,

“Lily” I warned.

She pointed upstairs like a traitor. “You go get clean. I’ll clean up this mess. Deal?”

And before I could argue, she walked into the kitchen and yelled, “Okay, who wants to make cookies for the new baby?!”

And just like that, the troops scattered.

Pancake powder flew.

And I took my drianed soul up the stairs, praying to every god in the sky that she didn’t let them near my coffee machine again.

I made it halfway up the stairs before I realized my hoodie was still soaked in toddler piss.

I yanked it off with the kind of silent rage only fathers of three understood, dragging my ass into the bedroom like a man who had fought dragons and lost. My shirt was next. Then the sweatpants. Then the boxers. All dead casualties of parenthood. I tossed thern in the laundry basket with the same reverence I’d give a fallen comrade.

And just as I stepped into the bathroom, ready to claim my five minutes of holy redemption under scalding water…

The fire alarm went off.

BEEEEEEEEP. BEEEEEEEEP. BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP.

I flinched so hard I hit my shoulder on the doorframe.

“WHAT NOW?!”

“Connor!” Lily screamed from downstairs. “I think the kids microwaved a spoon!”

I blinked.

“A what?!”

“A spoon, Connor! A whole–ass SPOON!”

I didn’t even get to respond.

Because at that exact moment..

BOOM.

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