Omegas of Animals: SD #2
Fate sometimes shows up in the form of a cookie.
Human alpha Kash inherited his grandfather’s bakery knowing exactly one thing about the bakery business: Cake is delicious. Now after three years of work, work, work, Kash finally has the place breaking even and maybe, just maybe he can start going out and meeting people.
Alpha vampire-bear hybrid Ben is ready for a change. When the owners of Animals ask him to come head up the security of their new location in San Diego, he immediately jumps at the chance. It’s not like he’s finding what his life is missing in NOLA.
Omega red panda shifter Dante spent most of his life working for his pack. Thanks to his little problem, as his family calls the way his furry ears sometimes randomly show up for days, he has no choice. Working around humans is a no go. But when a new Animals opens up in town, everything changes.
A celebration at Animals has the three of them meeting for the first time, but can a vampire who has lost touch with his bear, a red panda who can’t keep his fur where it belongs, and a human who works more hours than should be legal find their way to the mating they all deserve? Spoiler alert: With Karma’s helpful meddling, of course they can.
The Red Panda and His Mates is a standalone sweet with knotty heat M/M/M shifter mpreg romance set in the world of Omegas of Animals. It features a vampire-bear hybrid who really just wants a burger and to find his bear again, an omega red panda shifter who is not great about controlling his shifting, a human who saved his grandfather’s legacy with peen cookies and is now second guessing all life choices, true love, fated mates, an adorable baby, and a guaranteed HEA. If you love your alphas hawt and your mpreg with heart, download your copy today.
Chapter One
Kash
“How many peens are in this order?” I called to Levi, well aware of how ridiculous my world had turned.
“This is a small order. I think three dozen. Let me double-check,” he called back from his place at the mixer. Unlike me, he was making something my grandfather would’ve been proud of: bread shaped like—bread.
Not me. I was making dozens of large penis-shaped cookies for a bachelorette party. And really, I shouldn’t complain. In fact, I should be grateful for the phallic sweets that had gone viral. They single-handedly saved the bakery I inherited from my grandfather.
I’d promised him I would keep his legacy alive, his deathbed words catching me off guard. I’d instantly promised him I would. Which would’ve been fine and dandy if I had lived in the same state as said bakery, didn’t already have a full-time job I loved, and knew more about Gramps’ business than just, Ohh, cake tastes yummy.
But once the promise was made, his face lit up with a mixture of joy and relief. There was no way I would ever go back on my word, as rough as things were in the beginning.
Gaetano’s Bakery had been holding on, but barely, when I took over. That drained my savings quickly. Levi was the only one of Gramps’ employees to stay on; the other two full-timers took his death as a sign to retire, and the part-timer headed off to college on the East Coast. There were days I didn’t think I’d be able to keep my promise. And then my X-rated miracle happened in the form of a custom order I nearly turned down.
A year later, my life was all about dick, just not the fun kind. That part of my life had completely dried up. The only dates I’d had lately were with my hand and a bottle of lube.
“Yeah, GJ, it’s three dozen.” Levi set the paper in front of me. He’d taken to calling me GJ for Gramps Junior when I had visited as a small child, and it stuck. At the time, it was the best nickname ever because I always wanted to be like Gramps. Now? Same.
“They want them to be what?” I looked at the order, squinting as if I might have read it wrong the first time. “No. Really?”
The order was for three dozen blue and teal penises with scales…scales. They even had a picture of what scales meant to them, clipped on.
“Yeah, really.” He shook his head. “I wanted to ask them why but then thought maybe it was best not knowing. I did upcharge though.”
Which was the best part about the dicks that made up at least a quarter of my business—the markup was extraordinary. At least for now, I was the only dick-on-a-stick artist in the area and that meant I could charge what they were worth, which was not the case for most of our products. Our cakes had a miserably low profit margin. It wasn’t ideal, but it was all the area would accept price wise, and a big part of why staying in the black was so challenging.
“I’m thinking fondant is the only way,” Levi mused. I knew my way around the bakery a lot better now, but I still wasn’t as confident as I wanted to be. Thankfully, Levi didn’t mind mentoring me. “That’s really the only way to give them the feel they’re looking for. I have some ideas about coloring it to give them the dragony feel in the picture.”
We spent the next ten minutes going over the plan, which I had a feeling would work well and also gave me some inspiration for a sci-fi convention that had invited us to be one of their vendors. I hadn’t given them an answer yet, unsure if we had anything that would make us stand out enough and cover the booth fees plus make a profit, but now? Now, I could imagine us selling out.
Levi went back to the bread, and I got to work on the custom order. We still had a couple of hours before we opened the door for our customers and, once that happened, it was difficult to get anything done back here. Odds were, I would be decorating the dicks long past closing time, but that was all right. It wasn’t like I had anywhere else to be.
I’d moved into the apartment above the bakery when the last tenant left. I hated selling Gramps’ house, but it helped me keep afloat. The bakery needed a new walk-in and a complete overhaul in the electrical work, which was why the walk-in had busted in the first place. It was a rob-Peter scenario, the lack of rent eventually going to catch up with us, but for now it worked.
Us. I was just like Gramps in that way. I thought of this place as family. Levi was my de facto grandfather, Priscilla, who mostly worked the front of the house, was like a long-lost sister, and Xavier who came and did whatever was needed after finishing up his classes at the community college, was like the nephew none of us had. I loved that about this place.
Didn’t make going upstairs at the end of the night any less lonely.
“Dicks are baked and cooling, cinnamon rolls are in the oven, and the muffins are ready to go. What else needs doing?” I asked Levi who had racks and racks of bread in various stages of preparation.
“I think Priscilla has the coffee ready and everything up front that can be up front. Maybe check the computer for last-minute orders?” Levi grabbed the bread peel off the wall.
“Can do.” I walked out front to grab a cup of coffee and say hello to Priscilla and headed back to Gramps’ office.
Funny how I still thought of it as his. A few years into this, and the only thing that felt like mine were the novelty cookies. Levi said Gramps would’ve been amused and loved the creativity. And that might’ve been the case, but there was something about not wanting your grandparents to be thinking about deepthroating cookies for a reel on social media that had me not being willing to even tiptoe in that direction of thinking.
There were a few orders waiting for us. One for a bunch of loaves of bread for a soup luncheon at the local senior center. I added some cookies, the kind you could serve to anyone and not blush, and some rolls to the order for them as a surprise.
Animals. I read the subject line a few more times. I remembered the first time they placed an order. At first, I thought it was the zoo looking for day-old donations for the critters, which I’d have gladly given. To my surprise, it was a bar slash club slash the new hip spot in town. Not that I’d ever been there for anything but deliveries.
Honestly, I wasn’t quite sure I’d even be allowed in if I just randomly showed up as a customer. They had bouncers and lines and all the stuff that came with being the hottest spot for miles around. Which was great for them but not so much for me. I had so little free time, and spending it waiting in line to maybe get in just didn’t work for me.
I clicked open the email, and my jaw dropped. They were hosting a big event next month, and they wanted to place a huge order. Like a we will have to have all hands on deck after closing kind of order, and it was everything from flower cupcakes to buns and, of course, a plethora of penises. Before agreeing to it, I had to make sure that Levi and Priscilla were both up for working extra that day. Xavier would be on school break, and I would offer him the time, but I didn’t feel right pressuring him to work then.
Reaching over, I turned off the monitor on the clunky old computer that barely worked and went to find Levi. I had a laptop I could switch out, but the beast of a machine had been Gramps’ and I wasn’t ready to get rid of it just yet, even if it was only good for email.
“Got a huge order next month for Animals. It would require overtime. What do you think?” I asked.
Levi took a few seconds to think before answering me, and I appreciated that. I didn’t want him to think he had to say yes to everything because I asked. It wasn’t fair.
“That sounds good. Is it all specialty items?”
“It’s a mix, but yeah, there are a bunch of those, too.”
“Those what?” Priscilla walked in with some empty trays.
“We got a big order, and I was asking if we should take it. It means overtime,” I explained.
“You mean big cocks or big as in plentiful?” Priscilla winked.
Never in all my time sitting behind a desk in a stuffy city office did I think I’d hear or say so many versions of the male anatomy, period, much less at work. How times had changed.
“Both.”
“Count me in.”
And just like that, I made the best decision of my life, just not for the reasons I thought.
Lorelei M. Hart is the cowriting team of USA Today Bestselling Authors Kate Richards and Ever Coming. Friends for years, the duo decided to come together and write one of their favorite guilty pleasures: Mpreg. There is something that just does it for them about smexy men who love each other enough to start a family together in a world where they can do it the old-fashioned way ;).
Hi, I'm Wendy and I'm a voracious reader as well as an author.
Currently, I write all male/male romances and am lately focused on omegaverse. For many years mm has been my first love.
The stories of my characters rattle around in my brain until I have to write them down or lose sleep!
All my books are available in Kindle Unlimited. Happy reading!
The Red Panda and His Mates #2
Omegas of Animals: SD Series
