We got to work shortly after that. Ainsley took care of as much business as he could on his computer and anything else that he couldn't handle on his own he sent on to me. He was capable, more so in fact, and I was lucky to have him. Especially now, when it seemed I couldn't go five minutes without thinking about Tad.
Within a half an hour of arriving at work I was texting him. How are things at home?
Patrick dropped off my clothes.
I couldn't wait to see him in them. I'm glad he was able to get done early.
Me too.
I needed to get back to work but I want to talk to him more. When will you be going to bed?
Maybe an hour or two. There's a movie marathon on that I'm interested in.
I would have given almost anything to be able to be back on the couch with him right then watching those movies. It was startling, really, how quickly I'd grown used to having him around. And more than that, how much I'd found myself enjoying his company. I had wanted things to be easy for us but this was nearly too perfect to ask for. Five centuries of being alive had taught me to be wary and smart but Tad made me dumb and vulnerable. I found that I wasn't minding that change as much as I'd thought I would.
My meetings went by quickly as I forced myself to focus on my clients and not my husband who was probably fast asleep on my bed. At least I hoped that he was in my bed. I liked picturing him there on my sheets and hugging my pillows.
I was distracted as I answered the emails from my clients and worked up new investment portfolios for some of them that wanted to go for more risks, which seemed to be the trend with vampires. Maybe, after such long lives, this was their way of having a little fun and taking a few risks. I didn't know about all that. I just did the numbers and sent out the information for them to look over and decide on.
A little after four I said goodbye to Ainsley and headed home. I wanted to call Tad and see how his night had been. If he'd been a vampire I would have. But he was a werewolf, and probably asleep. If he wasn't, he should have been.
The house was dark when I pulled up to it, which I took as a good sign. I was quiet coming in, being careful not to disturb him. But when I went to bed, and found him there tucked into my blankets as he faced the water, I couldn't resist sliding my arms around him. I came up behind him and held him close, pressing my face into his black hair. He was warm and soft, and unfortunately also awake as soon as I touched him.
"I'm sorry. I wanted to let you sleep," I whispered.
He covered his hand with mine. "No, I'm glad you woke me. I wanted to talk to you."
My stomach twisted at his words. It could have been nothing, or it could have been him deciding that he'd had enough of being my husband after just a few days and now he wanted to go back to his pack and act like nothing had ever happened. "What did you want to talk about?"
"I haven't felt any pain for about ten hours now. I think we might be pregnant."
My breath caught and I froze against him. Then, ever so slowly, I brought my hand down to his belly, right where our child lay. "Thank you."
"You're welcome."
I heard the smile in his voice and I kissed his shoulder. It was easy for us to go to sleep after that.
I woke up around two to the sound of the TV. I showered, got dressed, and came out to find Tad eating cheesecake and pasta while he watched some judge show. "Hey."
His mouth was full so he waved his fork at me, which made me chuckle. I came over and kissed his cheek before I went to the fridge for my own bottle of blood for breakfast.
I sat down beside him and he laid his feet in my lap as if we'd always done this and it was our way. I liked the familiarity of it, the easy way we came together as if we'd been together for years and not less than a week. I ran my free hand over his leg, from his upper thigh down to his ankle. He was wearing new pants, ones that were actually his, and they looked good on him. Soon we'd have to get Patrick to put elastic in them for when he started showing. For now he only had a little bit of a belly and the pants fit well.
"Should I go to a human doctor? Werewolves don't have doctors, and--"
"And vampires don't really get pregnant," I finished for him. Which meant that he needed to see a human. "Are there any that know anything about werewolves?"
He shrugged. "There's the one I'm going to for my surgeries. I could call him and ask if he's got anyone that he knows. In the pack people didn't really do any prenatal stuff. I learned that word today. I've been reading most of the morning. Humans, it seems, go to the doctor all the time. They take vitamins and eat differently."
"Then it sounds like maybe a doctor would be good for us to go to."
His eyebrows shot up at that. "Thanks."
"For what?" I could guess anyway.
Tad waved his fork at me. "For saying us. For going to the doctor with me and not just being like well, you're probably pregnant now, so my work is done until the baby plops out of you."
I rolled my eyes. "That's never going to happen. I care about this child, absolutely I do, but I also care about you. I know it hasn't been very long, but you're my husband in more than just that the council accepted that we're together."
He was blushing as he put aside his food and came over to me. He slid himself over my lap and settled onto my hips. Then he hugged me, resting his face against my neck and simply being with me as I wrapped my arms around his back. "I'm glad I came to you."
"I'm glad too."
By that night Tad had found a doctor to go to and had an appointment set up for the next morning, which I intended to take him to, even though it would mean me getting very little sleep. I was okay with that. I had no intention of missing my husband's first doctor appointment with our child.
A small part of me was worried though too. Not about the baby. In my gut I knew that they would be fine. Tad and I would take great care of them. But I was worried about Tad, about how people would see him. He was going to a women's clinic and they were all female doctors.
Worse yet, when we walked through the door the next morning, there were hundreds of pictures of smiling women and their babies. Not a single picture of a dad was anywhere in sight. I took his hand as we went up to the counter. I was tired, I was cranky, and I kept having to tell myself not to show these people my fangs if they did something to upset my husband.
I knew how werewolves were about people like Tad, and I knew how vampires were. Up to that moment I'd had very little experience with humans after I'd been turned and I was glad that they had ended up surprising me. In a good way. The woman who took us back was nice enough and when we were done, and Tad had a whole list of foods to start eating more of and a huge bottle of vitamins to begin taking, I wasn't rushing us away.
Though I was even more tired than I'd been when we'd gone in. Human hospitals had yet to look into fully tinting every window so I'd been blasted by the sun during the entire trip. It left me groggy and nearly ready to collapse as we made it through the front door.
"I'm going to bed for a while," I told him.
"Sure. I'll be here." He was looking through a booklet on human pregnancy that the doctor had given him. "Vallen?"
I had almost been to my bedroom when I turned back to him. "Yes?"
"I know the doctor said that humans are pregnant for about nine months, but for werewolves it's closer to four. I don't know if that'll change since you're a vampire, but I don't think it'll change much if it does at all. I just wanted you to know."
"Thank you." I couldn't get out much else as I went into my bedroom and sank down on my bed. Four months. That would put us in early fall. I breathed deeply and soon I was asleep.
I woke up hours later to Tad lying beside me. His phone was only inches from his hand, as if he'd fallen asleep while looking at it. I took it away, but not before I caught that he'd been looking at gender neutral baby names. The name was something we'd have to discuss a lot and really come up with, but I wasn't worried about it. Not right that moment anyway. I curled up behind
him and held him close. Then, minutes later, I was asleep again with him in my arms.
When I woke up again Tad was next to me. He was on his phone as I rolled over and wrapped my arm around my waist. The sun was up and I groaned into his side. I wanted more sleep, but I was glad to have a few minutes with him where we could relax together after his big news that morning.
"Good afternoon," I mumbled against his shirt.
Tad lowered his hand to my back. "Hey. Is Washington State any good?"
Why he was talking about a human college was beyond me. "Sure. Why not Keller though?" If he had something against the same college that Ainsley had just graduated from that was fine, but I would want to know about it now so that we could talk about it before it became an actual problem for us since Keller was such a big school around here and nearly everyone had gone to it, or knew someone who had.
He put his phone aside. "What's Keller?'
That explained it then. I had to remind myself of how isolated the werewolves had made themselves so of course Tad wouldn't know about Keller. "It's the largest vampire four-year college in the Northwest. It's exclusive, private, and classes are only at night."
"Oh. But I'm not a vampire."
I lifted up his shirt, and kissed his side. "You are though." I moved my mouth to his stomach, and he leaned back against the pillows to give me more room as I kissed him right over our child. "Hey there," I told them.
"Pretty sure the baby doesn't have ears yet."
I looked up and found Tad smiling at me. "I'm still going to talk to him. Or her. Or them. Think about Keller while I have a conversation with our baby."
Tad ran his fingers through my hair. I kept mine shorter than his, but there was still plenty for him to comb through as I kissed his belly. I whispered to our child, it was all nonsense, just little things that popped into my head randomly, but I was talking to them and not only did that make me happy...it made me feel alive. This was our child that I was close to, our child that I would be meeting in just a few months time. I couldn't wait.
"I can't find Keller online."
I kissed his belly again before moving back to be able to take Tad's phone. "It's a secret website to keep us safe from wannabe heroes." I typed in my login information, which all vampires who had ever attended a class there had, and then handed the phone back to him.
"Wannabe heroes?" he repeated me.
I shrugged. "You know, the humans who think that they need to hunt us down. Vampire hunters."
He growled and I gave him a soft kiss before sliding off the bed. "I'm going to get a shower. Go ahead and make an account. When it asks for your affiliation, go ahead and put my name down."
"Okay. Sure."
He was reading as I went into the bathroom, and when I came out from the shower, he still had his gaze focused on the screen.
"Anything interesting?"
I had his attention, for the moment at least, because I noticed him staring as I dropped the damp towel from around my waist. I had thought that maybe he wanted me, but when I met his gaze he just looked sad. "What's wrong?"
He shrugged me off, but it wasn't nothing, so I came over to sit beside him on the bed. "Tad?"
"I'm a man," he began.
"Yes, you are." That wasn't in question.
"But I'll never have a penis."
"Oh." I hadn't realized it bothered him. For me, that part of my anatomy had always been something that was there, but not something I was overly attached to or fond of. I would mind if it was suddenly cut off though. "I'm sorry." I didn't know what else to say to him.
"It's okay. Just sucks, you know? I was looking online, and some people use toys or something, or wear something that seems like one, but I don't think that would be for me. It would always be this thing I'm wearing, not something that's attached to me. And when I shift, it would stay here. I'm a man and I'm a wolf and there's nothing that can show that I'm a man while I'm a wolf."
Oh but there was. "You'll know that you are though. And I will too. I'm not a man because I have a penis, and you're not a woman because you don't."
He sighed and leaned against me. "I wish everyone saw it as clearly as the vampires seem to. I'm accepted for who I am with you all. There aren't any awkward questions and no need to prove myself."
"Nor should there be. We're enlightened beyond that."
He made a face, and I pulled away so that I could get dressed. The werewolves were apparently fine being naked all the time, or so I'd been told, but we vampires got cold rather easily and we liked being modest at times.
"What do you see when you look at me?" Tad asked while I was pulling on my pants.
I had no idea what he was getting at, so I answered him while I fixed my belt. "I see my husband."
I could practically see him rolling his eyes as he snorted. "Yeah, sure, now you see me that way. But what about when I first came into your office? What did you see? Be honest."
I took my shirt down, but I brought it back to the bed so that I could be close to him while I finished getting dressed. "Honestly?" Tad nodded. "I saw a cute boy no older than Ainsley who didn't know how to dress himself and who I wanted to kiss but knew I shouldn't because you smelled like a wet dog and were lying to me about who you were. At least I thought you were lying to me. Now I know better, but that was my first impression of you."
Tad cocked his head to the side and leaned forward, getting closer to me. "You really didn't think I was a woman? Not even a little?"
"No. I had no reason to." This was simple for me, I only wished that I knew how to better explain it to him.
"I wish I knew how to get the werewolves to accept me as easily as the vampires did," he said, sounding miserable as he got out of bed as well. He stretched his arms over his head, pulling the button down tight across his skin. "I need a way to get the werewolves to listen to me. It seems like that's the only way that the council will hire me after I'm out of school, and I do want them to pay for my college."
He was missing something though. One reason that I had thought would have been crucial to him above all else, especially above what the council had promised him. "What about bringing the packs together and making peace between them and the vampires?"
"I don't think it can be done. Not when there are men like my father and Ronald out there who put so little value on women. And that's what they see me as. To paraphrase Ronald, some werewolves might think that I'm just a silly little girl who ran away from my pack to screw a vampire."
I wanted to punch Ronald, and then I wanted to tear out his throat. "No one gets to talk to you that way."
Tad smirked at me. "Thanks, but I can handle myself without you getting snarly. My point though is that if male werewolves see me like that then I need to figure out how to change their opinions, and their perceptions. And I don't think that can be done. I'm more than willing to try, but I think I'm going to fail."
I didn't want him to give up without ever having tried. "What can I do to help you succeed?"
"Switch their brains out for some more accepting ones?" Tad sounded hopeless, and I wished that I had some answers for him. Any answers really. I couldn't stand to see him like this. “I'm still going to try. I absolutely am. I just wish I had more hope that it was going to go well.” He sighed and ran his hands through his hair. "I need to get this cut too. I just... There's so much I want to do now. Like, for twenty-one years I was this person that I hated being but I had to and I didn't have any choice. And now I've got all these options. I can be me for real, for the first time, and you're not saying I'm dressing up or that I'm pretending. You don't screw up my name, no one calls me a girl. I can go to college and I can drive if I go get a license." His chin began to tremble and I took him tightly in my arms. "I just want this to all be okay. You know? Like I'm scared it won't be."
"It will be," I promised. "Everything will be okay."
"You can't know that." Even though his voice was muffled against my shoulder I could still hear the tears he
was trying not to share with me.
I squeezed him a little tighter to me and then I kissed his cheek. "Yes, I do. Because I'm here, and I'll help you. And if for some reason I can't do it then Ainsley is here too, or the council. Or any number of other vampires. We may not be a pack like you're used to, but you're not just out here expected to take care of yourself either. No vampire is ever just abandoned, and you're not going to be the first." I pushed him back a little so that I could kiss him properly. He shook in my arms as he lifted his hands to my hair.
"What if you're just saying that because I'm carrying your child?" he whispered.
I understood that this was all new to him, and that he was afraid, but that didn't mean that I didn't already care about him, and our child. Or that I wasn't starting to love him, despite how little time I'd actually known him for. I pushed him back gently against the wall, and then I took his mouth. I touched his sides, his stomach, everywhere I'd been wanting to touch him for all of the night before while I'd had to be at work and away from him.
He melted against me, being at once uncertain and also full of so much want and need. I felt it pulsing through him like there was nothing between us, like there was only us and how much I wanted him.
My clothes were off in a moment and then I went for his shirt. But he stopped me, grabbing my hands before I could open his buttons. "What's wrong?" I breathlessly demanded.
His eyes were wide and his cheeks were a deep red when he met my gaze. "I don't like my breasts touched. I don't like them at all actually."
I went for his pants instead. And then I was back to kissing him. But he pulled away again. I pursed my lips, waiting for his explanation. "What?" I wanted him. I knew he wanted me too. It was practically written all over him. I didn't understand why he was stopping us from being together again.
Tad smirked. "That's it? I say I don't like something and you don't press the issue at all?"
Defying His Fate Page 11