Kip sat back up and shook his head slowly, trying to figure out what in the world had happened between them. He wondered if she was going to have a human baby or a wolf. He wondered if the baby would be fully human, as every time they made love he was in his human form, so logically two humans made a smaller human, but then perhaps this smaller human might have a werewolf gene. He had never heard of a werewolf and a human having a baby before, and he hadn’t thought it biologically possible, but as he gazed at her in utter confusion and astonishment, his mind was filled with questions.
Hurriedly, he scrawled a note to her on the pad of paper on her bedside table, telling her that he had to take care of something but that he would be back soon, and he asked her to wait for him there.
Then, he leaned down and kissed her forehead lightly so as not to wake her, and he almost ran from her house. He hurried back to his mansion as everything in his mind seemed to be exploding all at once.
She was pregnant. It was the core thought that held every other thought in his mind. What would that mean? What would their child be like? How were they going to handle it? The pregnancy changed everything. He had believed that they would break up before his marriage to Petra, and then he would never see her again, but as she was carrying his child, he vowed that there was no way that was going to happen. She was carrying his child, and as the mother of his child, she was going to be in his life for the rest of her life.
Petra came to mind, and the unification, and the families, and the future of both packs. There was so much at stake, and he had no idea how it was all going to go. What he needed more than anything was information, and at that moment, all that he had were questions and no answers. He was going to have to find some answers, and fast. They were running out of time before the unification, and they were going to have to figure something out.
The moment that he got to the house, he threw the car into park and raced inside, going directly to the library. He stopped short for a moment, breathless and panting, sweat beaded up across his forehead, when he saw his uncle sitting in a leather armchair.
Dimitri looked up at him from the book that he was reading and frowned. “What’s gotten into you?” his uncle asked with a darkening expression. “Where have you been?”
Kip stood stock still; everything in him halted as he realized that his uncle was old enough, wise enough, and skilled enough to smell and sense a great deal more about him than the younger members of the pack. He tried his best to calm himself so that at least his panic, fear, and worry wouldn’t give him away with his pounding heartbeat.
Dimitri rose from his chair and peered at his nephew sharply. “You’re supposed to be here at the house courting Petra, and it has not escaped my notice that you are hardly ever around!”
With a shrug, Kip did his best to make light of it, grateful for the first time in his life that as a natural born full moon wolf, he had an advantage over nearly every other wolf he knew, including his uncle, who was natural born on a moonless night. “Oh, yes. I’m sorry about that. I’ve been working quite a bit lately. We’ve got a lot going on just now, and the timing is poor. I did just spend the whole day with Petra yesterday. It was quite illuminating.”
What he wanted to say was that he had gotten to know her well enough to know that he was going to hate being married to her for the rest of his life, but he found a politer way to say it.
Dimitri narrowed his gaze at him suspiciously. He lifted his nose and sniffed long, breathing in the scent of his nephew. “You must be chasing cats again. You reek of them.”
Kip sighed and turned away from his uncle, hoping that Dimitri would go back to his book and leave him alone. “I came in to pick up a few books. Please excuse me, uncle.”
With that, Kip took to the shelves, pulling out every book he could find on the subject that plagued his thoughts that morning. His uncle did return to his chair and put his nose back into his reading material, though he peered over the top of it at Kip, watching him and studying everything that he was doing.
One after another, Kip pulled books off of the shelves, flipping through them and reading as fast as he could, searching for answers to his questions. His research grew lengthy, and he took over one of the tables in the large library, setting books down on it open to pages where he might find one small thing or another, and he made mental notes of everything useful that he could discover in them. He read everything that he could get his hands on, so focused on it all that he barely noticed with Dimitri left him alone in the library. It was a relief to him that the older man was gone; he could study in peace without tipping his hand about what it was that he was researching.
After an exhaustive search, Kip finally found a handwritten chapter on werewolf and human reproduction in an ancient text that had been collecting dust on their library shelves for ages. As he read through it, relief washed over him and he could feel himself breathing deeply again.
The signs that he had seen in Janine were similar to the ones notated in the chapter, and from what he read, it appeared that perhaps her pregnancy was on the right track. The mother would crave raw meat, she would sleep more than usual, and she would be given to increased sensitivity and hyperawareness via the child that she carried.
Kip leaned back into the chair where he was sitting and let out a long-held breath. He was still worried but very curious about the changes happening to her and he was swiftly becoming fascinated with the idea of having a child, wondering all about it and what it would be like.
With his new knowledge, he jumped from the chair and grabbed his car keys, racing out of the library. When he yanked the front door open to leave and return to Janine, he nearly ran smack into Petra, who was about to come in.
She gave him a dark look. “You’re leaving again? I was just coming to see you! You’re always leaving! Where in the hell are you going this time?”
Kip did not have the time or patience to stand there and debate his comings and goings with her. Especially not at that moment. There were far more important things that happened to be demanding his attention just then.
“Petra, I’m sorry, but I have to go. I have urgent business to attend to.” He slipped past her through the doorway, leaving her standing there on her own, irritated and frustrated, with a suspicious glare on her face as she watched him go.
Kip jumped into his car and peeled out of the drive, rushing down the hill toward the highway. Dimitri watched him from another window in the house and then he walked back to the library and went to the table where Kip had left all of the books he had been reading, including the handwritten chapter on human and werewolf reproduction. Dimitri ran his hands over the page, reading it carefully and frowning deeply as he did.
In less time than it normally took him, Kip reached Janine’s house with a bag. He had stopped off at a pharmacy along the way to pick up some pregnancy tests, just to be sure. Janine was still fast asleep on her bed.
Sitting beside her, he woke her gently with soft kisses and gentle strokes along her forehead and her cheek. “Janine… honey, wake up. Come on. I know you want to sleep right now, but I need you to wake up please.”
She opened her eyes reluctantly. “Is it morning already?”
He nodded and gave her a half smile. “It is. Listen, you need to wake up for me. We need to talk.”
Janine pushed herself up in bed and looked at him happily, her eyes still sleepy as she leaned forward and kissed him softly once. “What is it? What do you want to talk about?”
He pulled one of the pregnancy test kits from the bag and pressed it into her hand. “This. We need to talk about this. I bought several of these for you. Different kinds, different brands. I just want you to go into the bathroom and take them for me, please.”
She lowered her gaze and looked at what was in her hand, and her sleepy eyes were suddenly wide open. “Oh my god.” She breathed in shock. “I didn’t think that… I mean… I thought I was sick or something. I thought… I thought it was just some weird cycle
thing. Kip… I’m on birth control!”
“You haven’t had your period, have you?” he asked, knowing full well that she hadn’t and thinking of the second heartbeat that he heard in the depths of her. “I can sense things, Janine. I can sense a great deal more than a human, and I’m pretty sure you’re pregnant. This is just to confirm it.”
“It’s not possible though! It can’t be!” she insisted, rising from the bed as she stared at the box in her hand. “Kip, I’m on the pill! I take birth control! There is no way that this could happen!”
He shook his head sympathetically at her. “Baby, I’m not a human, at least, not fully. This is such a rare thing that I didn’t even think it was possible. It never crossed my mind that you might get pregnant, but here we are, and I’m really, really sure that you are. Please, just take the tests. Let’s find out what they say.”
Janine’s heart picked up its pace as panic began to flood through her. She grabbed the whole bag of pregnancy tests from Kip and rushed into the bathroom. Kip stood up and set his hands on his hips as he began to pace slowly back and forth in front of the bathroom door, waiting to see what they said, though he was already sure of the truth.
Five minutes later, she opened the door with wide eyes. In her hands were five tests, each of them with the same result. She stared at Kip. “I’m pregnant,” she mumbled in disbelief.
He nodded and took her into his arms, holding her gently to him. “What are we going to do? I can’t be pregnant! What about school? What about work? What if…” She looked up at him with intense worry in her eyes. “What am I pregnant with? Is this a baby? I mean… not to be rude, but you’re a werewolf. What’s happening here?”
“I think we just need to take things one step at a time. I had a lot of questions too, but I did some research. I think you’re pregnant with a human child that will be like me if it carries the werewolf gene. It’s possible that it may be a natural born werewolf, but it will at least be human.” He was relieved that he had gone to read up on the pregnancy before he had approached her about it.
She sank down onto the bed and dropped her head into her hands with a sigh. He sat beside her and rubbed one hand over her back as she tried to come to terms with it. “I can’t believe this,” she murmured. “I mean… I always wanted a family, because I never really had one, but not like this.”
“You’re not going to go through this alone. I will take care of you and the baby. You won’t have anything to worry about,” he reassured her. He didn’t know if he could be with her in the way that he wanted to be with her, as a couple, but he did know that no matter what happened with his marriage to Petra, he was going to make sure that Janine and his child were well cared for, for the rest of their lives.
She nodded and wiped a few tears from her cheeks, leaning her head onto his shoulder, grateful for the love and support that he gave to her. “I’m so glad, thank you. As long as you are with me, I know that everything will be okay.”
He kissed the top of her head and then lifted her chin so that he could look into her eyes. “I’m not going anywhere.” He tilted his head slightly as he gazed at her, and his voice grew kinder. “What did you mean… you’ve never really had a family?”
Janine sighed. “I didn’t tell you, I guess. I am an orphan. I was raised in foster homes, shipped back and forth all over from one place to the next, until I aged out of the system and had to figure life out on my own. I never really had a family. I have always wanted one of my own; one where I can belong in a place that I can call home. It’s so important to me.”
“You’re going to have that. With this baby of ours, and with me always there to help you, you will have that.” He wanted to reassure her, not entirely certain of how he was going to tell her about Petra but knowing that she was definitely going to have to find out sooner rather than later.
Outside the window, a short distance from the house, sitting in the shadows of tall pine trees, was a large wolf. It was watching them through the window and listening to everything that they said.
Kip looked at her seriously and spoke with an earnest tone. “I have to go home and talk with my family about this. I need to tell them what’s going on so that we can all discuss it and decide what needs to be done.”
Janine frowned slightly. “Why is that? Why would they have anything to do with any kind of decision?”
Kip drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Well, we are a pack, and that’s very different from a human family. Different culture, different rules, different hierarchy. One of the things that you don’t know about me is that in our hierarchy we have rulers over the packs that we call kings or queens. My grandfather is the king of my pack, and I am the sole heir to his position. I’m a prince.”
Janine stared at him. “You’re a prince?”
Kip nodded. “Yes. When my grandfather passes away, I will become the king of the pack, and my pack rules over all of the packs in the northwest region. It’s a very large area. I have an obligation to you and to our baby, but I also have an obligation to my pack as well. I will be glad to explain it all to you later, but for now, just know that I need to go home and talk with my family about this. I will come back tomorrow to tell you what our options are about what could happen. In the meantime, get some rest. Also, I want you to quit your job at the café. I will provide everything for you. I don’t want you working while you’re carrying my baby. I am wealthy, and it will be the easiest thing in the world for me to make sure that you have all that you need.”
Janine was stunned. “Quit my job?” She thought about it for a long moment and then sighed and nodded. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. I can’t really keep up with school and work being this tired all the time. I do want a healthy… pregnancy.” The word sounded strange on her lips, but she was beginning to wrap her mind around the fact slowly.
She looked up at him then as he rose to his feet, his eyes steady on hers. “You’re wealthy huh? Of course you are. Beautiful, wonderful, perfect lover… and wealthy. Why not? So, what are you, a millionaire?” She laughed in jest as she stood up to hug him.
He shook his head, one corner of his mouth raised up slightly. “No, I’m a billionaire. We’ve been good at our business for a very, very long time.”
Janine’s mouth fell full open, and she gasped as she stared at him. “You’re kidding me, right? That’s a joke? You’re making a joke.” She tried to convince herself, but he shook his head and kissed her tenderly.
“Goodbye. I’ll see you tomorrow. Please, get some rest,” he urged her. “I love you.”
“I love you too!” she called softly after him as he left her bedroom. She walked into the living room and watched him drive away, her hand on her heart and her belly, amazed at the fact that there was a little life growing inside of her.
As his car disappeared from view, a strange sensation overcame her, and she began to feel uneasy. She looked around and saw nothing, but her skin rose in goose pimples all over her body. A chill overtook her, and it was like nothing she had ever felt in her life.
She shivered, and the dread in her grew worse. It was enough to scare her at a mortal level, and she ran to the kitchen, grabbing a large silver dagger. She looked all around and saw nothing, but something in her told her that her life was in danger. Slowly, she edged out of the kitchen and into the living room, her blood icy as her pounding heart flushed it through her, and the hair on the back of her neck raised in fear.
She had never felt anything so strong in her life; it was as if she had become hypersensitive to everything around her, and something deep in her was making her very aware of the imminent danger hidden very nearby in some shadow that she could not see.
Suddenly the big window in her living room shattered sending glass shards everywhere as an enormous wolf burst through it. It came for her, growling and snarling, twice the size of a full-grown tiger and twice as lethal. Janine screamed at the top of her lungs, slashing at it with the silver dagger in her hand.
&nb
sp; The wolf backed off slightly, still roaring ferociously at her, its fangs barred, its fur all on end, and its ears laid back flat. It lunged at her, its eyes red with fire and hate, and Janine screamed again and arced her arm through the air, slicing wildly at the beast. She cut it across one arm with the blade and the wolf threw its head back and howled in pain, but when it looked at her again, it was even angrier than before. With a deafening roar, it came for her again, and she thrust the knife at it just as something white and extremely fluffy came shooting past her.
Snowball had been hiding the entire time in the recesses of the kitchen, crouching down low and doing her best to stay out of the way and be invisible, but when the beast wailed out in pain from the cut of the dagger, the cat went straight for it. Snowball landed on the wolf’s muzzle, and she clawed and scratched furiously at it, biting it, and attacking it with all of her might. She tore a massive gash through the top of the wolf’s head, and it began to shake its head left and right, up and down wildly, trying to throw her off.
She held on tightly, but one hefty swipe of the wolf’s claws at her, and she was in its jaws. It crunched its fangs down once on the cat, and the cat was no more. The wolf flung the little dead animal toward Janine, almost as if it was a promise of what would happen to her, and she raised her silver dagger again to fend the beast off as it dove straight for her.
P.S I'm a WOLF! (Paranormal Shifter Romance Book 1) Page 10