by J. L. Wilder
It was her last full thought before consciousness faded away and she surrendered herself completely to the depths of sleep.
SHE WOKE FEELING FRIGHTENED and out of place, as if something was badly wrong.
She crawled out of bed, thinking of finding a bottle of water in Weston’s duffel bag, but as soon as she had her feet under her, her stomach lurched, and she was forced to dive for the bathroom. She made it barely in time to kneel before the toilet and vomit.
By the time Weston reached her, she was finished, soaked in cold sweat and sitting back against the shower door, shivering. “What is it?” he asked, clearly alarmed. “What’s wrong?”
“I think I’m sick,” she said.
He knelt before her and placed a gentle hand on her face. “You don’t have a fever,” he said quietly. “What did you eat yesterday?”
“Just the granola bars.”
“How do you feel now?” He gripped her hands, then moved his hands up her arms and squeezed them in several places as if reassuring himself that she was all in one piece.
“Better, actually,” she admitted. “Maybe there’s something in the granola that didn’t agree with me.”
He frowned. “It’s granola. What could be the problem?”
“I don’t know...”
Weston helped Charity to her feet and back over to the bed. He went to the duffel back, fished out a bottle of water, and handed it to her.
“Thanks.” She took a long, restorative drink and felt better still.
Weston sat beside her. “You’ve got a bit more color now,” he said.
“I think I’m all right.” She felt humiliated, actually. “It was just a passing thing.”
“Are you sure? We could try to find a clinic, if you want.”
“Complete overreaction,” she assured him. “I’m fine. Let’s just go back to sleep. It’s really nothing.”
Weston looked doubtful, but he lay back on the bed anyway. Charity allowed herself to relax beside him.
Suddenly, he sat bolt upright. “Charity,” he gasped.
“Um, what?”
“I know what’s wrong with you. Oh my God.”
“What is it?” she asked nervously, already afraid of the answer. She had never seen Weston like this. Even when things were out of his control, he always maintained a veneer of calm, as if there was something he could do to ensure that the situation played out in his favor. But there was no calm about him now. He looked almost frantic.
He turned and gave her a look that was half penetrating and half—was she reading him right? —wondering.
“Charity,” he said softly. “I think you’re pregnant.”
Chapter Thirteen
WESTON
“Pregnant!” she laughed. “I can’t be pregnant! We just had sex for the first time yesterday.”
“But you’re an omega,” he said. “Your body would register the change immediately. Omegas are built for pregnancy. It happens quickly, and it’s almost always obvious as soon as it does. You probably just conceived within the past hour or something.”
“You got this from your reading too, I take it?” she asked faintly.
“Yes.” He wished he’d brought the book along with him. It was hidden under his mattress back at the Hell’s Wolves’ cabin, one of the few he’d managed to save from Hawk’s purge when he’d cleaned out their old library and converted it into a workout room.
But he had read enough of it to be helpful, enough to know that without precautions sex with an omega almost always resulted in pregnancy. He had known that when he’d taken her to bed, and yet he hadn’t been careful at all. He’d been so eager for her, for her body, that he hadn’t been thinking.
Perhaps he couldn’t be blamed for it. Omegas were uncommonly alluring. He had read that too. But if he was honest with himself, he had to admit that a significant part of her allure came from the fact that she was Charity, not that she was an omega. If she had just been someone random, he thought he would have been able to resist.
It was the fact that he loved her that had made her so irresistible.
Could she really be pregnant? “I wonder if anything would show up on a pregnancy test,” he mused to himself.
“Why wouldn’t it?” she asked.
He shrugged. “They’re designed for humans. A human woman would have no idea she was pregnant at this stage. Her body wouldn’t have registered the fact. It’s possible that the test that works for humans won’t work for you at such an early stage.”
“I don’t think we need a test,” she said.
“You don’t?”
Her hand came to rest on her stomach. She was gazing down in wonderment. “It’s true,” she said. “It’s crazy, and I have no idea why I’m so sure, but...as soon as you said it, I felt how true it was. There’s no doubt about it.”
He came over and sat beside her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. “How do you feel?” he asked quietly.
“Scared,” she admitted. “But also...I don’t know. I don’t have the words for it. It feels like...this is the most amazing thing that’s ever happened to me.” She looked up at him. Tears were glistening in her eyes. “Even more amazing than finding you again, and I would have said just a few hours ago that nothing could ever top that.”
He took her face in his hands and kissed her, softly but passionately. “It’s a miracle,” he agreed.
“But what are we going to do?” she asked. “We can’t have a baby. We’re on the run from the Hell’s Wolves. It’s too dangerous.”
“Babies,” he corrected automatically because he didn’t have any idea how to answer the real question she’d asked.
“What?”
“Babies. More than one. A litter.”
“Of course.” She leaned into him. “I’ve been human too long.”
“We need to find a place where we can settle down,” he said. “A place where we can stay, and we won’t have to worry about Hawk finding us.”
“Do you think we’re safe here? In this town?” she asked. “Obviously we can’t stay in this motel for the long term, but we might be able to figure something out. Get a little house or something.”
He didn’t want her to be afraid, so even though he wasn’t certain, he nodded. “I’m sure we’ve come far enough,” he said. “Between the bus and the train, there’s no way they’ve managed to follow us. We’re safe from them here.”
“What should we do?”
“Let’s check out of the place and go get some breakfast.” He smiled at her. “You need to keep your energy up. You’re eating for...well, for several.”
“I am hungry, now that you mention it.”
“Good, because I’m going to make you eat.”
They smiled at each other shiftily, and suddenly Weston felt as if they were young again, as if everything between them was brand new and exciting and happening for the first time. It felt as if their lives were so novel that these experiences might never have happened to anyone else before. It felt as if they were the first people in the world to fall in love, the first people to become pregnant. It was all new and all just for them.
They went down to the reception building and returned their key. Weston consulted the clock again and saw that it was now four in the afternoon. Still daytime, but the sun would be going down soon. They might be able to find a place to stay if they moved quickly.
“Do you know of any apartments for rent?” he asked the woman behind the desk.
She was friendlier than the young man they’d met last night. “There’s a sublet over on Linden Street,” she said. “Look for the chain-link fence. I think it’s number 4244. The man who owns it is going on sabbatical in Europe. He’s a writer or something.” She smiled. “Perfect place for a couple of youngsters just getting started.”
“Thanks,” Weston said, hoping his depleting funds would stretch to cover a few weeks’ rent until he could get a job and start bringing money in.
He and Charity went out onto the
street. “We’d better go over to the sublet first, before it gets too late,” he said. “We want to make sure we have a roof over our heads tonight.”
Linden Street turned out to be easy enough to find—it was the first cross street they encountered. Number 4244 was just a few houses down the block. Feeling slightly nervous but emboldened by the fact that Charity was counting on him, Weston walked up the porch steps and knocked on the door.
The man who answered was lean and tall, with wire-rimmed glasses and a well-maintained beard. “How can I help you?”
“We were told this place might be available for rent,” Weston said.
“Sure, come in,” the man said. “I’ve been trying to offload the damn thing for weeks now,” he admitted as he led them into the house. “My flight to Rome leaves tomorrow. My wife’s already in a hotel—we’re trying to keep the place as clean as possible, so it’ll be rental ready. Have a look around.”
Weston did so, trying to convey that he gave a damn about the amenities of the place, when actually he would have moved into a cardboard box if the price was right.
“When would you be able to move in?” the man asked.
“We were hoping for today, actually,” Weston said. “We’re new in town, and we haven’t got a place yet.”
“Well, you’re in luck,” the man said with a grin. “I can vacate at a moment’s notice.”
He produced the rental papers. Weston scrawled a signature on them, doing his best to make his handwriting illegible. He didn’t think that Hawk or any of the others would recognize the signature as his, on the off chance that they managed to connect with this man—but that was ridiculously unlikely anyway. He was leaving the country. The papers were safe.
They shook hands and the man went on his way, and then Weston and Charity were on their own in their new apartment.
It was hard to believe. They’d run away from home. They’d abandoned Weston’s bike. They’d slept in a boxcar. Somewhere along the way, they’d rediscovered their love for each other. And now Charity was pregnant, and they were living in their own place together.
It had all been almost too easy.
If it wasn’t for the fact that he’d had to leave his bike—his most prized possession—behind, Weston would have thought the Hell’s Wolves must have just decided to let him go. He had hoped for a successful escape. He had believed it was possible. But he had never really thought it would be accomplished this smoothly.
And yet it had.
Charity seemed to be thinking along the same lines. “Is this real?” she asked. “We really got the place?”
“We really got it.”
“We live here now?”
“Yeah, seems like it. At least for the next six months. Then we’ll probably have to find somewhere else, but that’s plenty of time.
“Wow,” she whispered. “I kind of can’t believe it.”
“You want to go get that breakfast now?”
She grinned saucily. “Maybe we should break in the bedroom first.”
He had to laugh at that. “Maybe we should. Can’t let an omega go wanting, can we?” He scooped her up in his arms and carried her off to their brand-new bedroom.
They found a brisk pace this time, expediently stripping off each other’s clothes and tossing them away. He lay back on the bed, propping himself up on his elbows, and she lowered herself on top of him and rotated her hips slowly. Weston closed his eyes and let his head fall back. “God, you’re good at that.”
“I could do this all day,” she panted.
“Me too,” he groaned, wrapping his hands around her hips and pulling her closer.
And he would have done just that, but they were both hungry, and he was conscious now of the fact that she needed to eat for the babies she was carrying. When he felt his orgasm approaching, he didn’t slow his pace, but rather leaned into it, lifting his hips to meet her thrusts until they came together, and she collapsed forward into his arms.
“I wish I could say let’s go break in the shower, too,” she said, chuckling slightly, “but I’m afraid we’d never get out of here if we did. And I really do need to eat at some point.”
“We’ll do it later,” he promised. “I think I saw a twenty-four-hour diner back by the motel.”
They dressed and went outside. Weston took particular pleasure in locking the house’s door and slinging the key’s lanyard around his neck. It made it feel as though the place was really his, in a way no place ever had been before. He took Charity’s hand and they walked through their chain-link fence and back through the town to find the diner Weston had seen.
It was easy enough to locate. This town was so small that Weston thought it would probably be hard to get lost in it even if you didn’t have the uncommonly good sense of direction that came with being a wolf. They went inside, took seats, examined the menus, and ordered skillets and bacon and a bowl of fruit to share.
The waitress poured them each a cup of coffee. Weston took a long sip of his and made a face. It was nothing like the stuff he was used to drinking back at home. Norma’s coffee was rich and flavorful. This stuff was watery and flat.
“Let me see that.” Charity pulled his cup to her. She added a packet of sugar and a generous pour of cream, then passed it back. “Try that.”
“I drink coffee black at home,” he objected.
“Yeah, I know you do, but diner coffee is different,” she said. “It’s cheap and mass-produced and they burn it half the time. You have to add that stuff to make it taste decent.”
“How do you know so much about it?”
“I used to work at a restaurant, remember?”
“That wasn’t a diner.”
“It was the same idea, though. None of our food was as good as anything Norma makes.”
Weston nodded, stirred the coffee, and took another sip. She was right. It did taste better like this. “I guess there is something worth knowing in being human,” he said.
“Hey, if we’re going to live in this human town and do human things like go to diners and sublet apartments, you’re going to be glad you’ve got my experience and know-how on your side,” she said, grinning.
“Okay then, let me have it. What do I need to know in order to be a successful human?”
“You need to know how to socialize with the rest of them,” she said. “That was the hardest thing for me when I left the pack the first time. I couldn’t even look anyone in the eye for weeks. I felt like they would know I was hiding something, like they’d smell it on me or something.” She stirred her own coffee and took a long drink. “The truth is, they’re not anywhere near that perceptive. You could straight up tell them you were a wolf and they’d just laugh and tell you to pull the other one, probably.”
“Which doesn’t mean we can let our guard down,” Weston said. “The humans won’t know anything, it’s true. But if they get an idea that there’s something weird or off about us, something that sets us apart from them...well, that’s the kind of thing the Hell’s Wolves might clue in on, if they come this way looking for us.”
Charity nodded. “We can blend in best by being friendly but distant,” she said. “Smile at the neighbors, but don’t learn their names. Come and go at normal hours. Wear normal clothes...we’ll have to go shopping. I don’t have anything but the clothes I was kidnapped in, and you’re dressed like a lumberjack.”
“We don’t have much money left.”
“We can go to a secondhand store. We can get things cheaply there.”
“Okay. That’s a good idea.”
Their skillets arrived and they dug in with gusto, quieting down for a few minutes to focus on the meal. Weston hadn’t realized until now how hungry he was until he took his first bite. When had he last eaten? He’d had a granola bar after he’d been shopping at the gas station, but that was it. Before that...it had been back at the cabin, before they’d run away.
And now he was sitting before a hot meal, full of eggs, meat, cheese, potatoes, and ve
getables. He didn’t think he could possibly be any happier.
Charity was also making short work of her skillet, and Weston wasn’t at all surprised. She must have been even hungrier than he was. They hadn’t given her much to eat back at the house, and she hadn’t kept down her share of the granola bars. And the fact that she was pregnant was probably ratcheting up her appetite a few notches too—her body knew what it needed.
“Something else,” she said after they had devoted about five minutes to nonstop eating and had begun to slow down between bites.
“Something else? About being human?”
“No, it was something Robbie said back at the house,” she said. “He said that you drink too much.”
A weight settled into Weston’s stomach. He didn’t want to lie to Charity, but he didn’t want to disappoint her either. “Robbie worries too much,” he said. “And he involves himself too much in other people’s business.”
“He didn’t do that when I knew him.”
“People change,” Weston said.
She eyed him steadily. “I know,” she said. “That’s what I’m worried about.”
“I haven’t had a drink since we left the Wolves.”
“Of course, you haven’t,” she said. “We’re on the run. When would you have had the chance? But you did have him bring you a bottle the night I was kidnapped. You drank most of that.”
He couldn’t deny it.
“I’m just anxious, I suppose,” she said. “We’re going to be parents. And we have to blend in. And...and I want to feel like you’re here with me. I’ve seen what people are like when they have too much to drink. I don’t want to feel alone with no one to help protect me—and our babies—while you’re passed out or off at a bar or something.”
Weston felt as guilty as if he’d already done the things she was suggesting. “I don’t want you to feel that way either,” he said.