by Leela Ash
Ella was surprised. “You could? Tell me about your project.”
“Well, it’s about closing time now, you understand, and there is a lot to go over. So, I was thinking that maybe you could come in and we could discuss it in person. How does that sound?”
“That sounds fantastic, actually.” Ella was in a daze. It seemed almost too good to be true. Shifter Floral? Where was that again? She couldn’t summon it to mind, and the harder she tried, the more frustrated she was. It simply wasn’t ringing a bell. Then again, she had put on multiple presentations and to no avail. None of the jobs spoke to her and, as Jasmine had mentioned, she wanted to be able to stay home with her son and most of the businesses didn’t want to pay her to do that. She hadn’t built up trust in the community yet. They didn’t know her. She couldn’t blame them for that, she was still basically just the new kid in town. A new kid with a kid she had to work around. This could be a great opportunity for her if she was able to take it.
“Okay. Then you should meet me in the Town Square tomorrow afternoon. We can speak. You can bring your son too, if you want to. It would be a nice way to get to know the family and welcome you both into the community.”
Ella beamed privately. She had been hoping to get out and meet more people. She wanted so much to be able to be part of something in this place. It seemed so wonderful. She had questioned it slightly when she had heard that they had turned their backs on Luke. But after the way he had treated her, truthfully, she couldn’t blame them.
“We will be there,” Ella said resolutely. She hung up the phone feeling revitalized, despite the discomfort in her stomach. She reached down to touch her abdomen and furrowed her brow. It was swollen. At least twice its normal size. What the hell was going on? And it was tender to the touch.
She lifted her shirt reluctantly, gasping in shock when she saw her bellybutton. Tendrils of purple were sprouting from it in almost a sunburst design, snaking their way up. Was this some sort of blood poisoning? What was going on?
She had to get to a hospital. She grabbed Mikey from his contented play and readied him quickly. This wasn’t good. It wasn’t good at all. And if it was something contagious that she could give to her son, she had to act quickly and do whatever was possible to keep him safe.
***
The wait at the hospital had taken quite a long time, and when they finally made it to the doctor, he simply took a brief look at her stomach, scrawled something on a sheet of paper, and walked away.
When he came back, he wore a serious expression.
“Have you had any recent sexual contact?” he asked, point blank.
“Yes,” Ella murmured, feeling ashamed and embarrassed to admit it, especially with her son sitting in his car seat not too far away. “Damn it, I knew that son of a bitch gave me something.”
She glowered down at her hands, furious at Luke.
“He did. He gave you a child. Now, this is going to be a very unusual pregnancy. There are…well. This area is known for a special type of…you could call it a disorder or…well, it certainly depends on your perspective for it. We recommend that all humans with pregnancies like this terminate. It is a very risky situation and the results on the child over the course of its life could be disastrous. The next best option is adoption. They can be sent to facilities where their diagnosis is better understood than could ever be by a human mind. And in so doing, you will be sparing that child much pain and suffering. Not that I believe you would parent it poorly. But there will be things you simply do not understand and will have a difficult time addressing.”
Pregnant? Wait. What? She was pregnant with Luke’s child and now they were recommending that she terminate it?
She gaped at the doctor, shocked and appalled that he would even dare to suggest that she give up her child. But it wasn’t just her child. It was the child of a man she had begun to have very complicated feelings of anger and disgust toward. A man who had played her for a fool. No, she wasn’t going to be able to look at a child who looked like Luke every day of its life and pretend that it hadn’t come of a union of immense passion. She would always remember being hurt by him. And yet, the thought of terminating the pregnancy or giving it up for adoption was too much.
“I can’t believe what you are advising me to do,” Ella exclaimed, standing up and searching for her clothes. She found them on the chair beside where she’d sat her son’s car seat and dressed quickly, staring angrily at the doctor all the while. “You may think that having some rare condition would cause me to have a hard time loving my child, but you are wrong. You couldn’t be any more wrong. How fucking dare you!”
She had been doing so well not cursing lately, especially in front of her son, but all that was shot to hell now. She was livid. How could this man even conceive the fact that she might prefer giving a child up before giving it a safe and loving home with its actual family?
“I understand your feelings, ma’am, and I didn’t mean to upset you. But you do understand that this is a lifelong commitment to something you don’t know anything about. I fear you will be in over your head, and there won’t be a lot of people out there willing to help you. They will see that your child is not getting what is best for it. Women in your position are well-meaning, but this is going to be difficult beyond anything you might ever consider. When the time comes, you will see. Is the father in the picture? That could make all the difference.”
“What kind of sexist place is this? You think you’re all scientific about telling me that a single mother can’t raise a child with some sort of disability unless its father is around? What the hell is wrong with you people?”
The doctor pursed his lips patiently. “I just mean that the…disorder…is hereditary. If he has it himself, he will know exactly what to do to ensure that the child is raised properly. If you intend to keep this child, I highly recommend that you tell the father you are pregnant as soon as possible. He may be able to help you.”
“I don’t need any help from this child’s father and I am certainly not going to go looking for it. Sure, I might tell him that he got me pregnant, and I might accept child support if he is able and willing to pay it, but do not mistake that as me, or my baby, needing him. We do perfectly fine without Michael’s father in the picture. Better, in fact, than if he were actually around. And I don’t need to hear you telling me that we can’t do it without him, because he is a worthless alcoholic loser who barely cares about his son and can’t even share custody until he gets his shit together. And you know what? We still manage!”
Ella stood up, furious, and grabbed Mikey’s car seat. “I am going to give this hospital such a bad review. I might even talk to a lawyer. Prepare yourself for a lawsuit.”
The doctor shook his head as Ella walked away. “You will see, young lady. And you feel free to sue me. Just do me a favor and wait to make any final decisions about that until the baby is born. Then we will talk.”
Ella gritted her teeth in fury, refusing to acknowledge the doctor’s words. Why should she? Fuck him. When her child is born, she was simply going to take care of it and love it just as she had with her first child. What was wrong with that man? Between the doctor and the bankers and Luke, she was really beginning to feel like she had made a mistake in moving here. Nothing seemed to be going right. She was tired of trying so hard for everything just to keep crumbing down around her in new and unexpected ways.
Ugh, speaking of the bank, the loan. Having a new child on the way was going to be costly. How was she ever going to manage repaying it in full to keep her house? She let out a sharp sigh of frustration as she left the hospital, her chest constricting painfully. She was stressed out. She was angry. And, all of a sudden, she was having a craving for something with pickles on it. Anything.
Her pregnancy had officially begun. Great.
She sighed as she drove home, her mind all over the place. She stopped at the grocery store, reluctant to spend even a single dime she didn’t need to spend. But she really
wanted the pickles and felt she deserved to treat herself a little after the week she had been having. Just a little. To keep her from going off the deep end.
When she arrived home, she sighed. At least there would be the interview tomorrow. She would discuss more potential to make money. Things could be looking up.
***
“Do you remember me?” a complete stranger’s face asked when Ella arrived at the Town Square. The woman offered her arm out and used a sweeping gesture to guide Ella and Mikey along with her. Soon, they were walking and talking, and Ella wasn’t entirely sure where they were going.
“I’m sorry, I’ve been having a really long week,” Ella said apologetically.
“Jasmine. I called you last night about setting this up. We briefly spoke.”
Ella nodded slowly. “Yes, of course,” she said. But she still couldn’t bring the woman’s face to mind. She had never seen her before in her life. She was sure of it.
“Right this way,” Jasmine said. Ella didn’t like the way the woman looked. Her movements were wide and a little too graceful, and her eyes were hard and mirthless. Not exactly the kind of woman she would have chosen to babysit her child, that much was certain.
They were walking down a strange alley now, dark and ominous even in broad daylight.
“Where are we going?” Ella asked, frowning.
When Jasmine turned around to face her, the woman’s eyes were flashing amber. Ella was chilled by the sight, and her stomach dropped when the woman spoke. “You’re with child. And now you’re mine.”
14.
“I heard about what you did, man,” Pierson said, shaking his head. “Not cool, Luke.”
Luke frowned. “What do you mean? What did you hear?”
“You and that girl hooking up. You getting her knocked up and dipping from the picture like that. What the hell’s wrong with you?”
“Wait, knocked up? What are you talking about?”
“You know. Knocked up. With child. You fucked her out in the woods, Terry saw you guys plain as day. Smelled the pregnancy. The hospital confirmed it yesterday. She’s going to keep it. And she probably wasn’t even going to tell you about it. How couldn’t you tell?”
Luke had gone pale. The news was awful. But the best kind of awful he had ever had. “I was a little bit preoccupied, you know. God, Terry is the world’s biggest gossip. I can’t believe it.”
“Well, whether he is a gossip or not, he isn’t wrong. The whole town is buzzing about the human who is threatening to sue Dr. Richards. He told her it might be better to terminate the pregnancy or give it up for adoption and she flipped out on him. They could hear her all the way in prenatal care!”
“She flipped out on him? And he told her to terminate my child? I don’t fucking blame her!”
Pierson shook his head. “You know that’s just the way things are now, bro. The humans just can’t handle the reality of what it means to be a shifter. It’s cruel for kids to be born to human parents who don’t know what to do with them once they begin to discover their true potential. They end up thinking they’re crazy or something. Or adopted. Or worse. You know all of this.”
“Well, it wouldn’t have to be that way if the outsiders hadn’t tainted the world into thinking humans only want shifter power. They are the ones who want our power. They are shifting the blame and taking what they want right out from under us.”
“You’re paranoid, man. And you know what, that makes me really sad. I fucking miss you, bro. I’m tired of having all this shit going on in the pack and not having my best friend to turn to. It’s bullshit.”
“It’s not just bullshit,” Luke said. “And I am not paranoid. I confronted Mr. Grier today and do you know what he said? The bank is giving loans to people who want to buy land here. Extremely high-interest loans that will leave them bankrupt. They are repossessing it when the loans are defaulted. They are getting this city little by little right out from under us. And all you guys can do is call me fucking paranoid! You’re useless!”
“Whoa, whoa,” Pierson said, holding his hands up. “You’re being a bit melodramatic.”
“I am not. There’s something very wrong here. And I’m going to stop it, even if none of you guys are willing to help me.”
“We would be willing to help if there was anything actually wrong!” Pierson said. “We want you back in the pack, man.”
“That will never happen, Pierson. Not without some major changes. And you know it.”
Luke stalked away, wishing he could just shift into his wolf form and run as fast as he possibly could to Ella’s house. He managed to do so on foot, but when he got there, he sensed something was terribly off. She wasn’t there, and neither was her car. That in itself wasn’t so strange. But the energy there was. Something was wrong.
With a low growl, Luke shapeshifted into his wolf form. Jet black fur sprouted all over his body and he took off as quickly as he could, tuning into Ella’s scent and following it all the way to the town square.
When he reached it, he scowled at the disgusting scent filling his nostrils. Bear hybrids. And they had Ella. And her son.
Luke let out a roar that caused the birds on the phonelines above him to scatter in fear. Who the hell did these people think they were? He was going to put a stop to this, once and for all. He was going to the den.
***
Luke and his father had pinpointed the den a long time ago, but it had always been too dangerous for them to deal with on their own. Now though, with the woman he loved, and Michael, and Luke’s unborn child at stake, he was willing to risk it all for them. Of course, he was. Enough was enough.
They might have bullied themselves into positions of power, but he wouldn’t let it go beyond this point. Even if it meant the end of the line for him.
Luke followed Ella’s scent down the winding corridors of the labyrinth leading into the den, his fury mounting. How could they have so little regard for the lives of the wolf shifters? Of women like Ella? For humans? Why did they want to create a division and sow the seeds of resentment and mistrust? Wasn’t the world a better place when they were all at least attempting to understanding each other?
Suddenly he sensed someone…or something stepping out of the shadows.
"Who the hell are you ... not that it's gonna matter once I'm through with you...", growled the man who must have been on guard.
In a flash, the man that detected Luke shapeshifted into his distorted bear/wolf hybrid form and the tunnel filled with his putrid scent. Luke snarled and attacked immediately, not sparing a second for the man to prepare himself. The fight was vicious and swift, and he soon left his foe limp on the ground with a gash in his neck. He wasn’t fucking around. He had to save Ella.
He followed her scent down another path. The tunnels had been dug underground and he knew that soon enough, he would be nearing the area where she was being kept. His flesh tensed as he remembered the stories his father had told him about bear shifters wanting to keep human children for themselves, or sacrifice them for power. The ancient times had been brutal and horrific, and he knew that there was not a high likelihood that any of them would make it out of this alive. But he had to do his best.
He had never been angrier that his pack had abandoned him than he was when the next attack came. Luke snarled in agony as a surprising hot pain seared into him. Claws. And then a strike to the eyes that left him in a blind panic. He must have reached the den. The epicenter of the darkness.
“Hello and welcome, Lone Wolf. This day was foretold.”
Luke grimaced, unable to see where his opponents stood but ready with a vicious fury to destroy anyone who might get in his way.
“You and your father tried so hard to tell the others about me. About my goals.”
Luke’s skin crawled. This must be the leader. The one his father had called “Dread.”
“I’ve got to say, I am very honored for the attention. Not even my own lackeys are quite this invested in what I do and don
’t do. That is why I have to dispose of so many of them. It is such a shame. It takes a long time to get the breeding process just right. When the hybrids don’t work out, it is always such a great disappointment. I’m sure you understand. You must be Lucas. You look so much like your father did in his wolf form.”
Luke growled deeply from the back of his throat.
“Luke, get out of here!”
Ella’s voice reached him from somewhere behind Dread and his hackles rose. Even if he couldn’t see anything, he would get to her. He had to feel her again. Know she was safe. Even if it cost him his life.
Somewhere in the distance, he heard the mournful sound of Michael crying for his mother. His resolve to help them both came back in earnest, and Luke inhaled sharply. It was time to fight for everything he had ever believed in. For his father. For his own moral code. For whatever was left of his pack.
An unholy roar emerged from his chest and Luke blinked hard. He was beginning to be able to see again. Perhaps the blow had only stunned him. Still, his vision was murky, and his enemies showed their forms only in various blobs surrounding himself and the woman he loved and her son. Was he going to have a son or a daughter?
The thought gave Luke an extra spark of strength and he chose a target. Lashing out with gnashing teeth and horrifying rage, he clamped his mouth down around the throat of the unsuspecting hybrid shifter and crunched down. He struggled in Luke’s grip but couldn’t pull away. The others began to come in on him, realizing suddenly, that he could very well still pose a threat.
Luke let out a sharp cry of pain as one of the hybrids struck his backside with a painfully heavy blow. He nearly buckled under his own weight but held his ground instead and sought the foe who had wounded him. He lunged, his single desire to do the most damage possible in the shortest amount of time.
The fight was over quickly and soon, there were three hybrid bodies scattered on the ground. But Luke was feeling weak. He didn’t know how he was going to take on Dread and live to find out the gender of his child.