Zanthe (Primal Impulse Shifters Book 2)

by Romi Hart

  “I’m taking another test. If that one is positive, then can you stop saying these ridiculous things?” I couldn’t stand to hear him say that I wasn’t pregnant again. It was driving me mad.

  “Maybe,” he said with a shrug.

  “Maybe?” I couldn’t help but ask. “If you see another plus sign, are you telling me that you will continue to say that you don’t believe that I’m pregnant because you can’t smell it on me? Before you answer me, you should know that I’m on the edge here. This isn’t a thing I’ve ever wanted or even thought I wanted. I’m trying to take this as an omen. A good one. And you’re fucking that up, Zanthe. You’re fucking that up really bad.”

  “I don’t mean to fuck anything up.” He took another sniff of me. “Nope. It’s just you.”

  Gritting my teeth, I had to wonder if this scientist who stood in front of me had any idea how small the baby I carried really was. Taking his hand, I placed it on my naked belly. “You know how big a cell is, right? I mean, you are a scientist. I do expect that you know that you have to have a microscope to see a cell.”

  “Yes, I am aware of how small a cell is. And I know that an embryo that’s about thirty days old or so…”

  I stopped him. “Our embryo is thirty-five days old. We had sex one time – my first time – our baby is only thirty-five days old right now. It’s tiny. Minute. A mere speck inside of my uterus. You can’t feel it. You can’t see it without the use of a microscope at this point. And you sure as hell cannot smell it.”

  His grim expression said it all to me. But then he opened his mouth and out came the opposite of what he looked like. “Go take the test. I’ll believe it if it reads positive this time.”

  I knew he wouldn’t. But turned to go inside the bathroom anyway. Closing the door behind me, I tried not to cry and failed. Leaning my head against the cold tiled wall, I tried to stop, but couldn’t.

  Something told me that I could never make a life with a man who would steal this from me. What should’ve been a happy time for us, had turned into an argument so insane that it was making me feel crazy.

  Maybe he’s right. Maybe I’m not pregnant. Maybe I just want to believe that I am.

  But why would that be?

  I’d never wanted anything like this. So why would I have a hysterical pregnancy?

  Pulling myself together, I pulled the stick out of the wrapping paper and took a seat on the toilet. I’d just used the bathroom, so nothing was coming out.

  Five minutes turned to ten and still nothing as a knock came to the door. “It’s okay, Crina. You don’t have to take another one. I think I understand what’s going on here.”

  Tossing the other stick into the trash, I knew I was pregnant and started wondering why the hell I was trying so hard to convince him. Wrapping myself in a towel, I went out the door, finding him sitting on the bed. “I think we’re done here. You can leave.”

  “Baby, don’t…”

  I wasn’t going to let him sweet talk me into anything. “No. You’ve ruined what was supposed to be a sweet moment for us. Since you and I can’t have that, I want you to leave so that I can have that moment with my baby. Alone.” Gathering his clothes, I put them on his lap as he sat there with his jaw dropped. “I mean it. Leave us alone.”

  Is it odd that I’m calling me and this little thing inside of me an us already?

  Whether it was or not, I wanted to be left alone so that I could celebrate. All Zanthe was going to do was make me cry. I didn’t want to cry at all. I wanted to bask in the glow of wonder that was bringing another life into this crazy world we lived in.

  “It’s late,” he reminded me. “It’s over a six-hour drive for me to get back home.”

  He didn’t care about my feelings, so why should I care about his? “And?” I walked away from him. “I’m taking a shower. I hope you’re gone when I come back out. I don’t want to see you.”

  “Ever?” he asked with a hollow sound to his usually deep voice.

  If he couldn’t accept something like this, then what could he accept? He’d wanted this from the very beginning. Then here it was, staring him in the face and all he could say was that it wasn’t true because he didn’t smell it.

  Knowing that we had no future together since he was this way, I nodded as I tried to keep myself strong. “Ever, Zanthe. I don’t want to see you ever again. And you should know the reason why that is. You wanted this. And now you are telling me that it’s not true - when it is. I. Am. Having. Your. Baby.”

  He had the chance to make things right. All he had to do was say that he was sorry and maybe feeling a little overwhelmed by the great news. I would’ve understood that. Hell, I wanted him here with me and our baby.

  Taking another huge sniff of me, he shook his head. “I don’t want to lie to you. I don’t smell it.”

  Throwing my hands up in the air, I shrieked, “What kind of a moron are you? And what do you think you are? Some sort of a human pregnancy smelling detector?”

  Another shrug of his massive shoulders told me something stupid was about to come out of his mouth. “I’ve got this gift.”

  Picking up a pillow off the bed, I hurled it at him. “The only gift you have is the gift to piss me the fuck off so completely that it actually hurts me inside to feel this way.” I pointed at the door as he put the pillow I’d hit him with back on the bed. “You know the way out. And just so you know, I don’t want you coming back here with your mind changed later either. You’ve said what you really think. I’m not about to fall for your lies later. You don’t want this baby.”

  “If there was one, then I would want it.” Moving fast, he took me by my arms, holding me tightly. “I don’t want you to be hurt. That’s why I’m telling you this. I don’t want you to name this baby you think you have inside of you and feel the pain when you find out that the test was faulty. I love you. I don’t want to tell you what you want to hear, then have to watch you when the truth comes out and you’re hurt by it.” He let me go, looked at the bed, then back at me. “If you want to have my baby, I will gladly do my part to give it to you. But you don’t carry my seed right now.”

  “You think that I am going to lie down in that bed and let you fuck me so that you can get me pregnant when I know that I already am?” He is certifiable.

  The worst part of things was that this wasn’t the first time I’d thought Zanthe to be really crazy. Perhaps it’s me who is the crazy one here.

  Whoever it was, we needed to part ways and keep our ways parted. Walking away from him, I’d lost the energy to argue. Something was wrong. One of us was wrong. No more needed to be said about that.

  This is over.

  “Crina, let’s not let things end.” He reached out for me, but I jerked my body away before he could touch it. “Baby, please.”

  “Don’t touch me.” The sparks he made inside my body would only make me forget that we weren’t meant to be together. Two people who could make each other this crazy could not be together. “Just go.”

  For a moment, he stood perfectly still, staring a hole through me. “I don’t want to go, Crina.”

  “I don’t want you to stay, Zanthe.” If he wanted a battle of the wills, I could hold my own. “I’ll hide in the damn bathroom if you don’t go. Is that what you want? Your woman and your baby holed up in a tiny bathroom while you stretch out on the bed and sleep the night away?”

  “So, you still call yourself my woman?” He nodded. “That’s a good sign.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that.” He is impossible! Slamming into the bathroom, I knew there was no use in trying to talk to him any longer. He was going to pick and chose the words he took out of everything I said anyway. “Go away!”

  “Ugh! Ow!” I heard him cry out.

  A ploy to make me stop asking him to leave, no doubt.

  The sounds of him falling down on the bed, the springs creaking beneath his weight, had me feeling a bit apprehensive. “Zanthe, cut it out.”

  “Shit!” I
heard him moving about in the room. The sounds of him pulling on his boots as they thumped on the floor told me that he was getting dressed. “I’m leaving, Crina. Don’t come after me. Stay here. I’ll contact you. Be safe. Don’t go with anyone you don’t know. Ow! I love you.”

  As soon as I heard the door close, I left the bathroom. Looking around my room, I saw he’d taken everything of his. So, I went to peek out the door and saw him walking down the hall. He limped a little and had his hand on his back. Flinching now and then, he groaned, then turned to walk down the stairs and that was it.

  He’s gone.

  Closing the door, I locked it. Something felt uncertain in my gut.

  Is he playing some sort of a trick on me just to get me to feel sorry for him?

  That had to be it. He was fine. The lengths some men would go to just to get the woman they love to stop breaking up with them boggled my mind. I had no experience with men at all, he knew that.

  Pretending to be sick or hurt was most likely the number one go-to that men did when women told them their relationship was over.

  That was all it was. I knew that. Going to shower, I found a ball forming in my throat and the next thing I knew I was on the floor of the shower, crying my eyes out once more.

  I had no idea what to blame it on either. The pregnancy. The breakup. A bit of both. Or the fact that I wasn’t sure if Zanthe was in physical pain or not.

  The worst part of it all was that I knew I couldn’t call him to ask a thing about any of it. Like a bandage, breaking up was best done with a quick ripping motion, then left alone to heal.

  Or so I thought anyway. I hadn’t had much practice in breaking up, so it was hard to say. But calling the man less than an hour after such a thing, seemed wrong to me.

  After a not so refreshing shower, I made my way to bed, then climbed under the blanket. Zanthe’s rugged scent still filled the air, making me cry some more as I tried not to think about him or how our baby wasn’t going to have the great father in his life that I had thought he would.

  This sucks!

  21

  Zanthe

  Something’s wrong!

  It felt as if I was being beaten as I left the castle and Crina behind, going to the parking lot to get into my truck so I could leave. She wanted me gone, but I wasn’t going to leave her. A sudden onslaught of pain had me making other decisions though.

  A stab of pain shot through my head and I knew then that there was no time to take my truck back home. Looking around to make sure no one saw me I used the cover of my truck to hide what I was doing. As I stood at the driver’s door, I waved my hand until a green glow began.

  With a quick step, I was inside the portal, heading to our home. Walking across the darkness, I saw two places I could go. One was to our home, the other was to our cave. The draw of the cave had me taking that opening.

  Stepping out of the darkness and into the forest just beyond the mouth of the cave, I heard horrible sounds and the pain I had felt was now gone.

  Running toward the cave, instinct told me that my brother was in the fight of his life. “I’m coming, Freedrick! Hang on, brother!”

  Just as I entered the cave, a giant, scaly, black tail whipped, taking my feet out from under me, leaving me on the hard rock floor of the cave with my head pounding.

  Reaching out, I grabbed the tail, yanking it. I found it did no good. Whatever was on the other end of that tail was too big for me to move.

  “Zanthe, watch out!” Freedrick called out. “He won’t let you in. Find another way!”

  Flames roiled toward me, making me scramble to get on my stomach to roll back out of the way I’d come in. “What is it?”

  “A dragon!” he told me through his mind.

  The flames should’ve told me that much. My head was all over the place. Crina. The way she errantly thought herself to be pregnant. My pain. My brother’s battle with some obviously lost dragon.

  “Listen to me, dragon. Romania is not where you belong. Nor do you belong in this time period,” I shouted, hoping he would listen to me. If it was a he. Perhaps a female dragon had been chasing her mate as he fled from her horrid temper. “Are you looking for someone? We can help you. Just stop beating my brother, please.”

  The sounds of battle raged on inside the cave, so I climbed up on top of the rocks that formed the mouth, then edged back until I found the opening that would allow me to come into the cave, behind my brother and the fierce dragon.

  I would never fit through the opening in my bear form, so staying human – even though my instincts were telling me to change – was essential.

  What’s that?

  Sniffing the air, I found something very familiar. “Crina.”

  Shaking my head, I knew there was no way in hell that Crina could be here. She was hours away, even if she wasn’t pissed at me and had decided to follow me.

  Another waft of the smell came rushing into my nostrils. This time the scent was so strong that I could make out more about it. And what I made out was that this didn’t belong to Crina and never had.

  I took another whiff to find that it was indeed the scent I’d found on Crina when we’d first met. But it wasn’t the scent she had now or had at other times before.

  Something’s not right.

  Ignoring the alluring smell, I climbed down into the cave, determined not to let anything get in the way of me helping my brother. His growls told me he’d never had a harder fight in his entire life. “Zanthe, hurry,” he telepathically told me.

  With my feet firmly planted on the stone floor of the cave, I changed into my bear, letting out a growl to let my brother know, his bear-brother was on his way.

  Hurrying through the corridor, I found my brother trapped in a small nook. The black dragon’s enormous head couldn’t get through the entrance of the smaller cavern. It jerked and moved in a way meant to tear the stone into pieces. But so far, it hadn’t accomplished enough to get to Freedrick.

  With my entrance, the dragon stopped. It moved its head so that one red eye looked at me through the hole we used to move back and forth through our cave. “You’re still here?”

  I know that voice.

  It was the same voice the tall man at the café had. The one who’d called himself, Codut. Growling, I ran on all fours to get to the dragon I now knew was a shifter. With one swipe, I caught him in the eye with my sharp claws, making him scream in pain.

  Freedrick hurried out of the place he’d sought safety. Transforming into his human, he looked awful. Red, swollen lips. Black eyes. Blood running from his nose and mouth. I’d never seen him so battered. “He’s here for me. I know that. He’s been trying to capture me.”

  I turned back into my human. “But why?”

  Cold ran down my spine as the sound of the man’s voice came from right behind me, “I need him. Why don’t you go see to your female and leave us be, Zanthe?”

  Slowly, I turned around to find the man from the café standing tall over me. His eye was scratched but other than that, nothing else seemed wrong with him. “I have a feeling that you have something to do with the problem I’m having with scenting her correctly. Why would a dragon want to mess with the mating of a bear?”

  His grin, sly. His demeanor, evil. The decrepit smell my brother and I had found in areas near our cave-home came back. “I’ve got a knack for making up scents of distinction. But you’re absolutely right. Why would I mess with the mating of a bear? I’ve got more important things to do after all.”

  “Like trying to kill my brother,” I snapped at him. “It’s funny to me how I just smelled the same thing as when I met her. Yet, she’s nowhere near here.”

  “Maybe it’s another female. Have you ever thought about that?” the dragon-man asked with a grin. “You must’ve bred the other female by now. Perhaps there’s another girl out there, roaming about in the dark who is in need of your services, Zanthe. You should hurry to find her before a real bear does.”

  “At this moment in
time, I’m more worried about what you’re doing to my brother. My female is safe. My brother doesn’t seem to be all that safe right now.” No matter what the man said, I knew he was up to something in both areas. “I would tell you to leave, but I want to know what you’re up to, Codut. So enlighten us, will you please?”

  Freedrick spat at Codut’s feet. “He’s trying to take me. I’m sure his plan is to make me into something horrifying. Or maybe use me in ways to create other horrible creatures. These dragons often partake in experiments that lead to things that were never intended to live.”

  “I can assure you that is not what I want with you, Freedrick,” Codut let him know. “You are a warrior by nature. That is what I want you for.”

  “To fight for you?” Freedrick spat at the man’s feet once again. “Are you mad? I will never fight for you or anyone I don’t believe in. Whatever your battle is, leave me out of it. I want nothing to do with your war. Wherever it is or whatever it’s over.”

  “We’re not into being part of an army, Codut,” I let him know. “And if we were, coming to us, trying to capture us to make us do your will would never work.”

  “I have my ways of making shifters do as I want them to. And if you would go see to the poor female outside this cave who is wandering aimlessly around, lost in the dark forest, then I could get back to my work.” With a wave of his hand, I once again smelled the scent that had first attracted me to Crina.

  The exact smell had led me by the balls to every female I’d ever pounced on. Somehow, Codut had recreated it and knew how to send it my way.

  As I took that information in, it also sunk in that Crina was never meant to be with me. She wasn’t meant to be the mate of a bear-shifter. And that made my heart ache.

  I’d never taken a female for anything more than mating. I wasn’t some animal or man, for that matter, who took sex from a woman just to take it. I had never used a woman for sex in my long lifetime.