The Secret Wolf (A Full Moon Mercy Novel) (shifter / MC romance)

by Ana W. Fawkes

  “How so?” Vince asked. “Did a doctor check her?”

  “Impossible,” Mandy said. “I saw… I saw it move.”

  “Saw what move?”

  “From inside her,” Mandy said. “And she’s not even showing yet. Not even close.”

  “So you think…”

  “Not too much think,” Mandy said. “I can sense it. Smell it even.”

  “Tell me,” Vince said.

  Mandy walked around the desk and gently sat on Vince’s lap. She wrapped her arms around his neck. Vince smelled Mandy from head to toe. From her perfume to her breasts, all the way down her body elsewhere.

  “Tell me,” Vince repeated. “I have to hear it.”

  “The baby in her womb, Vince, isn’t all human.”

  Vince stared ahead, looking at nothing. The years of trying with Mandy. The years of waiting for a sign or some kind of answer. How hard he had tried. How much he had wanted to hold something of his own he created. Yet here was Lucas spending the night with woman after woman and now creating life. Part of Vince wanted to be angry, but with Mandy on his lap, the better sense of reality came rushing to him quickly. Anger wouldn’t solve a problem.

  “I don’t understand it,” Vince said. “She’s human?”

  “From what I can tell and smell,” Mandy said. “You know my sense of smell.”

  “Oh, I know it,” Vince whispered and smiled.

  “We can’t send her to a normal doctor,” Mandy said. “We have to take care of her ourselves. She’s going to have to… learn.”

  “Learn,” Vince said. He nodded. “Learn. Yeah. There has to be a reason for this.”

  “I’m sure there is,” Mandy said. “Before we get too far into that, can I bring her in here?”

  Vince looked at Mandy. “She’s here?”

  “I had her at my apartment for a little while. Got her to rest. She’s in a lot of pain. Her body seems to be changing fast. I think Lucas…”

  Mandy swallowed and it sent Vince’s mind reeling. This didn’t just happen out of chance, out of luck. This happened because the timing had been perfect. That scared the hell out of Vince because there were a lot of guys in his crew and that meant a lot of chances for the timing to be perfect…

  “Bring her in here,” Vince said. “I want to see her. Touch her stomach. We have to figure this out right now.”

  “Okay,” Mandy said.

  She kissed Vince’s forehead and stood from his lap. Vince gave his mind a few seconds break to stare at Mandy’s body as she walked away. She left the office and Vince rubbed his forehead. This was the last thing the club needed right now. A baby would change everything, let alone a baby with half wolf blood and half human blood. Not to mention the mother of the baby was human and had no idea of Lucas and what Full Moon Mercy really was. It was a disaster. Vince shook his head because the final piece of the mess was that Lucas now had an interest with another woman. Another human. A woman who should never have been in the picture, and a woman who obviously had Lucas’s senses running wild.

  Mandy knocked on the open door.

  Vince looked and saw a woman shorter than Mandy standing in the doorway. She looked afraid and tired, her left hand touching her stomach, perhaps out of maternal instinct or maybe just flat out pain. Vince stood and waited for them to enter his office.

  “This is Debbie,” Mandy said as she walked Debbie into the office.

  Vince could see the apprehension from Debbie. The woman had no idea what was happening or why. Vince smelled the air and picked up on enough subtle scents, it made his stomach ache for a few seconds. He could smell everything Debbie had done since her last shower, which definitely included working. The smell of booze, men, women, sweat, sex, and money was all present.

  “This is Vincent,” Mandy said. “He owns the nightclub.”

  “Hello,” Debbie said in a weak voice.

  “Are you tired or are you afraid?” Vince asked.

  Debbie looked at Mandy. Mandy nodded, indicating it was best to answer all of Vince’s questions.

  “The way I look at it is pretty simple,” Vince said. He grabbed his cigar and walked from his desk. “If you’re afraid, I get it. But fear to me is either weakness or lying. And lying is weakness. If you’re lying to me, Debbie, then you’re lying to everyone I know. We don’t like liars.”

  “I’m not lying,” Debbie said. Her hand rubbed her stomach. “Didn’t Mandy…”

  Vince put a hand up, commanding silence. “If you’re in pain, I’m sorry. There’s nothing I can do to ease the pain, right now. You must understand, Debbie, the hell and mess you’ve walked right into.” Vince paused and slowly turned to face Debbie and Mandy. “Right now your life is in my hands. You have no choice in the matter. You need to sit and consider that for a moment.”

  Mandy touched a chair and Debbie slowly sat. Vince nodded at Mandy and she sat too. Vince walked to the office door and shut it. As he walked back to his desk he peered over Debbie’s shoulder and down her shirt. She had very nice breasts. Large and thick, probably already filling up with the nourishment for Lucas’s seed. Vince looked at Debbie and shook his head. He didn’t want to judge the woman, not because she was a stripper and not because of any choices she had ever made in her life. That wasn’t Vince’s style to do so. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t concerned with the situation that had fallen onto his lap.

  “Have you thought about it?” Vince asked.

  Debbie stammered. “I don’t… understand.”

  “It’s simple,” Vince said. “You are going to have no choice but to obey everything I say. You put yourself into this situation by sleeping with Lucas.”

  “Why does that matter?” Debbie asked. “Are you Lucas’s father or something?”

  Vince smiled. “I’m the man who is going to help you survive this.”

  “Survive what? What is happening to me?”

  Vince glanced at Mandy then back to Debbie. “I need you to stand. I need to see.”

  “See what?” Debbie asked.

  The tension in the room began to grow. Vince knew how it all probably looked. How odd. How shady. How wrong.

  Mandy touched Debbie’s arm, gently running her fingernails along Debbie’s skin.

  “Stand up,” Mandy said. “You have to trust us. There’s no real other option.”

  “Well, there’s always one other option,” Vince said.

  Debbie stood and looked pissed off. “Was that a threat to kill me?”

  “Smart woman,” Vince said. “Not a threat though for me to kill you. It’s more of a sharing of a fact… your body and what’s in your body is going to kill you. That is, if you don’t listen to me and trust us. Lift your shirt.”

  “That usually costs money,” Debbie said.

  Vince laughed. All of a sudden Debbie had spunk about her. Vince reached into his pocket and pulled out a wad of cash. In a swift move, he opened the side of Debbie’s pants and stuck the money there. He patted her and leaned forward, his face an inch from hers.

  “How’s that, baby?”

  “I want to leave,” Debbie said.

  “You can’t,” Mandy said.

  Mandy stood and slipped behind Debbie. She placed her hands to Debbie’s stomach and Debbie gasped. When Mandy began to lift Debbie’s shirt, Debbie didn’t object. She lifted Debbie’s shirt all the way up to the bottom of her bra.

  “There,” Debbie said. “See something you like?”

  Vince ignored the question and stared at Debbie’s stomach. It looked like a normal flat stomach, at least for the first few seconds. The more Vince stared at it, the more he swore there was a slow bump to it. He reached forward with his right hand. When his fingertips touched Debbie’s stomach she jumped back into Mandy.

  “It's okay,” Mandy said.

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” Vince said.

  “How do I know that?” Debbie asked.

  Vince touched her stomach again. Her skin tightened and she took a shaky breath bu
t eventually relaxed. His hand was flat against her stomach, feeling and waiting. After just a few seconds, Vince felt something gently touch the palm of his hand. He told himself it could just be a gas bubble and nothing more.

  So Vince waited some more. His eyes were focused on his hand on Debbie’s stomach. The feeling came again, this time with a little more of a kick.

  Vince placed his other hand to Debbie’s lower back. He pulled at her, forcing her body tight to his open hand on her stomach. He wanted to feel it again.

  As he waited longer this time, he grew impatient.

  “Come on,” he said. “Do it again.”

  “That’s not how,” Debbie started to say but lost her words.

  She let out a whimper as a big movement came and hit Vince’s hand. It was a hard hit, with more power than any human fetus could possibly ever do. Vince took his hand away and fell to his knees before Debbie. He didn’t care how the gesture appeared to both Debbie and Mandy, his own mind was racing at the true possibility of finally having the opportunity to hold life in his hands.

  Vince placed his hands to Debbie’s waist. There was nothing sexual about the way he touched her, even though if someone were to come into the office they’d probably think otherwise. All Vince could do was look at her stomach. He begged in his mind for something to happen again. To see it.

  His wish came true less than a minute later. Debbie’s stomach contracted and began to move. Her knees buckled and Vince squeezed his hands tighter, holding her up. Without needing to order Mandy what to do, she slid her hands up over Debbie’s breasts and kept her from slouching forward. The woman was in obvious pain, but that was the last thing on Vince’s mind.

  He watched as Debbie’s stomach pushed out and then up. The life inside her was moving and growing by the second. It needed more space, and Debbie’s human instinct didn't understand what that meant or how to adapt to it.

  Vince slowly stood, his eyes locked to Mandy’s.

  This was real.

  This was happening.

  “Tell me when the pain is gone,” Vince said.

  He walked to the other side of his desk and sat down. Mandy helped Debbie to her chair where Debbie sat holding her stomach. The way she cringed in pain and took breaths, it was as though she was giving birth right there. But such wasn’t the case. This was merely the beginning of what would happen to Debbie and her body.

  They waited a few minutes until Debbie finally let out a long breath and nodded.

  The pain was gone.

  Debbie moved her hands from her stomach to the arms of her chair.

  “You need to trust us,” Vince said. “Understanding will come soon enough, Debbie. Right now you need to be safe and healthy.”

  “I was at a doctor,” Debbie said.

  “There’s no doctor here that can help you,” Vince said. “It would only cause all of us problems. You’d end up dead, Debbie. Now, before we get into that, can you tell me when you and Lucas were last together?”

  “Does that matter?” Debbie asked.

  “Everything matters,” Mandy said. “You have no idea how much it all matters. That pain in your belly, is going to get worse and worse…” Mandy leaned to Debbie and placed her lips to her ears. “And worse.”

  “Lucas liked coming to the club,” Debbie said. “We flirted. We fooled around.”

  “When?” Vince asked. “I need to know when.”

  Debbie rolled her eyes. It started to piss Vince off.

  Finally, she said, “Two weeks ago.”

  “You sure?”

  “Oh, I'm sure," Debbie said.

  “How sure?” Mandy asked.

  “It was the wildest sex of my life,” Debbie said. “Is that what you want me to say? How passionate it was? How hard he fucked me? How I could barely move the next day?”

  Vince put a hand up. “Okay. I get it. That’s important to know.”

  Vince looked at Mandy and then lifted the calendar on his desk. Under it was another calendar. One that tracked the different phases of the moon. It contained information that no human would ever need to know or would care about. To them there was a new moon, half moon, crescent moons, and a full moon. To Vince, they were cycles much like life. And sure enough, two weeks ago, there had been a full moon. It obviously wasn’t a rarity for there to be a full moon, but the idea that it was a full moon when Lucas took Debbie into his bed… mixed with the passion Debbie described…

  “This is real then,” Vince said.

  He put the calendar back down on his desk and folded his hands. He thought carefully and knew he would need to choose his words carefully. Everything needed to be done carefully right now for the sake of everyone involved and for the sake of the entire Full Moon Mercy club. If Debbie took off and went to a doctor it would all come to a crashing end. Debbie needed to be cared for in a way that no doctor could do.

  “What is real?” Debbie asked. “There’s something inside me. I know it. This isn’t all human, is it?”

  “What do you think it is?” Vince asked.

  “I don’t know,” Debbie said. “But this feeling… it feels big. Growing all the time. It feels like it shouldn’t be in me. Because I’m human.”

  “And Lucas isn’t?” Vince asked.

  Debbie looked at Mandy, then looked at Vince. “Fuck you both.”

  She stood and Mandy jumped up. Vince waved Mandy off. He let Debbie get a few steps before calling her name.

  She stopped.

  “He’ll be here soon,” Vince said. “Lucas, I mean. You can wait and then talk to him. I assume you haven’t told him what's happened to you.”

  “No,” Debbie said. “I came to talk to him and Mandy took me away.”

  “Perhaps it’s best for Lucas to hear the news from your mouth. And the same for you about him. You can run anywhere you want, Debbie. It’s not my job to stop you…” Even though it kind of was. “… but I can offer you help and protection. I can do everything in my power to make sure you survive this.”

  “And the baby? If that’s what it is…”

  “What do you want out of this?” Vince asked. “You can't kill it. Just so you know.”

  Debbie looked over her shoulder with a look of contempt in her eyes. The thought had obviously crossed her mind. Vince smiled. There was no killing what was inside Debbie. Of course, if Debbie lost her life, there was a chance… but even then, it would feed on Debbie’s body and would hopefully be large enough and healthy enough to embark upon the world and survive.

  “What do I do now?” Debbie asked.

  “Leave my office and wait for Lucas,” Vince said.

  Debbie stepped from the office and even shut the door without being told to do so. When the door clicked shut, Vince looked at Mandy.

  “How bad is this?” Mandy whispered.

  “It’s bad,” Vince said. “But if all goes well, we’ll have a baby in the pack now. Part wolf. Part human. That is, if Lucas takes claim to it… and allows me to take claim to him.”

  21

  They were right where things left off before. The second the apartment door shut, Leah jumped into Lucas’s arms. He smiled at her eagerness to test and enjoy his immense strength. Lucas reached back and locked the door. He then hurried to the bedroom, this time knowing right where to go. In the bedroom, the lingering smell of Leah’s desire still hung in the air. Leah couldn’t smell this, of course, but Lucas could.

  Leah’s feet hit the floor and Lucas went to work. There was no more waiting and no more wasting time. His hands were around the bottom of her shirt, lifting up and over her head then to the floor. He touched her shoulders, sliding her bra straps down. Lucas kissed her shoulders, gently at first, then flicking with his tongue. Leah reached back and unsnapped her bra. The passion radiating from her was like a drug to Lucas. Every ache and desire in Leah’s body began to transfer to Lucas. Kissing her, he tasted it. Touching her, he felt it.

  Lucas gently slid Leah’s bra from her body, letting it fall to the
floor. He then cupped her breasts, holding her, his thumbs teasing her thick nipples, making his mouth water. He savored her breasts, one at a time. Leah touched Lucas’s pants, wrestling with his belt buckle. Lucas then stopped Leah, needing to concentrate on her body first. He moved her a few inches from him and then began to strip her of her pants and panties. In a matter of a minute, Leah stood before him completely nude. Her creamy skin. The rose color of her nipples, the delicate fold between her legs, tempting him with need. Her lips were parted, her breathing heavy, stuck between being nervous and desperate.

  Lucas then tore at his own clothing. Part of him wished he could just shift into a beast for a moment. His clothing would then be stripped completely. Instead, Lucas had to strip himself piece by piece. When he finally stood before Leah nude, he was hard and his focus was on her. She had seen him naked twice, but both times were after him shifting back from a wolf.

  “Touch me,” Lucas ordered.

  Leah reached forward with her right hand. Lucas watched as her small hand wrapped around his shaft. She could barely hold him as she gently stroked him. Her other hand touched his chest. She was shaking.

  “It’s okay, Leah,” Lucas said.

  “I know,” Leah said.

  Lucas came closer to Leah. Leah moved her hand away from his thickness. Both her hands were on his chest. Lucas cupped Leah’s ass and lifted her. His cock then rested between her legs, touching her, rubbing against her.

  Leah let out a small cry.

  When Lucas looked into her eyes, he could see questions still burning.

  “Tell me,” Lucas said. “Tell me what’s on your mind.”

  “You were… that beast,” Leah said.

  Lucas nodded.

  “You were the beast that night,” Leah said. “When you saved me.”

  “Yes,” Lucas said.

  “You can change like that? Whenever you want?”

  “For the most part,” Lucas said. “It’s who I am, Leah. I’m not a normal man. I won’t be able to take care of you like a normal man would. Between who I am and Full Moon Mercy…”