by Diana Seere
She rolled onto her side and told herself to get up and clean the mess before she stepped on it and got hurt.
But although she imagined doing so, several times, she just couldn’t actually get off the sofa and do it.
This was more than hibernation fatigue. This was more than winter rest.
This was… depression?
Yes, but… Even that didn’t seem to quite explain the absolute, total exhaustion wracking her body. And the compulsion to eat gallons of sweetened, iced dairy products. She’d always liked ice cream, of course, but had never eaten so much of it. Vaguely she remembered women talking about eating large quantities of sweets after a breakup, but she’d never had a breakup, not anything that mattered.
Her empathy grew for those long-forgotten women and their (she hoped) long-forgotten boyfriends. Death would be more cheerful than this. Certainly more healthy.
Her phone, discarded on the glass coffee table beside her, rattled with an incoming call. In spite of her exhaustion, her heart began to pound.
Could it be… him?
She snatched it up and put it to her ear. “Hello?”
“Sophia, where are you?” Derry asked. “Lilah and Gavin thought you’d be here for their party.”
“Be where?” she snapped, heartbroken it was only her brother. “What party?”
“The ranch. Lilah and Gavin’s anniversary.” Derry’s tone grew concerned. “You really don’t remember?”
Was it already November? She yawned and let the phone drop a few inches, too tired to hold it to her ear. “I’ll make it up to them,” she said weakly. “Tell them, will you?”
“Are you sick? I’ll call Roger and be there as soon as—”
“No! No. I’m fine. It’s just the usual. Hibernating. Tired.”
“Then you should be here,” he said.
“I can’t be there.” Every memory of every moment she’d spent with Zach rushed through her mind. His bedroom. The woods. Her house. She would never be able to go back. “I’m resting here this year.”
“Give the phone to Betsy,” he said. “I’ll talk to her about making you that soup—”
“I sent her home.”
“When?”
“Last week? Before that? I don’t know. I paid for her tour of— I can’t remember, somewhere she wanted to go. Patagonia? Thailand? She seemed to know what she wanted. I gave her my credit card.”
Derry was quiet for a long moment. “I’m coming to Boston. You need help.”
She began to cry. “I’m fine. I’m just hungry and tired and hungry and tired and I want to”—she hiccuped, sobbing harder—“cry all the time.”
“Exactly,” Derry said. “You need help.”
“Don’t leave Gavin and Lilah. Stay for the party.”
“They barely know I’m here. Between each other and the babies, they’re lost in their own world.” He cleared his throat. “Speaking of babies…”
“How are they? They must be so cute.” For the first time in weeks, she felt the stirring of a faint enthusiasm for life. “I should spend more time with them.” But that would mean visiting the ranch and her memories, which she absolutely couldn’t do, so she began to cry again.
“They’re fine,” he said. “What I’m getting at is, how is… ah… your own Baby Fever?”
“Oh. That.” She flung an arm over her eyes, blocking the sunlight. “It passed. I got over it. Guess it wasn’t important. So much for undeniable shifter instincts, huh?”
He was quiet for so long she thought he’d hung up. With a sigh, she lifted her finger to end the call.
But he said, “Sophia. Jess and I will be there tonight.”
“No, I told you—”
“You aren’t drinking alcohol, are you? You usually go through bottles of wine in the weeks leading up to your rest.”
“Not a drop. I can’t stand the stuff. It’s the funniest thing. I never throw up, but lately I feel sick every morning.”
Derry snorted. “For a trained nurse, you’re kind of slow, you know that?”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ll let you think about it after I hang up,” he said. “See you soon, dearest.”
Before the phone went quiet, she sat up, spine straight, and gaped.
No. It couldn’t be.
It was over. Zach hadn’t heard the Beat. She’d left, and he’d let her go.
“A baby?”
Maybe… just maybe…
Cradling her stomach, she collapsed onto the sofa and stared at the broken chandelier until she drifted into a restless sleep.
Answering the doorbell in his underwear, smelling like a frat boy after a three-day party, wasn’t the best way to impress the new delivery guy from the Greek restaurant up the street, but Zach didn’t care. Much.
And a big, fat tip always made up for the rest.
For longer than was decent, he’d been holed up in his tiny little studio, a sinus infection and sore throat rendering him useless. No amount of binge-watching on Netflix made a difference.
Besides, all those superhero shows and movies he used to love? Now he couldn’t watch them without comparing their powers.
To his own.
The souvlaki and spanakopita took the edge off his hunger as he shoved old take-out containers off his desk and made room for new, propping his feet up on the corner of his bed, turning on the first episode of Jessica Jones. She had superstrength, but the villain had mind-control powers.
“Hmmm,” he said aloud, grabbing a sticky piece of baklava, “can I control minds?”
Laughing as he chewed through the first delicious bite of dessert, he found himself looking around at the squalor.
“Shit,” he said as the credits to the show began. “I can’t even control my garbage.” A thousand white puffs of used tissue littered every surface, the floor, the end of his bed, like water lilies on a tiny lake of dysfunction.
He was pathetic.
Sick. He was sick.
Of all the powers that damn shifter serum had given him, you would think that being impervious to everyday viruses would be one of them, but no. Ears clogged, nose dripping like a fire hose, sinuses pounding, Zach had spent the past week with a bad case of what his mother used to call the “mansick.”
What should he label this? Wolfsick?
He’d come home after shifting in front of Sam, prowling the streets of Boston and Cambridge for hours, finally finding some freedom along the banks of the Charles, terrifying joggers and barely getting a raised eyebrow from street people. Memory was a funny beast, giving him pictures and shadows to string together when he tried to recall his time as a wolf.
He had glimpses. That would have to be enough.
His doorbell rang, the quick, perfunctory sound of a package being delivered. Knowing if he left it too long there was a chance it would be nipped, Zach grudgingly threw on a T-shirt he found on the floor, shoved his feet into flip-flops, grabbed his keys, and slogged his way to the main door of his building.
Three packages with his name on them.
Ah, the joys of two-day free shipping.
Bored out of his mind, he’d found himself in a strangely delirious state lately, thinking about children. Babies, to be exact. He blamed the birth of Gavin and Lilah’s twins. Holding those babies felt like being given a ticket to admission into a whole new world.
Returning to his apartment, he set the packages down and located a knife to cut through the tape. Making quick work of it, he found himself five minutes later with his purchases lined up on his bed, the boxes flattened and ready for recycling.
A baby rattle in the shape of DNA.
A set of cloth stacking cubes that flattened to become the periodic table of the elements.
A baby snowsuit that looked like a little bear.
And a stuffed animal that was— Wait a minute.
A stuffed animal version of E. coli?
Frowning, he looked over the items, swearing he’d bought two of each for the tw
ins, wondering where in hell the E. coli had come from. Meant to be a gift to the new parents, he’d one-clicked, thinking he would, well…
He wasn’t quite sure.
Zach didn’t think about children in general. They just weren’t part of his life. He had no kids of his own. No siblings. No cousins. When he saw them playing in parks or eating in restaurants, he thought of them like any other being. Part of the tapestry of life, they were small versions of humans who had personalities and ideas but who simply hadn’t had enough experience yet to be independent.
They just… were.
And now he couldn’t stop thinking about them.
“Where’d I put the packing slip?” he muttered, finding himself talking aloud more and more. His phone buzzed as he rifled through the boxes. He ignored it. Likely, Sam was trying to reach him again. Something about tests. He was hunkered down and had no desire to interact with anyone.
Except Sophia.
He stared at the bear snowsuit.
Where had that come from? He’d ordered little wolf suits.
And the E.coli? He picked up the small, oval, brown thing with little dangling pieces, chuckling to himself. A stuffed microbe was a great way to introduce his baby to the world of biology, but—
Hold on.
His baby?
Dropping the toy like a hot potato, he buried his fingers in his hair, staring hard at the items on his bed.
What was happening to him?
“I need to watch a show,” he said, quickly plopping down in his desk chair, grabbing another spanakopita. He wiggled the computer mouse, and the screen with the Jessica Jones credits suddenly changed, instead going to a landing page of suggested movies.
“What the…?”
Look Who’s Talking?
Boss Baby.
Baby Boom.
Knocked Up.
Breaking Dawn.
“Fuck that!” he growled, jumping to his feet, storming off into his tiny bathroom. The shower was a triangle, built into a corner, and by the time he was stripped naked and under the still-cold water, he was ready to punch something.
Himself.
The water warmed up, the steam making him cough. As he took in a deep breath, one of the first he’d had in days, he worked his way through his standard cleaning ritual. Hair first, body second, the soap like a lover’s touch, too frothy and lush to stop him from closing his eyes and letting himself remember Sophia’s lips, the sweet spot between her breasts, how her calves felt around his ribs, the way her pussy tasted against his tongue.
He groaned, shoving his face in the spray, letting sensation drive him to oblivion for a few blessed minutes.
Or seconds.
It wasn’t much time before images of Sophia filled him again, this time a montage behind his eyelids, one filled with her in moments of defiance, of strength, of power. He loved every inch of her when she stood up to her brothers, to him, to convention.
Shutting the water off with a flick of the wrist, he toweled off furiously, rushing into jeans, a cotton turtleneck and wool sweater, and socks and shoes. Being fully clothed, with freshly washed hair and skin that wasn’t covered in body odor was a change.
He sneezed.
Too bad showers couldn’t cure viruses.
Opening his front door, he patted himself down to make sure he had what he needed. Keys. Wallet. Phone. He was ready.
More than ready.
Wolfsick? Mansick? No.
He was lovesick.
And there was only one cure for that.
Time to go take his medicine.
Chapter 17
She was still curled up on the sofa, attempting to fall into the deep sleep of a hibernating bear shifter, when Derry and Jess arrived at her apartment around midnight.
I’m going to have a baby.
The truth of it rang through her thoughts like a song, keeping her awake. At some level she had known for days, maybe weeks, but Zach’s absence had blinded her.
I’m going to have a baby.
Alone.
The happy family unit she’d seen in Montana—Gavin, Lilah, Cordelia, and Tobias—would not be hers. It would be just her and this life growing inside her, the only part of Zach she could keep.
Because she had thoughts like these, her face was splotchy from crying when she opened the door and succumbed to Derry’s embrace. The bear hug of a bear shifter. She wrapped her arms around her brother, inhaling his familiar scent, and pressed her snotty nose into his chest.
“I’ll make tea,” Jess said, stroking her arm.
Sophia sniffed. “Hot chocolate?”
Derry stroked her hair. “With extra chocolate.”
Smiling through her tears, Sophia pushed away and looked up at him. “Good call. Jess has taught you well.”
She heard Jess picking up the empty cartons of ice cream and putting them in the trash. A little embarrassed, Sophia went over to help clean up, but Jess waved her away.
“Go on,” Jess said. “Rest on the sofa. We’ll take care of everything else.”
Sophia stopped herself from saying they couldn’t take care of what she really needed. If fate wasn’t strong enough for that problem, well-meaning relatives didn’t have a chance.
“So, I hope you’ve figured it out by now,” Derry said, ushering her to the sofa.
She sat. “Don’t patronize me.”
Derry grinned. “There, there, little sister sweetums. Those little baby-making hormones are making you feel a teeny bit crabby-wabby, are they?”
Not a court in the land would blame her for kicking him the balls, but she settled for a punch to the stomach. “Try me,” she said through her teeth.
He grunted and doubled over. Then, laughing through his tears, he collapsed on the cushions next to her. “Gavin and Lilah send their love.”
“And the babies are doing great,” Jess called from the kitchen. “Ariana has made herself the unofficial nanny. She’s a natural with them. Sweet girl.”
Once again Sophia fought down jealousy. Gavin and Lilah had everything; she had nothing. She would have to do this all by herself. She was a reject, a pitiful loser.
“Fuck me,” Sophia muttered. She couldn’t think like that.
“Sexual intercourse led to your current predicament, dear sister,” Derry said. “Perhaps you should take a hiatus.”
This time she did aim for his balls, but he was sitting down and so was able to pull up his knees in defense quickly enough.
“Get out,” she said. Derry laughed.
Jess appeared with the hot chocolate. On a tray, with a chocolate brownie on the side.
“She can stay,” Sophia muttered, reaching for it. “But you’re out of here, McDermott.”
He only laughed and reached for her brownie. Jess, now Sophia’s favorite relative, reached down and dragged him away.
“I’m just trying to cheer her up,” he protested.
“Behave yourself or you will have to go back to our place and sleep alone tonight,” Jess said.
To Sophia’s amusement, Derry recoiled with more horror than he had when Sophia had almost kicked his precious genitals. Then he turned to Sophia, put his hand on his heart, and bowed. “Anything I can do for you, my dear?”
“Sit down and shut up,” Sophia said. She took a bite of brownie, waited a moment for the chocolate to hit her bloodstream, and sighed. “Thank you for coming.”
“We’ll help you any way we can,” Jess said.
Sophia looked at her and felt a surge of love. It was going to be fine. She had family, she had massive financial resources, she had her own personal strength of will, character, and body.
She could do this.
“There’s only one thing I ask,” Sophia said finally.
Derry had his phone out. “I’ve already instructed my broker to corner the chocolate brownie market,” he said, typing on his screen. “Should I tell her to go for ice cream too? You had a few empty cartons in your kitchen—”
Jess
swatted his shoulder. “What is it, Sophia?”
“Don’t mention him. You know who I mean. Just— I don’t want to hear his name. I need you to pretend he doesn’t exist.” Sophia shoved the last bite of brownie in her mouth. “Got it?” she asked, spitting crumbs. “He doesn’t exist.”
“No problem,” Jess said. “Whatever you need.” She looked at Derry, who was still looking at his phone. Now he was frowning.
“Swear it, Derry,” Sophia said.
He looked up. Then looked back down at his phone without a word.
Jess poked him. “Derry…”
“I’ll do my best, but it’s going to be difficult.” He held up his phone. “According to Manny, Mr. Unmentionable is on his way upstairs right now.”
Until he was halfway up the stairs to what he assumed was Sophia’s apartment, he hadn’t realized he was carrying something in his hand.
Looking down, Zach frowned. Deeply.
When had he purchased two pints of Double Chocolate Penetration ice cream?
And why was he suddenly prone to making purchases subconsciously? Between the baby items he’d ordered online and now this ice cream, he was starting to think Asher Stanton was right.
He was nothing but an experiment, one whose results could not yet be confirmed.
Derry Stanton’s voice filled his ears, though he was only at the base of the stairs to Sophia’s apartment building. A flutter of voices, like butterfly wings on a breeze, began to chatter in the background of his mind as he walked quickly past a burly man in a suit. The guy didn’t make eye contact, but Zach knew.
Bodyguard.
His trip to see Sophia was never going to be easy, but now he realized it was about to get more complicated.
Deeply complicated.
Steeling himself for confrontation, he avoided the elevator and went up the stairs, the added movement good for pumping up his confidence. As blood coursed through him, warming quickly and in contrast to the frozen treats he carried, he no longer braced himself for the face-off with Derry.