by J. L. Wilder
Fiona inhaled sharply. “How?”
“Just by paying attention.” He sounded miserable. “They saw us go off into the woods together one too many times, I suppose, and then they guessed. They know me too well.”
“What do you mean, they know you too well? This can’t possibly be something you’ve ever done before.”
“No, I’m not saying that,” he said. “I just mean they know that I wouldn’t go off into the woods with you without taking someone with me or letting someone know where I was going and when to expect me back if I was actually afraid of you. It let them know that things weren’t as they seemed. That I was hiding something.”
“And you couldn’t make up a lie?”
“I tried,” he said. “I couldn’t come up with anything they’d believe. I had to send them away, or they would have acted weird around the others, and then it would only have been a matter of time before the truth came out.”
She sighed. “We have to stop this, don’t we?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I mean, yes, logically, we do, but...I don’t know if I’ll be any good to the pack if I’m trying to resist you at the same time, Fiona. It’ll be all I can think about. You know?”
“I know.” She felt the same way. Even now, even in the face of this new problem, she was already working her hands beneath his shirt again. “It’s like you’re a drug,” she whispered, pressing her forehead to his chest, inhaling the scent of him. “You’re terrible for me, and I know it’s all wrong, but...I have to keep going. Quitting would wreck me in a way I’m not equipped to deal with right now.”
“Yeah.” He was loosening her pants. He pushed them down past her knees, turned her around, and entered her easily, weighing her breasts in his hands. “I’d be a mess without you. People would definitely notice that...oh, yeah, fuck, do that again.”
She repeated a roll of her hips and he moaned happily, curling his body over hers. He cupped a palm between her legs, and for several minutes the conversation stalled as they lost themselves in each other.
Once they were sated, Owen lowered them both gently to the earth, pulling Fiona close so that her head rested on his shoulder. She knew they were going to have to resume their discussion soon—they would have to figure out what they were going to do—but for now, she couldn’t pass up the opportunity to lay here with him, to smell the scents of the woods and listen to the wind in the leaves of the trees.
She never felt closer to her wolf self than she did during sex.
What must it be like for Owen? she wondered idling, tracing her fingers across his broad chest. What’s it like to be a bear? Does he experience the world the same way I do? Does it feel the same for him, reaching inward, finding his wild side?
Someday she would ask him. Someday, but not today.
“What are we going to do?” he asked her.
She sighed. “We can’t stay away from each other.”
“No,” he said. “We really can’t.”
“And we can’t come clean to the rest of our packs.”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” he agreed. “Joel and Damon were pretty pissed when they confronted me about it. The last thing we need is for everyone to blow up at us. It could destabilize us, and we need to be unified right now. We’ve got a battle ahead.”
“That’s why you sent them away, isn’t it?” Fiona asked. “You didn’t want to destabilize things.”
“I didn’t know if our packs would be able to continue working together if the truth came out,” Owen said. “They’re barely managing it now. And also...I thought it would be bad for us as leaders. It might be hard for us to maintain control.”
Fiona nodded. “You have a good point. I’ve worried about that too.” What would Percy say if he knew that she was fucking the Wild Grizzlies’ alpha, if he knew that she was so addicted to him that she felt unable to stop?
It would confirm all the worst things he and the others had ever thought about women in the alpha role.
SHE EXPECTED THAT THINGS would settle down as the days went by and people got used to the fact that two of the bears had gone home, but they didn’t.
The bears seemed unable to grow acclimated to their new surroundings. Fiona had asked Carla to try to get to know the two girls in Owen’s pack, Riley and Nova, hoping that the three women could find common ground, but Carla returned from each effort to talk to them looking surly and uncomfortable.
The physical training sessions were going fairly well, Fiona thought, but she had no way of knowing for sure. She had never fought with bears before. She didn’t know anything about their style. But more to the point, they still refused to shift for their training sessions.
“They’re not going to know who’s who when we get into battle for real,” she complained to Owen. “They won’t know which wolves are us and which are the Feral Fangs. That’s how people get hurt. They need to get used to seeing us in that form.”
“They don’t trust you in that form,” Owen said. “And I don’t blame them. I hardly trust you in that form.”
“Come on, be serious.”
“I am being serious. Wolves can kill bears.”
“And bears can kill wolves. And humans can kill humans by sneaking up on them in their sleep. If we were trying to kill you, it would have come to blows already.”
“I don’t know,” Owen said. “We’re all a lot closer to our baser selves when we’re in animal form, right? Resentments could flare up. It’s not safe, not for any of us.”
“We’re going to have to try eventually,” Fiona said. “If we don’t, none of this is going to work.”
“Okay,” Owen said. “You go first. You stay human, and we’ll shift.”
“You know I can’t ask my pack to do that.”
“You see the problem.”
“I’m not asking you to stay human!”
“Listen, we’ll get there,” Owen said. “Give it a few more days.”
But the next morning, Fiona woke up feeling as if she were underwater. The flu, she thought unhappily, her stomach roiling. Even the thought of Owen’s body brought her no pleasure today. She pulled the pillow back over her head and tried to fight the nausea that was swimming through her.
Eventually, she fell back into a cool and blissful sleep.
When she woke again, the sun was high overhead. Carla came into the room bearing a tray of soup and a can of soda. “Hey,” she said quietly. “Do you think you could eat?”
“How did you know I was sick?”
“You told us this morning. You don’t remember?”
“I guess I was really out of it, huh?” She reached out to accept the tray, finding as she sat up that she felt quite a bit better.
“Yeah,” Carla said. “We were worried. Even Owen was worried.”
Fiona almost spat out her sip of soda.
“It was weird,” Carla said. “He’s barely spoken to anyone all day. Maybe he thinks Percy is going to run him off our land if you’re not around to interfere.”
“That must be it,” Fiona managed.
“You look like you’re feeling a little better, though,” Carla said. “You’ve got some color back.”
“Yeah,” Fiona said. “I think I’ll be up for dinner.” In truth, she felt a little bit pathetic for having spent the whole morning in bed. It was clear to her now that whatever was wrong with her had been no big deal, and that she had overreacted.
At least I was able to sleep it off, she thought as Carla left the room. If I’d been laid up long term, Percy probably would have told the Wild Grizzlies to clear out.
As it was, though, the only thing she had lost was a morning of training. Well, that and an opportunity to steal away with Owen. She hadn’t felt up to it this morning, but thinking of him now stirred her to her core, and she knew that she really was on the mend.
I wonder what was wrong with me? she thought. Food poisoning? But if anybody else had gotten sick, Carla would have mentioned it. And I didn’t eat
anything the others didn’t.
The flu? Maybe. But if it had been the flu, she had gotten over it remarkably quickly, even for a wolf.
But what else was there? What else could it have been.
She took another sip of her soda.
And almost choked as the truth hit her like a ton of bricks.
She tried to process the math in her mind as quickly as possible, running the numbers again, hoping each time that they wouldn’t add up in the way that she already knew they would. But she might as well have wished for wings. As soon as the idea had occurred to her, she had known it was right. There was simply no other explanation that accounted for her symptoms.
And God, she had no one to blame but herself. She had spent so much time worrying about being caught in what she was doing that she had put all her energy and focus into that side of things. She had been endlessly careful. She had told herself that over and over. Careful not to be seen. Careful not to be followed. Careful not to make too much noise. Careful not to give anything away in conversation when she spoke.
Well, she hadn’t been as careful as she should have been. She had overlooked one very important safety measure.
And now—there was no denying it—she was pregnant.
Pregnant with the baby of an alpha bear.
She let her head fall into her hands, despairing. Could this get any worse?
Chapter Thirteen
OWEN
The fact that Fiona was sick was a distraction Owen couldn’t seem to get past. It was highly inconvenient—he needed to be focusing on training the packs, getting them ready for the coming fight. He was the only alpha in the field today, and though they didn’t seem to like it very much, the wolves were at least listening to him.
They weren’t the problem. He was the problem. His thoughts lingered upstairs with Fiona, worrying over what might be wrong with her.
I’m being incredibly stupid. So he hadn’t been able to drag her into the woods today, or be dragged there by her. What was one day? She would no doubt be better tomorrow. Shifters healed quickly. And Owen imagined they’d have great sex to make up for the day off.
So what was he so worried about?
He brooded, walking through the forest alone after hand to hand combat was finished, finding his way to familiar places he had visited with Fiona. The truth was, he was worried about her in the same way that he would have worried if a member of his own pack had been sick. Not because he wanted something from her, but because he wanted to know that she was all right.
Do I love her?
The thought appeared in his head unbidden, and he shied away from it—to fall in love with a member of the Hell’s Wolves would be terrible, destructive and damaging, and to fall for an alpha would be unproductive when it came to building the strength of his own pack. To do both at once...
Well, he wouldn’t have blamed Damon for trying to overthrow him.
But as soon as he’d had the thought, it had felt true, right, like a puzzle piece slotting into place. He was restless and worried today because he cared for her. He wanted to know that she was all right.
He was overwhelmingly relieved, therefore, when he came back to the house and saw her sitting on the porch steps, staring off into the distance. She was still a bit pale, and he suspected she was still on the mend. But she was up and about.
Of course, that solved only one of his problems.
She was healthy, but that didn’t help with the fact that he was maybe, probably, almost definitely falling in love with the worst possible person he could have fallen in love with.
What am I going to do? he thought, anguish tearing at him as he made his way across the yard and toward the porch. I can’t tell her. I can’t tell any of them. I’m just going to have to keep it to myself until the fight is over and our pack can head back home.
The thought of going home with his pack, of leaving Fiona behind, made him sick to his stomach.
I wonder if there’s any chance she would come with me? But that was a stupid thought. Of course she wouldn’t come. She had her own pack to look after, and one of the things he loved best about her—it was becoming easier and easier to use that word—was her loyalty to them. He admired how protective she was of them, even when they gave her no reason to be, even when they challenged her authority at every turn. Even when she had had to do battle just to win her rank in the first place.
She only ever wants what’s best for them, he thought. She doesn’t want to be alpha because she craves power. She wants it because she knows she’s the best possible alpha for the Hell’s Wolves. And it was for that same reason that she would never be persuaded to leave them behind.
So that option was out. But what if he were to leave his pack? What if he let Damon take over, as Damon so clearly wanted to do, and stayed with the Hell’s Wolves?
It was a painful thing to consider. He hated the idea of stepping away from his family. He didn’t want to do it. But the idea of losing Fiona was equally painful. He felt as though he was being torn in two.
I can’t decide this anyway, he realized. The Hell’s Wolves might not want me here. They might refuse to have me on their land, in their house. Fiona’s alpha, but if it makes her pack unhappy, she’s likely to go along with what they want. And I would never try to stay with her against her wishes.
He felt miserable. Was there no good solution, then? Was he just doomed to be unhappy?
Stop being dramatic. You’ll get over it. She’s just a woman.
She looked up at him and gave him half a smile, and he felt his stomach turn over. He wondered if she was feeling any of the things he was feeling, or if it was all him. “Are you feeling better?” he asked solicitously, trying to distract himself from the millions of other questions racing through his mind.
“A bit,” she said.
He nodded. He wanted to tell her that he had been concerned for her, that he had been distracted all day, that he hadn’t been able to keep his focus on anything important. He wanted to sit down beside her and put his arm around her and tell her how worried he’d been.
He wanted to ask her if she felt any of the things he was feeling.
But he couldn’t.
They had to keep things strictly business, especially where other people could see them. And even in private, he didn’t think he would dare to confess his feelings. Not yet, anyway.
So he swallowed hard and force his mind to other things. “Hand to hand combat went well today,” he said. “I think they might be ready to try shifting soon.”
She looked up at him. There was anxiety in her face, and it twisted something deep in the core of him. He wanted to ask her what was wrong. But she would tell him if it was something he should know. He needed to keep a distance.
God, it was all he could do to stop himself from running to her side.
“Do you think so?” she asked quietly.
“Maybe,” he said. “Maybe if we go two at a time, you know, so things don’t get out of hand. One wolf and one bear. Practice bouts. And everyone who’s not involved in each bout can watch and learn. We can also get to know your wolf forms—your coloring, your markings—so we’ll know who’s on our side when the real fight starts.”
She nodded. “That’s a good idea,” she said quietly.
“Is something on your mind?” He hadn’t meant to ask the question, but it spilled out before he could stop himself. “You seem...I don’t know. Distracted. Upset.”
She looked up at him, and he could see that her eyes were brimming with tears. He ached to embrace her. But they were right in front of the house. Anyone could see them here.
“Do you want to go for a walk?” he suggested. “Talk privately?”
She worried her lower lip between her teeth. “I don’t know if that’s the best idea,” she said finally.
“Is something wrong?” he asked.
Before she could answer, though, the front door swung open hard. It banged against the wall of the house, then swung close
d, shuddering in its frame.
Percy had emerged. He stood now, arms folded across his chest, glaring daggers at Fiona.
The sound of the banging door had caused her to jump about a foot, and now she stared up at him. Owen was surprised to see that he knew her well enough to read the expression on her face. She was nervous—Percy’s anger had caused her anxiety to spike. But she was trying to stay under control. To maintain her authority.
“Percy?” she said. “What’s going on?”
“Maybe I should be asking you that,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“Did you think I wasn’t going to find out?” he asked. “Did you think you could keep it from all of us? You must have known we’d figure you out eventually. You’re not stupid, Fiona.”
Fiona glanced back at Owen. “Maybe you should let us talk alone,” she suggested.
Owen was only too happy to excuse himself, but Percy shook his head. “I’m pretty sure this involves him too, but tell me if I’m wrong.”
Fiona was white as a sheet. “What do you think you know, Percy?”
“You know what I know,” he said. “We share a bathroom, Fiona. Were you even trying to keep it a secret? Or has your brain just evaporated that much? I hear that happens to women in your condition.”
“What are you talking about?” Owen snapped. He was beginning to feel really angry. How dare Percy talk to Fiona like this? He itched to defend her, but he knew that if he tried he would undermine her authority over her own pack. She wouldn’t thank him for that.
Percy jerked his head toward Fiona, as if he were talking about someone who wasn’t there. “She’s pregnant,” he said.
“What?” The words didn’t make sense. Owen didn’t understand what he was hearing.
“She’s pregnant,” Percy said. “She left the test right on top of the garbage. It was like she wanted to be found out.” He glanced back at Fiona, his face wrinkled in disgust. “She’s the only woman who shares my bathroom. It has to be hers.”
“Fiona?” Owen asked.
She wasn’t looking at him. Her eyes were fixed on Percy’s face. She didn’t look angry, Owen realized. Just troubled.