by Jade Alters
I gave him a weak smile. Usually Stone and Hale’s banter was pretty entertaining to watch from the sidelines, but little could distract me from focusing on Jess right now. If Hale was being light-hearted as an attempt to take his own mind off of it, it clearly wasn’t working. When he sank down into a dining chair again, his sigh was so heavy and world-weary that I barely recognized the sound of it.
“We’re gonna have to schedule this meeting.”
“With her?”
“Uh-huh.”
I nodded slowly, considering. “Blake’s call, of course.”
“Sure,” he agreed, as respectful of his alpha as any pride member could be. He always was when it really came down to it and mattered, however hard they played during the good times. That was one of the things I admired most about Hale. He always knew when to draw the line; he was just really good at pretending he didn’t. “I’ll talk to him when he gets back. Don’t worry.”
It was reassuring to have a plan — but having seen the downtrodden look on Jess’ face just now, telling me not to worry was like telling a fire not to burn.
Jessica
Is there any chance you could be pregnant?
An hour after Doctor Gray left the cabin, her question was still ringing in my ears. I wasn’t some naive kid. Of course, I knew that unprotected sex could lead to pregnancy — and, with a flush of guilt, I knew it had been unprotected with all four North men. In the spur of the moment, that had felt like the right and natural thing to do. Now, if this was true?
The thought had me freefalling.
For one thing, I wouldn’t know who the father was. For another, there’d be no chance of keeping my intimate moments with all four men a secret any longer. If they didn’t already think I was cheap and easy, they probably would now. Even worse was the thought of sowing discord amongst this tight group of men I’d come to love so much. They worked so well together as a unit. Was I about to screw it up because I couldn’t keep it in my pants?
I had made my excuses with Preston and Hale as soon as Doctor Gray left, heading back to my room for ‘rest’. The pregnancy test she’d left behind for me sat on the countertop in the bathroom, intimidating in its sleek and clinical packaging. I’d never even taken one before. It scared me to think that this tiny cardboard box contained a stick that could change the rest of my life.
Well — no. That wasn’t true. The test would just tell me the consequences of my own actions. Everything I had done was on me.
If any of my friends had come to me with this problem, I’d have fiercely insisted that they were only halfway to blame — if that. It took two to tango, after all.
Well, in this case, it had taken five, and I had no sympathy to spare for myself.
The longer I left it, the worse I was going to feel. Already I could practically feel the box’s presence behind me when I turned my back; if I actually tried to sleep as I’d told Preston, I’d only end up lying there with my eyes closed imagining all the horrible possibilities. The anger and the hurt. What a horrible beginning for a new life.
Swallowing hard, I headed into the bathroom and closed the door behind me.
I knew you weren’t supposed to stare at the thing while it developed. I knew it took a couple of minutes; I knew that watching it would only make the time pass more slowly. Still, I couldn’t bring myself to look away, as though I’d blink and miss it. As though the result would disappear before I could see it.
Since it was impossible to distract myself with completely unrelated thoughts, instead I tried to soothe myself. For one thing, I loved babies. I had always imagined myself as a mom one day — just not quite yet. Besides, in my daydreams, I’d always known exactly who the father was.
Okay, except that one time I imagined Chris Evans and Chris Hemsworth fighting over me, but… that barely counted. And this was real life.
What else? Well. Some couples tried for years to get pregnant, even when they badly wanted it. You had to have sex at the right time in your cycle. Had to be fertile. A whole host of other things that I couldn’t remember. I remembered my friend Natalie trying a whole load of crazy superfood shakes to try and coax her body into a more fertile state.
I hadn’t done any of that. I’d been stupid, and let my desires run away with me without thinking about where it might lead. Surely, I could be forgiven for that. Surely the universe wouldn’t…
I swallowed, and a pit formed in my stomach.
A line was fading into view — unmistakably, even when I blinked rapidly to dismiss any tricks my eyes were playing on me and pulled it closer to examine it.
I was pregnant.
My lip trembled. Moments later, I was curling over the edge of the toilet bowl retching. Fear clenched my stomach so tight I couldn’t hold it. I was assailed with a train of frantic, accelerating thoughts. The impossible pain of childbirth, which I had always feared I’d never be ready to bear. The panic of having to identify the father. The thought of being abandoned; the thought of not being abandoned, and breaking up this family in the process.
I didn’t know what to do with myself. When I finished vomiting, I slumped to the floor, head tipped back against the cool porcelain tiles, and dabbed the tears out from under my eyes with a shaking hand.
I should have expected this. Doctor Gray had a knowing look in her eyes as soon as I falteringly answered her question. Clearly, it matched all my ‘symptoms’. No wonder I’d been feeling especially morose about my situation with the North men recently. Some subconscious part of me knew exactly what I was walking into.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath — then quickly concluded that it wasn’t deep enough. A problem like this needed cool, fresh air. Not technically what the doctor ordered, but… well. The vitamin supplements wouldn’t be arriving for a while. I just had to make sure that Preston and Hale didn’t see me. Right now, I figured I’d break down the second any of them looked at me — let alone spoke to me or insisted I needed an escort outside. I couldn’t bear sharing the truth with them just yet.
Hell. I could hardly bear it myself.
I swallowed, forcing myself to calm down for the few moments it would take me to sneak out of the cabin. Maybe this was one more stupid idea in a series of stupid ideas, but being trapped in this room with my thoughts wasn’t going to help me either.
I listened at the door. There were no footsteps in the hallway. If I strained my ears, I could hear the shower running in the boys’ room. My ears blushed deep red, plunging me into a graphic memory of what Hale and I had done together in there. Why did it still turn me on, even now? Even after I knew what was happening to me? Ignoring my rapid heartbeat, I closed my eyes and tried to focus. Okay, so one of them was in the shower. And the other?
Right on cue, I heard the sound of the TV buzzing into life. I couldn’t make out the words, but it sounded like a newscaster’s voice. Hopefully, that’d keep Hale-or-Preston sufficiently distracted while I made my escape. At least they wouldn’t be expecting this. If they were, I wouldn’t stand a chance of getting by them.
I stowed the test away in the bathroom cabinet, not wanting anybody to walk in on it by accident. Tying my hair up into a quick topknot, I slipped out into the empty corridor. The shower was running, and the TV still blaring. With my footsteps light, it wasn’t too difficult to make my way to the back door and quietly unlatch it. Only when I was outside did I let out my breath, but the next breath in was exactly as calming and restorative as I had hoped. With the sun beaming down on me and that breeze lifting the loose strands of my hair, I felt like I might be able to handle this. At least, I’d find a way.
After all, I did have one lucky factor I hadn’t considered yet. Every single one of the North men would make an excellent father. Blake’s stern strength and quiet kindness would help keep any unruly child on the right path. By contrast, it wasn’t hard to picture Hale pitching up the world’s biggest and coolest pillow fort — or Stone reading a nightly bedtime story, complete with enthusiastic charac
ter voices and sound effects. Preston’s thoughtfulness and individuality would set a perfect example for a child to follow their own path, and be mindful of their choices.
My heart throbbed. At the center of all this, no matter how much I panicked or paced, was a new life. Already, I knew that the options of terminating the pregnancy or giving the baby up for adoption were completely out of the question. Though I’d only just learned it existed, I already felt a deep connection between us which I had no intention of severing.
I just wondered which other connections I’d be severing in the process.
I looked over my shoulder as I reached the woods, wanting to make sure I kept the cabin in sight. I didn’t want to go out far. After all, I knew what we were here for. Occasionally I still had startling moments in otherwise pleasant dreams when armed men broke into the cabin to hurt us. Even the memory of it was intense enough that I lifted my hand to my stomach, feeling instinctively protective.
My stomach flipped. This wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it was scary to know that my entire life would now be pivoting to something new — that part of my old identity would fade away to be replaced by a whole new name; Mom.
Wait. What was that?
I froze, hearing a rustling in the trees. It sounded too heavy and deliberate and focused to belong to the breeze, but now that I had stopped in my tracks, the only sound I could hear was the birdsong around me. Then, a beat later, a fluttering as those birds took off into the afternoon air.
Silence again. I could practically hear my heart beating. Just as I had convinced myself that I was hearing things, I heard a branch snap a couple of meters away. As my head whipped around to identify the source, I felt movement behind me — but when I tried to scream, it was too late. A gloved hand had already clamped down hard over my mouth, dragging me backward into the bushes and much, much further away from the cabin and the North men than I had ever hoped to be.
Blake
Alarm bells started ringing the moment she didn’t answer a knock on her door. No matter how down or unwell she had been over the past few weeks, Jessica had never been unresponsive — never hidden away from us. We hoped that she had just fallen asleep, but she had been a pretty light sleeper before.
I frowned, poised in front of her door. Down the hallway, a group of three uneasy North men looked back at me. The tension had been sharp enough when we had just decided to tell her the truth this evening; now, this silence behind the door was more than we were equipped for.
“Should we go in?” Preston suggested. “Is that invasive? Shit.”
I knocked again, a little louder this time. “Jessica. Are you okay in there? We’re worried about you.”
When she didn’t answer this time, I decided it was time. I glanced at Hale to be sure, waiting for his approving nod before I tried to open the door. It swayed open with almost no pressure at all — and showed us an entirely empty room behind it.
Stone didn’t wait a second to start looking around the cabin. “Jess?”
“She said she was going for a nap,” insisted Preston. “I swear that’s what she said.”
“She couldn’t have gone far,” I said, comforting myself as much as him. It was true, after all. She didn’t have a vehicle or shifter speed; if she had left the cabin, it was impossible for her to be out of our range. She wouldn’t be unsafe for long — not on our watch.
Now it just remained to be seen why she’d left in the first place. Frankly, that almost concerned me more than the fact of her absence. Whatever had been off about her for the past few weeks had either gotten badly worse, or morphed into something much more dangerous. Should we have revealed the truth to her sooner? I wasn’t sure. I still wasn’t convinced that it would make things better and not worse, but we had to try.
“Scent outside,” Stone called. Without waiting, we all followed him outside. I could feel a sense of dread mounting between all four of us — not least because Jessica’s scent wasn’t the only one we detected on the wind.
“Alright,” I said. “Stating the obvious, but spread out. Find a trace. We follow as soon as we’ve got a firm direction. Use whichever form is most suited; this is no time to be shy about it.”
“Just don’t scare her,” Stone pointed out, and I nodded my approval.
“Right. Four lions sprinting at her full speed is not going to help the situation, so let’s bear that in mind. Otherwise, just stay in contact. We’ve trained for worse.”
There was no time to waste on a long monologue, and we all knew it. As much as we’d like to believe Jessica was somewhere safe out here, the reality was that there was no safe place in these woods. Over the days and weeks, the traces of their overconfident brethren’s corpses had stopped scaring them so much. While they hadn’t tried attacking the cabin again just yet, they seemed to sense we were getting close. Seemed to be circling in to try and intimidate us.
It would be easy for Jessica to walk too far from the perimeter of the cabin without realizing it. Last week, Hale had spotted them within sight of the walls, and—
“Here,” Preston called. I followed the sound of his voice, shifting to whip through the dense shrubbery and old tree-stumps that peppered the ground here. As soon as we were all there, he sensed us and nodded down at some scuffed footprints in the dusty dirt. “Looks like a struggle. I’m pretty sure that’s her footprint over there, leading up to it.”
Is there a scent? I asked
Over here. Hale tossed his head, drawing our attention to a fresh pathway that had been hacked unceremoniously through the undergrowth. Same iron they use for their weapons. Hint of her perfume. This is it.
Go ahead, I directed — but the order was unnecessary. Already, all four of us knew what to do. Preston joined us in his paws, running at full speed through this hacked-up walkway through the woods. Figured that they wouldn’t respect the nature around them any more than they respected human life.
Or shifter life, for that matter.
It didn’t take long to realize that Hale was exactly right. The metallic tang of their weapons grew stronger at every hacked branch, and every time the breeze blew back our way, it carried a hint of Jessica with it. We were heading the right way.
We’re coming, Jessica.
We slowed to a quieter pace as a group, falling back into the thick woodlands to avoid being seen. A minute later, we heard voices. Heads lowered, the deep sandy color of our bodies kept us coolly camouflaged against the dirt and dust — blended in by shadow. We would have to be careful, but with luck they wouldn’t see us until we were right up close. Until we could overtake them in a heartbeat, and make sure nothing happened to Jessica in the interim.
It was difficult to know, in the heat of the moment, whether I’d made the wrong decision in bringing her here. This clearly wasn’t a safe environment, as much as we had tried to make it one for her sake. Of course, if we hadn’t hired her, we may never have met her, and the thought of that alternative was a sharp stone under my paw — but I also couldn’t bear the guilt of having endangered her like this. If anything had happened to her…
Hey, Hale said, pressing in. Gone was the lighthearted teasing of his usual in-mind interruptions. Now, he was all business. You’re beating yourself up. I’m not looking; I can just tell. We’ve got this, okay? We’re going to find her.
We have to. I tossed my head, slowing my pace as the scent got closer and closer. We had reached a part of the woods we hadn’t scooped out yet, with the trees packed in close together and the floor thick with discarded leaves and needles. Visibility was low here. They’d picked a good spot.
Alright — standard formation. Ears open. You all know the drill.
At my command, the four of us fell into our places like the well-practiced unit we were, neatly diverging off in our separate directions without the need to hesitate or ask questions. Most of the time, this made our paramilitary work a lot easier. Right now? It just might save our One Mate’s life.
We heard their voice
s as background humming at first — sharp arhythmic buzzing that sounded like nothing in particular. As we got close enough to make out individual words, the pitch changed. Another voice.
Her voice.
Easy, I said, warning myself as much as the rest of them. Hold formation. Don’t rush in.
I can see a campfire, said Preston. Surrounded by a thicket of trees. Pretty large fire.
Space for… what? Ten men? I asked.
No, many more. This could be their main encampment.
Stone flashed in with agreement. Agreed. I’m beginning to see defences. Palisade walls. Preston’s right; this is their base.
If they were correct, then this was a fight we weren’t properly prepared for. There was a reason we hadn’t just run out and explored these woods quickly and without care; we had to be methodical and well-informed so that we could stand on the best possible footing for the inevitable fight. Right now, their decision to take Jessica had backed us into a corner. We only had half of the picture here, and the limited amount of equipment we had brought with us when we ran out.
We were going to have to think on our paws, but we had no other choice.
Anyone hazard a guess as to which side they’re keeping her? I asked.
We fell into each other’s minds, quickly comparing the clues we all had. With our information shared, we knew that her voice was loudest for Hale — that they must be keeping her on the far side of the encampment.
I’ll close in on this side, he confirmed. Follow in.
Copy. We’ll move in closer. Just keep your distance, I reminded them all. We don’t have the firepower to back us up if this goes south. Got to even the playing field first.
Most of the time, working jobs like these was just second nature to us. We dealt with some of the most dangerous and amoral individuals the government could send us to meet, so engaging the enemy was never a moral hardship. Right now, though? I could feel that all four of us had hearts pumping full of angry, protective mate’s blood — that the hate we felt for these assholes, whatever their number, had somehow intensified. They were extremists putting the country at risk, yes, but those crimes felt somewhat distant right now. It was secondary to the fact that they had put Jessica in danger. Treated her like some kind of bait or prize.
