Brida Pact

by Leora Gonzales

  Handing her a refilled glass of water, he walked over to the computer and waved his bracelet. The system told him he had one message and he quickly asked for it to play. His shoulders had stiffened so she figured he was anxious to make sure that he wasn’t being called away yet again. The voice that came over the speaker wasn’t a fellow Council member, though; it was Hannah.

  “Wheaton, I figured that you would be back late and wanted to let you know that I am going to go ahead and go to bed. Don’t worry about waking me up when you come to bed, just try not to turn on the light or steal the covers again. I was cold last night,” said a voice that sounded more like a wife letting her husband know she couldn’t wait up for him than just a mere roomie.

  He turned around to walk back to Poppy with a swagger but she was still processing what she’d just heard.

  Putting her hand out to halt him in his tracks, she couldn’t hold in her reaction any longer.

  “What the fuck!” she yelled at Wheaton.

  “What?” he asked, perplexed.

  “Don’t you ’what‘ me! Are you sharing a bed with Hannah?” she asked, hoping that his answer would be “of course not”.

  “Well…yes. What is the problem?” he answered, confusion evident on his face.

  “Wheaton, we have a big problem. You’re sharing a bed with her. That is not okay. Not. Okay,” she repeated.

  “The apartment only has one bedroom, Poppy. I am unsure why you are angry,” he said with a shake of his head.

  “Because we are together, Wheaton! Have you fucked her?” She could hear herself losing her shit and tried to breathe through her nose to calm down. What she really felt like doing was pitching the glass that was still in her hand at his head.

  “No, we have not had sexual relations.” Hands held up as if in surrender, Wheaton moved closer.

  “Have you messed around with her? Kissed her? Touched her? Has anything happened other than sleep, Wheaton?” she bit out, now furious.

  The guilt on his face made her stomach drop. Oh dear Lord, she might puke. Turning to the kitchen bar, she placed the glass down calmly. Walking through the bedroom, Poppy understood her next stop was to be the bathroom. Locking the door quickly behind her so he wouldn’t see her toss her cookies, she leaned over the toilet and breathed heavily. Stomach turning to acid, she tried to concentrate on calming her nerves.

  Wheaton hadn’t realized that Poppy would have such an emotional reaction. Yes, he had kissed Hannah. At the time, Hannah had argued and explained that maybe he was feeling closeness to Poppy because she had been the only available female. He knew that was not the case but Hannah seemed insistent that he test her theory. He kissed her and quickly proved that it was not true. Kissing Hannah had been like a shaking of hands. Cold and unemotional with no stimulation sexually. Wheaton could actually say with a certainty that he’d felt more emotion by simply speaking with Poppy than he had felt when kissing Hannah.

  “Poppy? Poppy, open the door.” The doorknob jiggled. Poppy checked quickly to make sure she’d engaged the lock firmly.

  “We need to talk face-to-face…open the door please,” he pleaded.

  “Fuck you, Wheaton. Fuck. You,” she cried out, not being able to stop a sob. Feeling that the nausea had passed, she stood up straight and moved to the sink. Splashing water on her face, she tried to stop her tears.

  “Poppy, it is not what you think. Open the door, little flower, and let me talk to you.” Hearing him talk close to the door, she knew he was not going to leave until she let him speak. She opened the door so quickly he had to step back or get whapped with it.

  “Talk, asshole,” she bit out with her arms crossed in front of her.

  “Hannah kissed me. I did kiss her back.” Seeing Poppy’s face get even redder than it had been before, he rushed on, “However, it was more for the peace of mind that I had made the correct decision. I felt nothing for Hannah. No attraction. Nothing,” he explained.

  “Peace of mind? Are you fucking kidding me?” She walked over to the bed where just moments before she thought they had shared something special.

  “I wanted to make sure that my attraction and feelings for you were genuine.” At her look of disbelief, he continued, “Hannah said that I might have overestimated my feelings for you, since you were the only human woman whom I had been exposed to. She suggested that we kiss or touch to test the attraction, for both of us to make sure that what I feel is true,” he explained calmly.

  Poppy was having one of those moments where nothing made sense anymore. Before today, she’d had a goal. She knew what she was fighting for. But apparently Wheaton wasn’t sure if he should even be fighting for her, not if he felt the need to go around kissing people to “test their attraction”. Knowing that she was never going to be a pushover or a woman of weak will, she decided to make him see what she was feeling and there was only one way to do that.

  Walking over to find the nightshirt she’d thrown on the floor the previous day, she slipped it over her head. Snagging a hair tie off the nightstand gave her a few more seconds to figure out what she was going to say. Wheaton had not felt the need to get dressed and sat as naked as he’d been before. Sure that her face conveyed her feelings, she stared at him for a few moments, waiting for him to look her in the eye. When he finally made eye contact, she saw him flinch. Whether it was the pure anger and disappointment on her face or the tears that had dried on her cheeks, she didn’t know for sure, but he definitely flinched.

  “Wheaton…I want you to listen very carefully to me, okay?” She waited for his nod before she continued. “I’m going to repeat what you just said, so I know I didn’t hallucinate or misunderstand what happened.”

  Pausing, she stood a couple feet in front of him and laced her fingers in front of her.

  “You’ve been sleeping with Hannah in our bed. Yes or no?” Keeping her gaze on his, she waited for his reply.

  “Yes…but there is no other bed in the apartment. You are aware of this.”

  “Just keep it to ‘yes’ or ‘no’ for right now.” She held up her hand and closed her eyes for a second to hold back the tears she knew were going to start again once she said what was next.

  “You’ve kissed Hannah…yes or no?” She was unable to keep a tear from rolling down her cheek.

  “Yes, but…” His voice halted when she held up her hand in a stop motion.

  “The reason you kissed Hannah was to test your feelings for me…yes or no?” she continued.

  “Yes…it seemed like a logical plan,” he argued.

  “Okay, now that we’re both clear on that, I have one more question.” This was the one she didn’t want to ask, because it could seriously break her heart.

  “Other than that one kiss, have you been intimate with Hannah or touched her in an intimate way?” Poppy didn’t want to meet his eyes but knew she would need to when she heard the answer. Holding the stare of the green eyes she had come to love, she whispered, “Yes or no?”

  Realizing what Poppy thought had happened made Wheaton feel about ten inches tall. Did she really think that he would have sex with someone else? Did she have so little faith in him that she expected he would be given a new bride and forget about the one he wanted?

  “No,” he said clearly, hoping that she believed him.

  Poppy felt relief it had gone no further, but she needed to drive her point home, especially since he was giving her the hurt-puppy-dog face right now as if he’d done nothing wrong. Now was the part where she made him realize what she’d felt when he dropped the Hannah bomb.

  “Using your logic, I should be able to test my own attraction with other warriors to make sure that my feelings for you are real. Yes or no?”

  Boom. She saw what he felt the minute he realized what he’d done. His eyes got huge and his mouth dropped open as if he were stunned. He took a step toward her and gripped her arms as if getting ready to give her a good shake.

  “No!” he shouted in a voice that made her wince. I
t seemed Wheaton couldn’t help but feel intense rage at the thought of another warrior kissing his woman, but Poppy kept talking, not caring he was about to lose his mind.

  Feeling a calm that wasn’t actually there, she asked steadily, “Why not?”

  Keeping her arms in his strong hands, not squeezing, just restraining, he stood stock-still. His mouth opened a couple times as if he had the correct answer to her question but was unable to say it. After what seemed like a lifetime, he slowly released her arms and took a step back.

  “Because it would hurt me to have you kiss someone else,” he whispered in a raw voice. She saw the understanding on his face and wanted to make sure he knew how much his actions had hurt her.

  “Wheaton, it hurt me for you to even doubt what we have. When we made love the first time, I was showing you how I felt. How committed I was for this to work. The fact that you felt you needed to even ‘test’ that hurts me. It makes it worse that you decided to do that with Hannah, the bride Demascus the Douche seems to have handpicked for you.”

  Wheaton nodded in understanding, obviously still reeling from the idea of Poppy kissing another male.

  “We are going to make a list of deal-breakers, okay?” At his confused expression, she pushed him back until his knees hit the bed and he sat down. Sitting beside him, she held out her hand and started counting off items that would cause her to call this whole thing quits.

  “First off, no cheating. If you ever cheat on me in the future, we are done.”

  She waited for him to nod.

  Nodding quickly, he said, “Agreed.”

  Holding up another finger, she continued, “Second, no abuse…mental or physical. Don’t fuck with my head and play games, and I won’t do it to you.”

  “Agreed,” he repeated with another nod and took the hand that she was counting off her fingers on and linked his fingers with hers.

  “Poppy, are you going to test your compatibility with other males?” he asked in a rough voice, the thought clearly making him sick to his stomach.

  Then, before she could even answer, he continued with an angry shake of his head and a squeeze of his hand.

  “No. You will not. I will kill any male that comes near you.” He bared his teeth. “Part of me wanted to pull Behyr’s arms off and beat him with them when I saw you both smiling at each other,” he admitted.

  Taking her free hand, Poppy cupped his cheek. She realized that this big, stupid man had made a mistake and finally figured it out. Leaning forward to give him a hug, she basked in his closeness again.

  Poppy sniffed through her now-stuffy nose. “You aren’t off the hook yet, big guy. I am still disappointed in you for having doubts.” Rubbing at her nose, she gave him a serious look.

  “And I am pissed the fuck off at that bitch, Hannah. She’s a human woman and would know how much that kiss would hurt me but also how that message sounded. I have a feeling she wanted me to hear it.”

  That quickly, Poppy’s emotions shifted from sadness to anger. Jesus, it felt as if she were going through every single emotion in the world today. From complete bliss when finally able to see Wheaton, then sadness, anger, confusion. Anger at the other woman was clearly winning in the emotional wheel of fortune. She definitely needed to have a sit-down with Hannah the Whore, and hopefully it wouldn’t end with her pulling out every single strand of her silky blonde hair.

  “There will be no more sleeping in the same bed. You should have been on the couch or the floor the first night the problem came up. I don’t care how uncomfortable it is.” Seeing he was going to argue, she continued with what she knew would make him understand.

  “Can you imagine how you would have reacted if you had found another warrior in my bed? Even simply sharing the same space? When Behyr found out I was pregnant, he didn’t want me to spend my nights alone in case there was an emergency. It took quite a few talks to make him understand I didn’t need him monitoring me during the night.”

  Breathing out heavily, Poppy said, “From now on, when you come across a situation like this, I want you to ask yourself one question.”

  “What is this question?” he asked.

  “The question is, ‘How would I feel if Poppy was in my place?’ Get it?” she said with her brow raised.

  “I believe so,” he replied with an expression of mild confusion.

  “Okay, let me give you a ‘for instance’… Ask yourself how you would feel if I shared a bed with another warrior. A warrior who had been assigned by the Council as my new mate?” she asked with an innocent smile, as if she didn’t know what his reaction would be.

  “I now ‘get it’.” His face was murderous as he responded to her question.

  “Good.” Taking off her nightshirt and throwing it back on the floor in the corner, she turned to face him.

  “Now, let’s go to bed. We have an early appointment to see Wheaton Jr. tomorrow morning.” Walking over to her side of the bed, she glanced behind her to see Wheaton watching her ass sway with every step.

  “And no nookie. You’re still on my shit list for a bit,” she pointed out.

  Giving her a disappointed but understanding grimace, Wheaton lay down beside her and hugged her close. As he snuggled up to her back and put his hand over her belly, he whispered to the top of her head. Unable to hear what he had said, she adjusted so she could see his face.

  “What?”

  “I said I am sorry I fucked up. Is that the correct wording?”

  “Yes and yes, you did fuck up. I’m still angry but I understand you work on logic and not feelings so you get one free pass. Don’t fuck up again, because we’ll have problems if you do. I won’t be able to forgive and forget a second time. No matter how much I love you.”

  Making sure that her words sank in, she leaned up to give him a quick peck. “Now go to sleep, big guy, we have a busy morning and I am emotionally done with today.”

  As Wheaton hugged her close and tried to relax, he thought to himself, Thank your god for second chances.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The next morning, Poppy woke up completely entangled in Wheaton’s arms. First thing she noticed was how hungry she was. She’d missed dinner last night when Wheaton had surprised her at the door. Squeezing out from underneath the arm and leg he’d thrown over her, she made a pit stop in the bathroom before heading to the kitchen. If there was ever a day that called for pancakes, it would be this one. When the food generator beeped, she pulled out her plate, prepping one for Wheaton as well. Hearing him stir in the bedroom, she peered through the doorway to see him pulling on a pair of pants beside the bed.

  “Babe? I have breakfast ready once you get cleaned up, and then we need to head to the medical unit,” she called out.

  “Let me use the facilities and we can eat before we go back to the other apartment. I will need fresh clothes before my meetings today,” he called back.

  Taking a moment to enjoy the flavor of her pancakes and chocolate milk, she wondered if Hannah was going to be at the apartment when they stopped by for clothes. She didn’t necessarily want to have it out early this morning, but she also knew that until she spoke with Hannah, she would keep thinking about the shenanigans the blonde had tried to pull.

  Wheaton joined her and before sitting down at the bar, he leaned over and kissed her.

  “Good morning, little flower,” he said, giving her another kiss, and then licked his lips. “You taste good.”

  “So do you. Now eat. We have lots to do today and the guys asked me to get to the medical unit before it gets busy this morning. They want me in the regen bed before the warriors need it,” she said with a smile, loving how his eyes lit up at the mention of the med center. She was just as excited to get more information on her pregnancy.

  Quickly devouring his plate of pancakes, he didn’t speak much other than mumbles of “so good” and “I have missed these”. When his plate was empty, he helped her clean up and then went to get her shoes from where they’d been kicked off the
night before.

  “Let me help you, love,” he murmured, holding them up for her to slide her feet into them. Patting his shoulders before he stood up, she ran her hands through his shoulder-length hair. Giving the strands a tug so he would tip his head back, she stared into his eyes.

  “I love you, Wheaton.”

  She held her breath, unsure if he would respond to her declaration.

  “I feel love for you too, Poppy.”

  Hearing the words come from him made her eyes well up with happy tears. Hoping he truly understood what he was saying, she leaned down for a quick kiss. He ran his fingers under her eyes to wipe away the tears that had spouted. “These are not sad tears, correct?”

  “No, these are very happy tears. Very happy tears.” Smiling widely, she puckered her lips for another kiss.

  “No more kisses, woman! I want to see our baby and those lips will lead to us being late.” Pulling her to her feet, he swatted her butt before ushering her quickly out the door.

  Poppy played through different scenarios in her mind. Her nerves were amped up with the thought that she would be able to finally speak to Hannah. This could go either of two ways. She could be calm and collected. Letting Hannah calmly know she was on to her tricks and it wouldn’t be happening again was the first option. Option two consisted of her jumping on the tramp like a spider monkey, taking out her aggression on her perfectly coifed hairstyle. Hoping she could act like the sensible person she was, she would take route one over a brawl in their old apartment.

  Once at Wheaton’s apartment door, Poppy tugged on his hand for him to wait for a moment. Taking a few breaths to calm herself, she pasted on a fake smile and then nodded at Wheaton to go ahead and open sesame.

  The apartment was pretty much like it had been the night she’d left. There were papers on top of the coffee table, most likely Hannah’s since Wheaton used his tablet for everything. Other than that, no personal touches had been made to what she still considered her home.