by Jade Alters
I run wildly, once tripping badly on a rock and hitting my knee hard on a boulder. I clench my teeth and get to my feet and stagger through the woods around the flame, keeping my eyes peeled for Hope.
When I see the giant cat collapsed on top of Walter and the mess of blood around them both, my heart leaps, and just as quickly, seems to collapse in my chest.
They’re both dead, I think at first.
Max runs up beside me and wastes no time, rushing over to check Hope’s pulse and then Walter’s.
“She’s alive!” He says. “She’s breathing! Walter is dead.”
Max and I shove Hope off of Walter’s body in one big push. She’s covered in blood but we quickly discover it’s not hers.
She ripped Walter to shreds. The horror of it is surprising, and I find myself unable to hold back a little smile. It’s been easy to forget how strong Hope is. None of us are shifters. Our power has been learned and hardwon. But Hope is born to it. Seeing the aftermath of her panther at its strongest and most enraged is an eyeopener.
But I must admit, it makes me love her more.
The fire is encroaching on them, it’s nearly about to singe Hope’s tail. It takes all three of us to move her, and even then, we have to spell each other with some enhancement. It’s too bad that whatever knocked her out didn’t also make her shift back. We exert every bit of strength trying to move our very heavy cat through the woods and away from the fire.
“We can’t get her all the way to the car,” Jared says, stopping when we’ve reached relative safety. “We gotta try to wake her up.”
We try several different spells for general unconsciousness. We hear sirens from the fire engine approaching, and my hands start to shake as we stand there, mumbling recitations, channeling all our energies into the panther lying there bloody in the woods. We have to get out of here before the firefighters show up. We can explain ourselves on our own, but explaining why we’re doing magic spells on an unconscious panther several feet from a man who’s been ripped to shreds would...be a difficult story to tell.
With no warning, Hope jerks awake, her cat’s eyes comically wide. She shakes her big, furry head a little.
We’ve been spending so much time with Hope lately, but she’s only showed us her panther once just before when she went on a run in the woods. I was awestruck by her beauty. She’s bigger than a regular panther, but her big, amber eyes are hypnotic. I’ve had dreams of curling up at night with Hope as a panther. Who doesn’t want to cuddle with a giant cat who you know won’t eat you?
Now she staggers to her feet, getting her bearings, but all at once she shifts back into her human form.
I run to her first, throwing my arms around her. “Hope! Sweetheart, are you alright?”
She’s still covered in Walter’s blood. She looks like a walking horror movie, but she only nods firmly and says, “Yes, yeah. Walter—"
“He’s dead,” Jared says, meeting her eyes.
She looks shocked by that and looks down at her trembling hands, her nails caked with dark red blood. “Oh…”
“C’mon, baby,” Jared says, taking her gently by the hand. “We gotta get out of here now.”
Hope nods and we all hustle to the car, practically taking her off her feet, we’re in such a rush to get out of there. We give the front seat to Hope who sits back in her seat. She’s shaking and staring straight ahead as the Charger bumpily pulls out of the forest, and then peels off down the road with a squeal of tires.
“I’m glad he’s dead,” she says quietly. She takes a breath and pushes a lock of hair behind her ear with one bloodied hand, and I make a promise of myself never to get on Hope’s bad side.
Max
I should have stayed. I should have been there to protect Hope. I should have tried harder to protect her and then maybe…
My thoughts are racing all the way home. It’s over and we’re safe and he’s dead. No one’s going to know it was Hope who killed Walter. They’re going to chalk it up to a regular animal attack, and the world will be down one less evil wizard. Hope is safe. She’s not even hurt. She’s rattled, sure, but by the time we get home, she seems remarkably calm.
“I want to stay at your house tonight, okay?” She’s talking to Jared and her eyes are wide. She still has Walter’s blood caked around her mouth. She’s frightening to look at.
“Yeah, of course,” Jared says.
“I wouldn’t mind some of my stuff,” she says softly.
“I’ll pick it up,” Dylan says. “Let’s get you to the house, and then I’ll go pick up whatever you want from your house, okay?”
Hope nods mutely at that just as we’re turning onto the bumpy little road that leads to our place. I think she was in shock before, but now she just seems quiet. When we get out, she pauses for a moment, standing on our lawn and rolling her neck. I still fully intend to give her a good once over. I want to make absolutely sure that none of that blood belongs to her. I also think we should scan her for any residual weird spells other than the unconsciousness that Walter may have cast before he died.
Jared comes up behind her as she stands there in the grass. It’s dark now, but I see the moonlight making her eyes shine. He sets a hand at her back, just an affectionate little gesture of support, and she smiles at him as we all go inside.
“I need a shower,” Hope says, heading upstairs. “I have never needed a shower so badly.”
“No kidding!” I say, following her. “I’m coming with you. I want to check you over.”
“Okay, good.” She actually looks relieved at that. She might not be in shock, but I think she’s a little afraid of being alone right now.
I follow Hope up to the master bathroom, and when we get there, she toes off her shoes. I help her take off her top that sticks to her body because it’s so caked with blood.
“Does anything hurt?” I say softly.
“No...I feel a little sick though.”
“Yeah?” I frown at her. “We’re going to give you a once over for any stray spells.” I rest the back of my hand on her forehead. “Don’t feel feverish. Is there anything else?”
“No...I’m just—” She shakes her head. “It probably has nothing to do with it. Could be food poisoning.”
“Well, we’ll make sure.”
I help Hope strip down and it’s a little strange to see her this way. She’s smaller than all of us. She seems smaller naked, but all covered in gore and blood, she also looks like nobody you would ever want to mess with. I turn on the shower to get it hot, and she takes a deep breath. She catches sight of herself in the mirror. Even her hair is matted with mud and blood from the woods. She chuckles at herself and shakes her head before stepping into the shower, and I leave her to it, collecting her bloody clothes. I put them in a bag and take them out to the laundry, though I’m not sure they’ll be salvageable.
I feel like I want to pamper Hope. I know we all do. I poke around and find a fancy body lotion that was too floral for Dylan who had bought it for himself and set it on the counter. I clean a hairbrush and leave it out. I put out the biggest, fluffiest towels I can find and a clean bathrobe. Dylan’s already on his way to her house, and it won’t take more than a minute to collect something for her to wear. But a robe will do for now. We did get a new toothbrush for Hope for when she’s over, and I make sure that’s out too.
“Are you still there?” Hope says through the shower.
“Yeah!” I call out. “Still here.”
“Okay.”
She takes a good, long hot shower and when she’s finally done, I help her out. She wraps her hair up in a towel. “Are you sure you’re not hurt?” I murmur. “I want to examine you.”
“I’ll bet you do,” she says cheekily.
“No, really!”
“I know.” She nudges my shoulder and stands on the shaggy bathmat, naked and dripping. “Examine away. Just hurry up, I’m getting cold.”
Hope is always quite distracting when she’s naked, to say th
e least. But I put on my EMT hat and disconnect from the part of me that’s turned on by my lover. She’s got some superficial scratches and scrapes and a few bruises, probably from hitting the ground either in the jump from the car or when she tackled Walter. But there’s certainly nothing to write home about, and I heave a deep breath of relief, handing her the robe to dress in.
“You’re good,” I say, nodding. “But I still want to scan you for spells. You say you’re feeling queasy.”
“Yeah, I felt a little sick yesterday morning too, but I didn’t—Oh!” She ducks her head and covers her mouth, making the universal expression for “I need to puke.” She shoves me aside, running to the toilet and flips up the seat before throwing up. It’s certainly nothing to me, a part-time medical professional. I rub her back and murmur soothing words. I’m worried though. Who knows what Walter may have hit her with?
“Do you know what this is?” I ask her. “Can you think of anything weird that you ate? Is there any chance—”
She stands up, rubbing her mouth, and shakes her head. She heads to the sink and rinses out her mouth a few times, and I flush the toilet as she brushes her teeth. I catch her eyes in the mirror. She’s so cute with her towel twisted on top of her head, drowning in that big robe. I’m probably smiling at her pretty dopily when her eyes get abruptly big, and she meets my gaze in the mirror, her mouth foamy with toothpaste.
“Oh my God,” she says flatly.
“What?” My eyebrows raised. She looks so alarmed. But not scared exactly. “Sweetheart? What is it?”
“I’m…” She shakes her head, smiling softly. “Oh...boy.”
“Hey, what is it?” I come up next to her and wrap an arm around her shoulders and she looks at me in the mirror.
“I’m late,” she says. “With everything going on, I didn’t really think about it, and ya know, sometimes you’re—But I’m...two weeks late. Could I be—"
“Yes,” I whisper, hardly able to breathe. “Holy shit.”
“Yeah.”
“You’re sure?”
Hope gives me a disbelieving look and rinses the toothpaste from her mouth. “I’m not like clockwork really, but I’m more regular than this, and it’s two weeks. And it’s not like we’ve all been, ya know, so careful.”
“Right, right…” I take a deep breath. I find myself hoping it’s true, but I have no idea how she would feel about it. But maybe it’s better to save that conversation for when we’re sure. “Okay...how about, I’ll go to the drugstore and pick up a couple of tests?”
“Okay,” she says, nodding. “I’ll tell the others.”
“Okay,” I say. I laugh out loud and clear my throat. “You want me to go now?”
“Yes!”
The five of us are all crowded around the little white stick sitting on the counter in the master bathroom. I couldn’t quite read everyone’s expression when I got back with the pregnancy test, but I’m pretty sure everyone is hoping that it’s a yes and also that Hope is happy that it’s a yes. I’m actually bouncing on my toes, watching the seconds tick by on my phone. We haven’t even spoken in several minutes, and I don’t remember time ever having passed this slowly.
“Is it time yet?” Dylan whispers.
Hope is dressed in her favorite comfy blue jeans and sweatshirt. She nudges him, rolling her eyes. “Not since the last time you asked, sweetie. Couple more minutes.”
“Would the baby be a shifter?” Freddie says, his head cocked in question.
“Probably,” Hope says, smirking. “Our genes are really strong.”
“That would be awesome,” Dylan says.
Hope smiles at that which makes me think maybe she could be happy about this if it’s real. I would’ve suspected a weird Walter spell, but we’ve already scanned her. It ate up some of the time for the pregnancy test. Hope came out clean, to my relief. Walter officially has no hold on her at all.
Phew.
“It’s time,” Hope finally says.
We all look at each other. The stick is sitting on the counter across the bathroom, and we let Hope do it. She pads over to the sink, and we silently watch her in the mirror as she picks up the stick. She stares at it for a moment, and we all glance at each other nervously.
“Two lines,” she says softly. “I’m pregnant.”
We all kind of gasp, but we watch Hope, waiting for some kind of reaction.
Abruptly, she bursts into tears.
Oh no.
“Oh no…” Jared runs up to her and throws his arms around her. “Are you okay?”
“No! Yes! I mean, I’m happy!” We see now that she’s grinning as she clutches him, sobbing on his shoulder. She pulls away, wiping her eyes. “I didn’t know how I felt about it. But I’m so happy right now! I want this! Wait, what about you guys?”
We all sigh in relief. “Sure, we do,” Freddie says quickly. “We just weren’t sure how you’d feel about it.”
“I’m excited!” Hope says. “Oh, but...what about school?” She looks heartbroken then, and we all crowd around her, all four of us attempting to fold her into our arms at once.
“You’re still going to school,” Jared says firmly. “If you still want to—"
“I do.”
“Then we’ll figure this out,” Jared says. He has a way of speaking so calmly that it makes you feel better almost immediately. “There are five of us. I’m sure we can make this work. We got you, baby. We got you.”
Hope
I didn’t know this is what I wanted until I got it. Maybe that’s the way things go with a lot of things in life. I didn’t know I wanted four guys all to myself until I met them either.
Now I find myself even more excited for the future. Freddie insists on a celebration dinner, and he returns from the store with enough food to feed an army. He makes a seafood pasta dish that’s so rich, it takes me forever to eat. It’s only as I’m sitting down and digging into Dylan’s famous Caesar salad that I realize I can’t have wine with dinner. No alcohol for a while.
Ooh. That stings.
But there’s too much other stuff to be happy about, and it’s amusing me just to watch the boys all lit up like a string of Christmas lights as they talk about turning the storage room next to the turret room into a nursery and how they’ll have to baby proof everything. I just sit back in the antique dining chair (reupholstered and refinished courtesy of Freddie) and bask in the glow of my four guys as they get all fired up about the idea of being fathers.
I was worried about the idea of juggling school and motherhood, but we had a long talk about it and checked out the website for the school I’m thinking of attending, and I think we’ll be able to swing it. I’m thinking I’ll be quitting Cafe Amour eventually though, but with the guys’ collective salary plus income for my house when I start renting it, I’m not worried.
“Oh wait,” Freddie says, jogging up to the dining room table. “I haven’t done any research on what pregnant women can eat yet. Can you have this much seafood? What about the mercury? What about—"
“Freddie,” I say calmly, smirking up at him. “I’m sure it’s fine. We’ll get into diet stuff soon enough.”
“No more coffee,” Max says darkly.
“Oh man,” I say, smiling to myself. “You guys are going to be insufferable about this pregnancy, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” Jared says, slapping his hand on the table. “We apologize in advance. But we are absolutely going to be insufferable.”
“Well.” I can only shrug at him. If they drive me crazy being over-protective, at least I know it all comes from love. I also know I can more than take care of myself. Handling Walter taught me that. “Bring it on, I guess.”
“Oh, we will,” Dylan says from across the table, wagging his eyebrows.
Freddie actually takes a little more convincing before he’s assured that I can eat his pasta dish. It gets so bad that all I can do is sink my head in my hands and laugh silently as Max gives him a long lecture on why me eating five shrim
p with spaghetti a few weeks into my pregnancy isn’t going to hurt the baby. By the time he finally sits down and we’re all eating, my eyes are teary from laughing so hard. I have to stuff some bread in my mouth so Freddie can’t tell I’m laughing at his expense.
It’s when we’re down to dessert, digging into Freddie’s attempt at tiramisu, when Jared suddenly says, “Oh!”
Well stare at him and he sighs, rubbing his face, and chuckling to himself. “I just realized something.”
“Do tell,” Max says.
“The pregnancy probably broke the spell,” Jared says. “We never figured out what broke it, but that was probably it.”
My mouth drops open. The thought pleases me. My future kid is already pulling their weight. That was nice. “I have heard that shifter babies can have a lot of magical energy in the womb,” I say. I sit back in my seat and reflexively rub my tummy. I like the thought of my little panther wizard kitten in there helping out mom.
“Powerful enough to break a spell like that?” Dylan says in surprise. “That’s wild.”
“It might have been the combination of the pregnancy and our bond as fated mates as well,” Jared explains. “Kind of made a big magical stew of benevolent forces that protected you so strongly it broke the spell that was causing you so much emotional turmoil.”
“Nice to have an explanation,” I say wryly. “I do like that better than not knowing what broke it.”
The next day, both Dylan and Freddie start talking about the baby “stuff” we’re going to need. They insist we all go out to a baby store, and I can’t believe how my big, tough wizards turn into cooing, soft-eyed dads at the first sight of a onesie with ducks on it. It’s amusing though, but more than that, it makes my heart swell in my chest to see my mates positively euphoric at the idea of being dads to our baby. Jared’s also very focused on not forgetting the school factor just in case I’m worried about it.
