Accidentally Were?

by Anne Douglas

  And that was the last question she remembered asking herself until morning rolled around.

  * * * * *

  Rex made his way quietly out of Pearl’s bedroom and to the kitchen, where he found the coffeemaker, the elixir of life known as fresh coffee, and all the fixings for a dose of reality.

  He’d woken up this morning still wearing his half-on, half-off clothing from the night before, and wrapped around Pearl like she was a favorite childhood toy that the boogeyman had threatened to pinch. Then, the memories of his actions in his beast skin from the night before slammed him upside the head like they were a baseball bat and his head was the ball ‑‑ in high-definition color, no less.

  So turned on by their foreplay, he’d fucked ‑‑ there was no way that could be called making love ‑‑ the hell out of Pearl on her hallway table, and for the first time, a woman’s scent had aroused his beast so much, it’d forced his change. But that hadn’t been the half of it; he’d stalked her, stalked her, into her bedroom then boxed her in so she couldn’t escape.

  He’d totally lost it.

  Now he had to figure out how to apologize.

  Rex remembered her coffee as being creamy when they ate out, but unsure if she always preferred it that way, he found a tray and placed on it two mugs of freshly brewed coffee, the dainty sugar bowl he’d found in the fridge, and a little jug that he’d found with the other cups and mugs and filled with milk. He winced when the pair of spoons clanged together as he dropped them to the tray.

  He was just about to head back to the bedroom when a low, canine growl erupted from behind him, followed by a series of yaps that became muffled as a set of sharp doggy teeth buried themselves deep into his ankle.

  “Holy fuck!” The tray slammed back down on the counter, hot coffee hit his hand, and Rex heard himself scream embarrassingly like a girl. The ball of fur attached to his ankle stayed with him as he turned. “Get off me. That’s my ankle, you mutt, get off me!”

  “Vlad! Vlad, no! Leave him alone, Vlad!” To make his misery complete, Pearl came flying around the corner after her words and grabbed the snarling ball of viciousness that’d attacked him. Pearl snapped him on the nose with her fingertips and upbraided him again, “No, Vlad! Bad boy!”

  “What the hell is that thing?” Rex limped across the kitchen and flicked on the cold tap, shoving his burnt hand under the stream of water.

  “You’re the vet; I would have thought you could have figured that out. Though I’m the first to admit Vlad seems to have a rather dubious parentage, I’ve never quite figured out what he’s supposed to be.”

  “Dead meat, if you ask me,” he muttered under his breath, hoping the sound of the rushing water covered it up so Pearl didn’t hear.

  Behind him, the back door clicked open, and there was a scrabble of claws and a whispered doggy admonition before it shut again with a clunk. A small click, which he assumed was the lock being thrown on the doggy door, was followed by the hollow sound of the refrigerator opening, and he heard the rattle of ice in the tray as Pearl reached in.

  “Here, this will be better for the burn.” Soft fingers pulled his hand out from under the water and patted the area dry, and then she laid a small icepack over the burn. Pearl took his other hand and led him to the kitchen table. “Sit down so I can have a look at your leg.”

  He sat and watched as she reached up into a cupboard and pulled down a respectable-sized first aid kit.

  “So this isn’t the first time, huh?” When Pearl turned at his question, he nodded at the box of medical paraphernalia and tried to look stoic.

  “It doesn’t happen often, but he lives up to his name; quite a few of the strays that end up here don’t necessarily like it when you get too close. I’ve had to patch up a bite or scratch or two of my own, so I keep a decent first aid kit around.”

  She tsked as she lifted the leg of his pants to find a perfect set of puncture wounds on his leg. Vlad had missed his Achilles heel, but had managed to get a healthy grip on the lower part of his calf.

  “What do you mean, he lives up to his name?” Pearl sat on the floor wearing her dressing gown, mussed up hair, and Rex figured not a stitch more, and when she went a pretty shade of red, his cock twitched and showed much too much interest in the woman before him, considering the situation. “Pearl?”

  “Ahh, his full name is Vlad the Impaler.” Pearl buried her head, hiding, as she took a closer look at the wound and pressed a cotton ball soaked in antiseptic to the bite.

  Rex hissed as it burned, and barked out a choked laugh. “Someone named him after Dracula?”

  “I named him after Dracula; after all, he bit me first.”

  That made him frown. He loved animals, and he knew all too well that poor behavior usually stemmed from animals being treated badly, but a continual biter was only asking for trouble ‑‑ like animals that started hunting humans or dogs that started culling sheep and calves.

  Pearl looked up and saw his frown. “Oh, no, you don’t. Vlad is perfectly fine. He’s just protective. He saw a strange man in his house, and he went to protect it, and me, too. He’s very protective of his ‘harem.’”

  “His what?”

  “He’s top dog around here. The horses, the other dogs, and the cats know it; even the chickens know it, and they all love him for it. Any animal that comes along that I haven’t personally introduced to him, he’ll do his best to scare off.” With a soft pat, Pearl sealed off the pad she’d put over the wound and sat back on her heels. “Damn thing is, he does it, too. Seems in his world, his bark and bite are pretty damn big, and the others believe it.”

  When Pearl stood, her robe parted, and a rush of early morning lust flooded Rex’s system as a long, creamy leg was slowly exposed then hidden again as the fabric folded back over itself. Bitten, burned, and embarrassed, and I’m still acting like a horndog. How pathetic.

  Of course, that didn’t stop him trying to get another glimpse when the robe flared out as she turned back toward the bench.

  “Were you bringing coffee before you were rudely interrupted?” Pearl’s head dipped toward the slightly worse-for-wear tray. Figuratively putting his sensitive-man-needing-to-win-brownie-points pants back on, he nodded, noticing Pearl looked a little pale.

  “Yeah…are you okay, Pearl?” He frowned a little, his head tilted to the side as he contemplated her. “You’re not going to hurl on me again, are you?”

  “Well, I don’t plan to ‑‑ that’s why I’m standing by the sink.”

  Oh.

  “Any chance you could either drink the coffee in a hurry, or dump it outside and have tea instead? Yesterday coffee was good, but today it…oh God…” Pearl’s lips pressed together, and she spun around. Knuckles white, she clung to the edge of the bench and retched into the sink.

  Rex picked up the cups, careful not to slop them and burn his hand again, and threw his jumpstart to the day out on the lawn. He set the cups down on the bench, but well away from Pearl, and went to her side, scooping back her hair as he reached for the cold tap and set it running.

  “Seems like we’re both in the wars this morning.” There was a little soft, ironic humor in his voice as he spoke.

  Between dry retches, since she’d already lost what little she had in her stomach, Pearl managed to agree, “Seems like it.”

  A moment or two more and her stomach upset was over as fast as it began. Rex hooked his arms behind Pearl’s back and legs and swept her up into his arms. He marched out of the kitchen and back to the bedroom, and tucked her back into bed.

  “Tea and crackers?” He figured Were or human, the old wives’ tales standard for morning sickness would still apply.

  “Please.” Rex nearly smiled. Pearl’s sickened pleading was kind of cute ‑‑ not that he planned on telling her that.

  Cleaned mugs, sweet tea, and a plate of Ritz crackers later, Rex sat down on the edge of the bed and watched the color start to come back to Pearl’s cheeks.

  “About last night�
��” Rex swallowed his nervousness. “I’m really sorry about that; I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

  Pearl paused, a cracker halfway to her mouth. “No, you gave me a hell of a fright, especially with that whole mind-talk thing, but I never thought you were going to hurt me…” She looked everywhere but at him. “I did debate your intentions, though.”

  “Oh.” It took him a second or two to follow her hint to its logical, horrifying conclusion. “Oh, good Lord, no. Oh, no way, never. Skin to skin, or fur to fur, and never the twain shall meet…well, in my book anyway.”

  Pearl smiled at him, laughter twinkling in her eyes at his repulsion. He felt like he should go wash his mouth out with soap. Yuck, furries were not his cup of tea.

  “Sooo…does that kind of thing happen often?” Pearl’s brows rose as she sounded him out. Her pretty face was back to normal again.

  Figuring she was looking for reassurance, he made his voice firm, strong like there was no debating the issue. “No, definitely not.” Only to shoot himself in the foot when he followed up weakly, “Well, not that often anyway.”

  “Oh? Why’s that?”

  Rex had a suspicion he was somehow on the losing end of a discussion that he didn’t really understand.

  “It usually only happens when one of a Were couple gets too sexually excited. You haven’t changed yet to feel it, but it’s like we’re two halves of a magical whole. It’s not entirely organic. At times of extra high excitement, the magic seems to flicker, and the beast, with its much more simplistic and strong base urges, forces its way out.”

  “So, in other words, you were so desperate to fuck me last night that you lost it?” Only one curious brow was raised at him now, and when the corner of Pearl’s mouth crooked a little smugly, Rex finally figured out what he’d walked into.

  “Err…I guess, yes.”

  Pearl sat back into the pillows he’d propped up behind her earlier and sighed out on a self-satisfied breath, “Really?”

  Chapter Fifteen

  It felt weird to be sitting in the same spot again, quite a wicked sense of déjà vu, really. But Pearl had a feeling the answers she sought this time around were going to be a little less life changing ‑‑ for her and Rex, at least.

  For Vlad and Donkey, not so much.

  Two months previously, Rex had come to her with puppy dog eyes and pleaded Donkey’s case. He’d had no luck in finding the overenthusiastic dog a new home, and he refused to put such a happy-go-lucky dog down, so would she, with all her room, and menagerie of animals, take Donkey in?

  A sucker for a sob story and in the grip of pregnancy hormones ‑‑ which, courtesy of Rex digging out his medical books relating to Were-kind, she now knew a whole lot more about ‑‑ of course she’d agreed.

  Vlad had taken one look at Donkey the day she’d been dropped off and run out the back door. She’d been disappointed that it seemed the two dogs would not get along, but ten minutes later, Vlad had crashed back through the doggy door and laid his three-week-old, rotting beef shin bone at Donkey’s feet with a reverent, paws out front, chest to the ground bow.

  It hadn’t been ’til today that Pearl had questioned Donkey’s increase in food intake and Vlad’s overprotectiveness and thought to check a few things out. Donkey was rather rounder in the belly, and her stomach was extremely hard ‑‑ she also had no scars that would reflect she’d been spayed. Caught up in the changes in her own world, Pearl hadn’t thought to ask if Donkey had been fixed, and she knew Vlad hadn’t been neutered.

  But until Rex gave her firm proof, she wasn’t going to think about the irony of the situation. Not at all.

  * * * * *

  Half an hour later, the irony was all she could think about.

  “You’re certain? She’s really pregnant?”

  Appearing shocked by his findings during his hands-on examination, Rex had pulled in his portable ultrasound and triple-checked what his hands and eyes told him. “Seven heartbeats.”

  “Seven?”

  Pearl sat down on the consulting room chair with a thump and started giggling. Tears soon followed, along with large hiccupping gales of full-blown laughter.

  Rex hefted Donkey down from the table, and they both came over to her, identically cocking their heads to the side as they watched her. Donkey sank down on her belly with a solo, inquiring, “woof” and put her head down on her paws, while Rex hunkered down in front of her and took her hands in his.

  “Pearl?”

  “Do you not see the irony in this? You knocked me up, now my dog knocked your dog up. How fucking perfect is that?” Ignoring Rex’s shocked look at her use of the word “fuck,” she tried to sniff back the tears that were now flowing in earnest. “Donkey and I can be unwed mothers together.”

  Rex’s arms came around her, and even though she was still on the chair, he started to rock her against him, smoothing down her back with his hands and whispering quiet nothings meant to soothe her.

  “Pearl, what’s wrong, love? This is isn’t about Donkey ‑‑ even I’m not that much of a relationship dunce.”

  She sniffed, wiped the back of her hand under her nose, and washed over her eyes with her fingers, trying to get herself under control. “People are noticing that I’m fatter than normal…and the cashier at the supermarket suggested I might like her gym…and at work people keep looking at me funny when I have to do an emergency dash to the toilet ’cause I’m going to be sick…and…and we need to tell my daddy.” And that alone was enough to make her start crying again, never mind the rest of it.

  “Oh, Pearl, honey. Forget about those people. When they find out you’re pregnant, they’ll be the ones kicking themselves; and as for your father, yes, we should tell him.”

  “We should?” Well, she hadn’t expected that answer.

  “Yes, we should.” Rex stood and pulled her into his arms. He walked them one-hundred-and-eighty degrees around, then sat in the chair, pulling her onto his lap, his arms back around her as he pushed her head down onto his chest and carried on rocking her. “We are well into a viable pregnancy, and I think we two muck along well enough that we can safely say that being together will not be the end of the world. I think it’s time we started telling people.”

  “We should?” She knew they should, but after keeping mum for so long, it was kind of hard to grasp.

  “And I think that you should finally say yes.”

  “Yes? What am I saying yes to?” A finger under her chin bought her head up, and she stared into a very soft, caring pair of brown eyes and sniffed. To his credit, he didn’t even flinch.

  “Marry me, Pearl.” Those dark eyes were dead serious. “I’m tired of a night here and a night there. When I leave here I want to be with you, not at my lonely house, and I don’t want to worry about racing off early just so I can get home to change clothes before going to work. I want to tell everyone you’re having my child, and not have you believing people think less of you for not being married.” He paused, his lips gently covering hers and caressing them. His request was just a whisper over her skin as he asked again, “Marry me?”

  Red-eyed, snotty-nosed, and crying so hard she was hiccupping, and the man still proposed marriage. What’s to turn down? “Okay.”

  His eyes crinkled at the edges, and his lips turned up as he tried to stop the laughter that burst out. “Okay?” His lips took hers again with no gentleness this time. Staking a firm claim on her body, his arms pulled her in tightly and one hand wound its way into her hair, while the other slid under her shirt to stroke the soft skin at her hip before he pulled away. “Okay sounds damn good to me.”

  His eyes blanked out for a second, and one brow came down in a frown as he contemplated something. “You know I don’t practice medicine on humans, even though I’m trained, but most of the equipment I have is the same. Since I have the ultrasound here, would you like to take the first look at our baby?”

  “You can do that?” Pearl had never thought to ask him if he could do anything like th
at, and the Were-kind midwife she’d started seeing hadn’t yet scheduled her for a scan. “And it won’t hurt the baby?”

  “No, it won’t hurt either of you.”

  “We can really see it?” Now that he’d suggested it, there was no way Rex was getting out of the room without delivering the goods.

  With only a small “umph” as he stood, he rose from the chair and let her down by the metal examining table. Rex reached for the disinfecting spray then went over the table and the machine thoroughly, wiping it down since he’d just used it on Donkey. When the table was clean, Rex carefully lifted her up. Pearl scooched her butt back and swung around before she laid back on the cool surface ‑‑ the table was a bit short, so her knees dangled over the edge.

  Rex grabbed the bottle of blue gel from its spot on the side of the ultrasound machine and turned back with a maniacal grin on his face. “Now, my lovely specimen. Time for my experiment!”

  Right there and then Pearl realized she hadn’t said yes to Rex’s marriage proposal because society said she must; she’d said yes because she’d gone and fallen in love with the big lug.

  “Pull your shirt up, love, and get prepared to have cold, gooey, blue stuff smeared all over your stomach.”

  She smiled up at him, her upset tears a thing of the past, and looked over to the monitor. “Will you be able to tell the sex or anything?”

  “No, not at twelve weeks ‑‑ at least not with this machine ‑‑ but we should see a heart beating and some fingers and toes if I can get a good image.” Rex’s cheekbones went a little ruddy and his tone apologetic. “It’s been a while since I did my obstetric rotation.”

  The cold gel squirting on her belly made her start, but it soon warmed up as Rex used the head of the ultrasound to move the gel around. “I might have to press a bit just to get the fetus in the ultrasound arc, but it shouldn’t hurt.” There was pressure, like she was leaning against something, and then the static on the screen became less dense, forming into a black oval shape with a baby shaped blob in the middle, its little heart beating butterfly-wing fast.