by J. K Harper
I can’t be pregnant.
Can I?
She shook her head. If she were able to get pregnant, then she should have been able to shift, too. There’d been a full moon right after Christmas, and her body had responded the same way as always by doing a whole lot of nothing interesting.
Tess had already grabbed three different test brands and passed Angel in the aisle, sipping her coffee as she went.
“Tess, I really don’t think this is necessary.”
“Better to know conclusively, right?”
“Maybe I don’t want to know.”
“That’s not how grownups act.”
“And this isn’t how wolf magic works.”
Tess snorted. “Right.” She plopped the boxes in front of the bemused cashier along with a couple of twenties. “Says the woman in the weirdest wolfpack in the whole of the United States. None of you Norseton wolves are quite right, are you?”
“No, but no one else is an omega.”
“Does every pack have an omega?”
“If a pack has been established long enough, there tends to be one in every generation. That’s the lore, anyway. I’m sure Norseton will have one born here eventually.”
Tess accepted her change, handed Angel the bag, and turned her toward the door. “Let’s go.”
“Where?”
“Back to the mansion. No use leaving the evidence around where your mother can find it.”
“I’m twenty-six, not a teenager.”
“Yeah, and I’m thirty. That doesn’t stop me from acting like a sneaky teenager around my grandmother. Why not keep some things a mystery until you figure out how to feel?”
“How’d you get so wise?”
“I’m not wise. I’m Viking trash with a magical pedigree. That’s all.”
Angel doubted that, but there was no use arguing with Tess. The queen always won.
___
Queen Tess hadn’t explained why she wanted Grant to move their initial meeting up from February, but he didn’t want to offend the lady. He bribed his brothers with the promise of unlimited steaks into keeping an eye on the ranch, and drove down to Denver to meet her, her chieftains, Norseton’s alpha—Adam Carbone—and his wife, their quartermaster, Arnold, and a couple of other folks she’d mentioned who Grant hadn’t bothered committing the names of to memory.
He grabbed his overnight bag out of the passenger seat of his truck, got Pete out of the back of the cab, and pushed his cowboy hat down onto his head. His overgrown hair was unkempt and looked like he’d combed it with a pitchfork. He hadn’t had a chance to get a haircut, but he doubted anyone cared. He was a werewolf, not a supermodel, and it wasn’t like he was trying to turn anyone on, anyway. In fact, he preferred for folks to just stay the hell away from him.
Ma had said he’d stop pining away eventually, but he could tell she was lying, because she didn’t say anything else. She just looked at him like he was pitiful.
As he approached the reception desk of the hotel Tess’s assistant had selected, he put his phone to his ear and waited for his call to connect.
“Yo.”
“Hey, Arnold. I’m checking in now.”
“Damn, you made good time.”
“You around?”
“Yeah. Just about to clean up for dinner.”
“You bring Leo and Kinzy?”
“I did. They went out shopping with Mrs. Carbone. They should be back before we get too hungry.”
“Text me your room number when you get it. I’ll come scoop you up when I get out of the shower.”
“Got it. Bye.”
Grant got his keycard from the registration desk, listened halfheartedly to the directions the clerk gave him to his room, and didn’t bother looking at the number until he was inside the elevator. Folks were staring at him, waiting for him to say his floor number.
Annoyed at his own distractedness, he sighed. “Sorry. Twelfth floor, please.”
They got the elevator moving, and Pete shuddered in his arm.
“Yeah, elevators make my butt clench, too,” he muttered.
Some lady behind him snorted, and then said, “What a cute baby.”
Grant wasn’t in the mood for flattery. Responding would lead to conversation, and he wasn’t in the mood to swap generic pleasantries with strangers.
He got out at his floor, glanced at his room number again, and then studied the directional sign.
He took a right.
“Must be all the way at the end.” He’d asked for a quiet room away from the elevators, and figured they’d been able to oblige.
At the end of the hall, he dropped his bag in front of 1240, slid the key out of the sheath, and nudged it into the slit.
The electronic lock whirred and the little light flashed green.
He turned the handle, pushed the door in, and kicked his bag into the room toward the crib housekeeping had set up at the end of the foyer.
The television was on.
He leaned back out and double-checked the number on the door. It matched what was on the key’s cover.
“I’m eating my way through San Juan!” came the excited voice of the guy on the television.
Grant furrowed his brow. He knew that dude-bro voice. He’d seen that show, and with Angel. That was her scent being pushed by the aggressive central air toward him, and his scent, too, because he’d bitten her and marked her as his. No matter where she went, she’d always be his.
“Angel? Honey?”
He let the door close behind him and stepped over his bag.
He passed the bathroom on the right and found Angel curled up in an armchair beneath the window. Her eyes were wide and smile tense. The wolf in her was calm, though. That was good enough for him for the moment.
“What are you doing here? I thought you didn’t want to make things harder.”
“I—” She shook her head, and obviously whatever words she was going to say fell away with the shake.
She set her socked feet on the floor, closed the gap between them, and took Pete. He recognized her like she hadn’t left them, and started patting her ponytail and babbling at it.
“Um. Maybe you should sit,” she said.
“Why? I sat for three hours driving down here.”
“I-I guess I’ll just…” Swearing softly, she grabbed a little red gift bag off the end of the dresser and thrust it out at him.
“What’s this?”
“Science. Magic.” She shrugged. “I don’t know.”
He peeked into the bag, and even seeing the plastic sticks, couldn’t make sense of what he was seeing.
Three of them, all different, but they all said the same thing. “You’re pregnant?”
“Yes.”
He sure sat then, and fortunately, there was a bed behind him.
“You’re having my baby?”
“Yes.”
“You shifted? Because if you shifted, you would have…”
“Miscarried, if I hadn’t gotten the right drugs.”
“You had them, right? This isn’t just a tease?’
She grimaced and carefully unwrapped Pete’s fingers from her hair. “I don’t need them. I’m pregnant, but I still can’t shift.”
“Say what? That’s not how things are supposed to work.
“I know. Trust me, I know.” Angel raised one shoulder and let it fall. “Adam thinks I will probably never shift. No one ever said getting the right alpha’s bite would make an omega shift, only that he could make me ovulate.”
“So you’re saying—”
“That you’re the right alpha, Grant.” She fidgeted with the pocket flaps of Pete’s snowsuit and glanced shyly at Grant. “I’m sorry if I made you think you weren’t strong enough. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t think there was any alpha who could—”
“Hush, woman.” He tucked his fingers into the kangaroo pocket of her sweatshirt and pulled her forward. “Kiss me.”
She furrowed her pretty brow and leaned back fro
m him a bit. “You’re not mad at me?”
“Hell no. Am I upset about moping around like an unloved puppy for the past month? That would be a yes. I’d only wish that particular malady on my worst enemy. Am I mad that you’re going to have my baby?”
She cleared her throat and tugged her collar away from her neck. “Um. Babies. The thing about never ovulating is that you risk releasing more than one when you finally do.”
“Two?”
She nodded. “Tess got me an ultrasound appointment.”
“Gods.” He’d been right. He was going to end up owing that queen more favors than he could repay, and suddenly, that didn’t seem like such a bad fate. “And they’re okay?”
She smiled. “They look okay, but the doctors at Norseton are still trying to make sense of wolf pregnancies. We gestate for less time.”
“You saw heartbeats?”
“Yes.”
He let out the breath he’d been holding and put a hand against her belly. “I want to see them. I didn’t get to see any of that with Pete.”
“Of course, Grant. You can have anything you want.”
“You coming home with me, Angel?” He pulled her onto his lap, being careful not to squish Pete, and hooked his chin over her shoulder. He had to hold her. No one was going to keep him from holding her ever again.
“I probably would have come to you anyway. I wasn’t doing so great.”
“Me neither, honey.” He kissed the side of her face, and her jaw, and then her neck when she tilted her head and gave him the room to do so. “A wolf shouldn’t be without his mate. Maybe I wasn’t doing all that great before I met you, but I’m really no good knowing you’re out there and I’m not with you.”
“I think we’ll both be better now.”
“I sure as hell hope so.” He smacked a hand to his forehead, finally gripping the gravity of the situation. “Holy shit. I’m going to have three kids. Did you do that math?”
“Don’t make me laugh. I throw up when I laugh.”
“Okay. Sorry.” He planted a kiss on the side of her face, then another, and other. He couldn’t get enough of her, and in his opinion, he was behaving admirably well. “Can I make my mate smile? Is that okay?”
“I’m happy somebody wants to. I never thought I’d be here, Grant. Never thought anyone would want me.”
“And I didn’t really want anyone before you. Oh, honey, I’ll show you exactly how much I want you as soon as Leo gets back and can take Pete.”
“What about dinner?”
He snaked his hand up the front of her sweatshirt and traced his fingertips over the scar his bite left. “Damn. That’s right.”
He nudged her face toward his and sipped on their sweetness ever so briefly. In less than ten minutes, his mood had improved two hundred percent, and he knew it was only going to get better. He was going to get to take his son and his Angel back to Wolverton—to his ranch and the little house on it—and he could imagine the vain wolf in him strutting like a peacock.
He’d have three gorgeous kids, and he wouldn’t even care if two of them turned out to be omegas like their mama. The Wolverton pack could use a little sweetening, and those sweethearts would have a very proactive alpha for their daddy. He’d make sure they fit in, just like he’d do for Angel.
“Dinner first, because you’re eating for three,” he rasped. “After that, though…”
“Yes, after.” The smile in her eyes made all his suffering worth it. “I can’t wait.”
The Panther’s Christmas Surprise
by Alyse Zaftig
Running
Amani
Amani was out of breath, but she had to keep running. If she didn’t lose her tail, she’d be toast.
She shimmied through a crack in the alleyway’s concrete wall. It didn’t look like much, but the slanted opening looked smaller than it really was.
Faster! She had to get away before —
“There you are.”
Her heart stopped and the world slowed around her.
She turned to look over her shoulder.
The guy advancing toward her had a gun in his hands and teeth as shiny and white as a great white shark.
“No need to run anymore,” he said, far too cheerfully for the situation. He thought he had already won.
She knew he was wrong.
She looked up and jumped.
She heard him take a shot at her. Either he wasn’t good with his gun or she’d really taken him by surprise, because she was climbing into an open window and running for her life.
She could hear a clatter coming from the alleyway as he jumped into the window, too.
She ran up the stairs. There were too many of the men on the street, and with her luck she’d just run into another one.
She was gasping for breath now and cursed herself for not bothering to get an inhaler at a time when she could’ve easily gotten one. It would’ve come in handy right now when she was running for her life.
Then she was on the roof. It was beautiful up there, but she didn’t have time to enjoy the view.
She looked over the side. Well, that was one way out, but it ended in the morgue.
She looked at the nearby buildings, but she wasn’t a parkour maniac. None of them were close enough to jump to safely. She blessed her childhood gymnastics coaches for still being able to jump as high as she was able to jump.
She didn’t have a lot of time. He was sure to climb the stairs and bring his friends.
Was there anywhere to hide? There was some kind of vent over there that looked like it opened.
She pulled on it. A loud creak sounded, but there was empty space inside of it.
Without any other options, she went into the vent.
She had barely closed the opening when she saw him come up to the roof and look for her.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” he sang to her, as if they were playing a fun game of Hide and Seek. Sick, crazy bastard.
She heard a growl. Where was it coming from? She looked around, trying to find a hidden dog. The last thing she wanted right now was to be savaged by a huge dog. At least she was hidden, but a dog would be able to smell her.
What Amani saw next would haunt her for the rest of her life.
Her attacker was covered in blackness. She thought that it was a black blob like something out of a horror movie, until she realized that it was black fur.
The guy who’d followed her was screaming now as the large black cat mauled him, tore him to pieces, killed him.
She was inside of a living nightmare. The huge panther out there would probably come for her when he was done with her pursuer.
She sat and prayed, counting her regrets. She would never finish her master’s degree. She hadn’t met a guy worth settling down for, so she hadn’t. She didn’t have any kids. And now she was going to die before she had a chance to do any of that.
She hugged herself, wishing that she could send a text to her mother to say goodbye. Her father was long gone. He’d disappeared when Amani was just a baby, and her mother and Amani were best friends.
Amani felt anger overpower her terror. How dare this stupid panther — which shouldn’t even be here — scare her? If she had to die, she might as well get it over with.
It was quiet outside of the vent. Amani opened it, not caring that it squeaked as she pushed it open.
“I’m right here,” she called. “Come and get it.”
The panther gracefully stepped off of the dead man’s body. Amani tried not to look at the corpse, mangled beyond recognition, but it was hard not to see it as the panther slowly stalked toward her.
Amani held her breath as it approached.
Smelling
Gerard
Mate.
Panthers were supposed to smell their mates. He could smell his. He was certain. And really, who would’ve expected his mate to be this tiny dark-skinned woman who invited him to eat her?
He had no intention of mauling
her as he’d done the dead scum behind him, but he could think of an activity that would be pleasurable for both of them.
“Hey! You okay, man?”
The man who had tried to attack his mate hadn’t been alone.
He snarled and ran toward the noise, jumping inside the window of a neighboring building. He heard the sounds which indicated that they were shooting at him.
He needed to make sure that his mate was safe.
It was dark, and they must not have night vision goggles, because they weren’t hitting anything. He could see them clearly. Panthers didn’t need stupid night vision goggles.
He took out the first one quietly. The darkness was heavy here.
“Bob! Come here. I think I got him! Just another second.”
Bob was already dead. Gerard had broken his neck. He moved soundlessly toward the second adversary, biting his neck as swiftly and quietly as he’d done the first one.
He let go of the dead body and listened for any other sound. If there were more than three of them, they’d already fled. He didn’t think that anyone could’ve seen him, but if they had, they’d have known to run. He hadn’t run when they’d started shooting. If he were truly a wild animal, the gunfire would’ve startled him. For a were-panther, the men with guns had been easy prey.
He circled back to the rooftop where he’d left his mate.
Nobody was there.
Shaking
Amani
Amani was trembling like a leaf during a windstorm, but somehow she had the presence of mind to get down the stairs and run for the street while the panther was momentarily distracted.
If she tried to file a police report, they’d think that she was crazy. What business did a panther have on a rooftop? And if one had escaped from the zoo, surely they would send out some kind of alert. Who would believe her?
She had to show them the body. It had clearly been mauled by some sort of big cat. Didn’t cats attack their prey in a different manner than dogs did?
She needed to call 911, and then she’d deal with finding the body once she had backup.
