Lone Wolf (A Breed MC Book Book 4)

by Anne Marsh

  There hadn’t been much room in that den. The fox that had built the thing hadn’t planned for wolf cubs, and so we’d been on top of each other the whole time we waited out the storm. But it had also felt safe. I hadn’t been alone—and with each breath I took, I’d known it. It was the perfect mix of warm and close. I haven’t felt like that in a long time.

  I scoop Poppy up and settle her on my lap, wrapping my arms around her. So I’m not totally civilized. I’m more of a DIY project and we’ve just passed the demolition stage. Poppy has knocked down all the walls I’ve built around my heart.

  Poppy

  Gator’s like a boomerang. I shove him away but he comes back. Remember how I said I didn’t want to make the same mistakes I made with Nathan? This is how Gator’s different. Where Nathan made me run after him, Gator comes for me.

  “So,” he rumbles eventually. “Pregnant?”

  It’s hard not to be anxious, to not guess how he’s going to react to having his entire life disrupted. Or maybe it won’t be because he’ll just choose to stay uninvolved. I know there are options for ending the pregnancy, but I won’t. There’s a connection between me and Bean that I want.

  “Yeah.”

  There’s a long silence where I wonder what he’s thinking. I’m too worn out to even know where to start so I wait for him to begin.

  Eventually he mutters something that sounds suspiciously like a curse. “I’m guessing you heard me and Jace talking?”

  “Yeah.”

  I’m the queen of the one-word answers.

  “I shouldn’t have fucked with your research,” he says. “Got no good excuse for it. I didn’t want researchers and looky-loos coming through my bayou to see your wolves. Wasn’t my place to decide that. But the baby daddy news…” His sigh ruffles my hair. “Didn’t see that one coming.”

  “We did have a broken condom,” I point out, tensing. Somehow the whole research thing doesn’t bother me as much as it should. Or maybe I’ve already got the whole pregnancy hormones thing going on, redirecting my energy to important stuff like looking out for Bean. The whole I-want-to-be-alone thing he’s got going on rings true—but only partially true. Given Jace and the club’s involvement with the shutdown, I suspect that a number of potential felonies are also involved. God knows what they actually want to cover up.

  “Didn’t think I could have kids.”

  “Really?” I mean, did he have the mumps? Or some kind of weird groin injury? A bizarre family history? Or maybe he’s tried before and failed and that’s how he knows?

  He snorts. “I can practically hear your questions. You wanna pick one to start?”

  “I want this baby,” I whisper. “I think I really do.”

  I kind of expect him to tell me that I’m on my own then. That he’s out of here, and that he’ll send me a check now and then. Neither of us chose to become parents, and neither of us had planned on it. But thanks to a broken condom and some really hot sex (which we were definitely equally responsible for), here we are. Pregnant. And even if I’ve sort of come to terms with it, he’s only just found out and I don’t really expect him to be ecstatic.

  “Me too,” he says gruffly. “I do, too. You’re not doing this alone, babe.”

  “It takes a village,” I tell him.

  He rests his chin on my head, his hands smoothing over my belly, my arms. “You got a particular one in mind or can I make suggestions?”

  “You don’t like people,” I remind him, as if he could possibly forget something so integral to who he is. The man lives on a private island in the middle of nowhere. He’s got a natural moat around his house for crying out loud, and it’s not like he’s ever put out a welcome mat. He once offered to shoot me—or spank me—for trespassing, and I don’t think he was joking about it either.

  “I like you,” he growls in my ear as if that explains everything. Maybe it does for him. “I’ll be by your side just as long as you let me, okay?”

  I try and fail to imagine Gator picking up the baby bean from daycare or joining the PTA. And then before I know it, I’m laughing.

  “What’s so funny?” His voice is all growly and rough, but there’s not a trace of mad in his voice. He just wants to understand me, I think. And that’s… nice.

  “I’m not laughing at you.” I relax into his chest. He’s so strong. So safe. I run through my PTA fantasy and he snorts.

  “Oui. Might not work, pulling up on the bike with a baby seat strapped to the back.”

  He knows what a baby seat is?

  “I’ll have to upgrade to a Hummer,” he says thoughtfully. “Maybe a tank because keeping our baby safe is gonna be my number one priority.”

  He threads his fingers through mine, his thumbs massaging my palms. It feels so good. It doesn’t even seem to matter anymore that he killed my research grant or that he’s hardly Daddy of the Year material if what I suspect about his reasons are true. My baby will have a biker for a father, and several dozen badass uncles. It’s not that I don’t want to do this alone (although I don’t). It’s that I want to do this with Gator. Despite everything I’ve said, I think I could have feelings for him. Big, messy, complicated feelings that seem as unstoppable as they might be dumb.

  “So are we together?” His arms tighten around me protectively, callused palms rubbing gently up and down my arms. I feel safe with him. I don’t need a white knight or someone to come charging to the rescue, but this isn’t about needing. It’s about choosing and holding onto something that just feels right. I’ve already made the choice to keep the Bean, and now I have a chance to keep Gator.

  I take a deep breath, but it does nothing to clear my head or to jumpstart stuff happening in the personal revelation department. I just smell Gator, the fabulous, male, woodsy scent of him that I seem to wear on my skin and even deeper.

  “Okay,” I say.

  Gator

  She said yes.

  I think.

  Some shit you need to be perfectly clear on. I look down at my mate. “Can we go back?”

  “Yes,” she says.

  Thank fuck for that.

  I scoop her up and carry her back to the water’s edge. Think she might want to protest about me hauling her around like some kind of caveman, but she’s worn herself out and she puts up with me. Still, the look on her face is so goddamned cute. She thinks I’m being ridiculous when I want to wrap her up in something soft and just keep her safe forever.

  Jace and Fang are waiting for us in the boat, trying and failing not to laugh their asses off at me.

  “Gonna have to let her go at some point,” Jace smirks. Fucker’s enjoying my fall a little too much. Pretty sure I gave him shit when he went down for Keelie Sue, and he’s been saving up the payback with interest.

  “Like when?” I step into the boat and drop down onto a seat, still holding my mate. They can play chauffeur, and I’ll hold onto her a little longer.

  “Like when the baby comes out,” Fang says mock-helpfully.

  Nope. Not thinking about that. I don’t want my Poppy hurting or afraid or anything going wrong. There has to be some way I can make it better, easier, safer—and I’ll find it. I’m gonna learn everything there is to know about childbirth in the next seven months. From the look on Fang’s face, he’s just as concerned. First time I’ve ever seen a serious look on his face—kinda want to take a picture. It’s a little weird knowing he’s got my back when it comes to my personal shit, but it doesn’t feel wrong. I hold Poppy closer.

  This lone wolf isn’t alone anymore.

  Gator

  Poppy’s eight weeks pregnant when my luck runs out, and her doctor suggests she get an ultrasound because her blood test results came back strange. She’s been seeing a local OB-GYN, but so far the visits have been brief and routine. They weigh her, ask how she’s feeling, and then smear her belly with this gel goop so we can all listen in on the fast whup-whup-whup of our pup’s heartbeat. Poppy’s got the cutest little curve already. Fucking love cupping
it with my hands, knowing there’s someone who’s the best of me and her growing just beneath her heart. Just don’t fucking know which of us that baby’s gonna come out looking like.

  The pack doesn’t have much experience with breeding. When a werewolf knocks up his female, however, the girl pups tend to be non-shifters while the males are full werewolf. I haven’t figured out how to break that piece of news to Poppy, and I have to do it soon. Not the good kind of surprise to pop out a wolf cub in the delivery room, right? Not to mention that if it looks like she’s carrying a shifter, we can’t let her go to the hospital unless it’s an emergency. Keelie Sue’s planning on a home birth, but Poppy’s already made her preferences clear. She’s got a ten-page birth plan typed up and printed out, and it includes having a team of doctors and an anesthesiologist on call. She says natural is for masochists, and she plans on availing herself of every drug she can.

  I don’t want her to hurt.

  I want her safe as fuck, and that’s the truth.

  She wakes up way too early in the morning for a wolf who’s spent most of the night on club business, but I’m learning. Because she’s not supposed to be mainlining caffeine, or so she says, I make us a pot of decaf every morning and then bring it up to our bed. We drink it curled up in the sheets, talking about what happened yesterday and how big the Bean is now. Not like he or she grows all that much overnight, but Poppy likes to imagine what he looks like (she’s convinced we’re having a boy) and compare him to all sorts of shit. So far that includes a lentil, a blueberry, a chickpea, Nerds, Skittles, and jellybeans. I’d think she likes food even more than she likes my dick, except that whole thing about pregnancy hormones? Not a myth.

  I need to tell her.

  I need to tell her now.

  Instead we’ve got our asses parked in some fucking pink and cream doctor’s office while a technician paints Poppy’s belly with some kind of cold goop and then slides a plastic wand over the mess. Poppy clutches my hand hard enough to leave bruises because she’s been worrying ever since she got the call yesterday. Pretty sure Google’s about to fucking explode from all the searching she’s done. And yeah, I should have told her then. Just popped out the hey, honey, you’ve been knocked up by a werewolf explanation when she started working her way through a list of diseases and wondering which one she and the Bean had. But I wasn’t ready to let her go. Not yet. So I kissed her to distract her, and one thing led to another, and now here we are and she still doesn’t know.

  The technician flips a switch or something because the big screen suddenly lights up, filling with grey and black fuzz.

  “Let’s meet your baby,” she says, running her eyes over the image.

  Poppy’s grip tightens, and I can’t stop looking at her. She’s wearing a white T-shirt with a vee that exposes the shadow between her tits. When she starts because that cold gel shit can’t be fun, I can see the lace edging her bra cups. Her tits are already bigger. Her hair’s scooped up in a ponytail, and she’s wearing yoga pants because she’s button-averse. Got to get her some more stuff.

  My dick stiffens because it loves the view, and I wrap her ponytail around my fingers, staring at all the bare skin between her shoved-up shirt and tugged-down pants. Bright pink cotton peeks out of the yoga pants. Part of me just wants to get her back home and into bed. Always seems like we can work everything out when we’re naked.

  At first, it’s all business as usual for the technician, who cheerfully announces that Poppy’s measuring eight weeks. I do some quick mental math and decide that definitely jives with our broken condom. Not like I really thought we’d knocked Poppy up some other night, but now it’s confirmed.

  The technician points to a rapid flicker on the screen, kind of like a light bulb going in and out. “Baby has a nice strong heartbeat.”

  I squint at the screen and the fast flicker-flicker of light.

  No idea how it happens, but there’s an answering tug somewhere in my chest, like something there is pushing hard at my ribs because it recognizes the connection, and suddenly my head, my wolf, my heart… we’re all agreed.

  Poppy and our baby come first.

  Always.

  Poppy

  “What’s that?” I squint at the monitor. Thank God there’s a technician here to interpret the ultrasound because it looks to me like I’m carrying a blizzard of gray fuzz. And maybe some black blobs. There’s not too much that actually looks like baby bits.

  Rather than chiming in with some helpful labels and pointing, however, the technician squints, too. Then she frowns and moves the wand, trying for a slightly different angle.

  “I don’t know,” she says.

  Gator sort of stiffens beside me, leaning in. Another time, another place, and I’d tease him for not knowing everything.

  The fuzz and the baby bits on the screen sort of blip as we all stare, and swear to God, the peanut-sized baby I’m carrying shimmies and the lines on the monitor change. Gator’s hand sort of knocks the wand away from my stomach and the image vanishes, but I can’t stop thinking about what I saw. It’s impossible. But…

  “I think I have wolves on the brain,” I joke. “Because I’d swear our baby looked like it had a tail.”

  The technician frowns more deeply, leaning toward my belly again. “Let’s try that again. Maybe we’ve miscalculated the due date.”

  Gator growls a negative. “We’re done here.”

  Before anyone can protest, he’s lifting me off the table. Not that I can’t do it myself, but that’s how he rolls. I think he’d carry this baby for me if he could, but since he can’t, he’s determined to take care of me. Drives me crazy sometimes, how protective he is. He watches me with those eyes, his arms braced around me like nothing in the world can hurt Bean and me as long as he’s there.

  It’s a fantasy, but I like it.

  Damned if he doesn’t cradle me against his chest, my cheek pressed against his heart. My body warms up for him, which is what got us into this situation in the first place. At least I can’t get pregnant more than once.

  Heat burns through me, building with each shift of Gator’s body against mine. He holds me effortlessly in his muscled arms, and I appreciate feeling light and special since from what I’ve seen of Keelie Sue, I’m going to swell up to the size of a small elephant. I wonder not for the first time if Gator will still find me attractive when I look like I’ve swallowed a beach ball’s worth of kid.

  He hustles me out—guess he doesn’t want the ultrasound technician making a call to the insane asylum about the pregnant woman who thinks she’s having a wolf. Fang’s hanging in the waiting room, chatting up the receptionist. She’s explaining the difference between a baby doctor and a doula to him, and he’s nodding like she’s Einstein.

  “We’re out of here,” Gator announces as we sweep past him.

  Gator

  Poppy’s lease is up at the end of the month, and she’s agreed to move into my place, at least temporarily. I hadn’t missed the hesitation in her voice—she doesn’t like accepting help. And while I’ve never wanted to make something happen more, some shit you can’t force. So I’ve nodded when she makes noises about having to work, and I’ve asked. Repeatedly. I need her near me. She’s been doing some freelance editing for a science magazine, and she can do that in my library just fine. Taking care of her is something I need to do, and it’s fair enough if she wants in on that action, too.

  Since she’d mentioned wanting to finish packing up her stuff after the doctor’s appointment today, I’ve come armed with boxes and a plan. Telling her about werewolves is gonna go better when she’s in her own space. If I tell her out in the bayou, she’s in my territory, and there’s nowhere she can go if she feels she needs to leave. Not like I want her to take off on me, but I want her to have options. She shouldn’t feel trapped.

  “We need to talk,” I tell her. Probably comes out way too fucking blunt, but I can’t change some shit. I take her arm and lead her over to the bed. Somehow seems like
a cliché to suggest she sit down, but I drop down and open up my arms. She comes right to me, dropping onto my lap and letting me pull her against my chest. I cup her head with my hand, tucking her face against my shoulder. Fucking pet her too, because I love doing that for her.

  “What’s up?” Her voice is sleepy, her body growing heavier and more relaxed against me as I hold her. We fit together in a way I’ve never fit with anyone before. Her hair smells like strawberries and sugar from the shampoo she uses. I breathe it in just in case this is the last chance I have.

  Tell her.

  The wolf is itching at my skin, wanting out. I breathe in and out, counting each inhalation as I sift her ponytail through my fingers. Don’t scare her. Don’t shift. Just love her and make it all good. Fucking fantasy, but I love it.

  “What’s wrong?” she asks, and now she doesn’t sound so sleepy. She pushes up on my chest, and I cup the back of her head to keep her in place. She’s my mate. She’s carrying my cub. Why the fuck would I let her go? Instinct demands I flip her over, hold her down, and drill into her hard. Mark her so she knows exactly whom she belongs to. She likes it when I get just a little rough, although we’re gonna have to be even more careful now that we’re a threesome.

  Focus.

  Give her the truth.

  I let go, roll away from her, and then stand up. I pull my shirt over my head, dropping it onto the bed. Then I unbuckle my belt, toe my boots off, and shove my jeans down. My dick’s iron-hard, which is gonna lead to misunderstandings.

  “Gator, what’s—” she starts to say, but I’m done waiting. Done holding back. I tell her the truth straight up, like I should have done weeks and weeks ago.

  “I’m a shifter.”