Wolf

by Wolf (lit)

  She had a problem, though, and it was growing. If she could’ve just convinced herself that she was pregnant, she would probably still have been scared shitless, but that had the possibility of a happy ending. The problem was that she wasn’t convinced and if it was a tumor it was growing dangerously fast and not only did she not want to go that way, but she didn’t want to risk slowing them down and being responsible for their capture and death.

  Unfortunately, it wasn’t the sort of thing that could be handled simply and easily or even delicately. She needed to know what they planned to do. If they were just going to leave her anyway as soon as they got her back on American soil, she didn’t suppose there was any point in disturbing them with her problem. If that wasn’t the plan, though, she didn’t want to say anything that would make them change their mind. She still needed to know what was going on with her body. She couldn’t just ignore it. She didn’t see how they could ignore it.

  She discovered when the opportunity dropped in her lap, however, that she was scared to take the plunge.

  “So—what’s the plan?” Hawk asked when they’d finished their evening meal and were still seated around the dining booth.

  Mac flicked a glance at her and she thought for a moment that he would exclude her like he generally did when he had a ‘mission’ to discuss with the men. He surprised her, though.

  “Unfortunately, we’re going to have to play some of it by ear—not enough intel. Beau has connections he assures me we can trust, though.” He motioned to Beau to get the map and spread it on the table when they’d cleared it.

  He pointed to a thin, wavy line going up from the gulf and into Louisiana. “We think the boat has a shallow enough draft to get far enough up this tributary to reach his friends. If not, we might have to use the life raft. I don’t especially want to when the bayous are full of gators and snakes and cypress knees, but we’ll do what we have to. He assures me they’ll put us up until we can arrange transportation and new identities.”

  He paused and studied Sylvie so long she thought she knew what was coming. She braced herself, struggling against the sudden urge to cry.

  He released a heavy breath. “We’re going to have to get Sylvie to a doctor. If everything checks out and he doesn’t think there’ll be a problem moving her, we’ll find a place for her to stay for a few weeks while we look for a place to make home base. Even if everything’s ok, I don’t think it would be good for her or the babies to keep dragging her all over the place.

  “Depending, of course, on how long it takes to find what we want and acquire it, and what the doctor has to say, we can, hopefully, get her settled in with plenty of time before the babies get here.

  “If not, we may have to settle down and wait it out and make the final move after the babies get here.”

  Too stunned even to assimilate what he’d said at first, Sylvie finally held her hands in a ‘stop right there’ gesture. “Wait, wait, wait! Go back!”

  Mac looked at her with a mixture of wariness and grim determination. “It’s a good plan. A workable plan.”

  “Go back to the part about the baby.”

  The men, suddenly looked extremely uncomfortable and wary, bailed out of the dining booth.

  “I’ll just go check the course,” Beau said hurriedly.

  “I think I’ll just go with him. I’d like to know more about these friends of his,” Hawk said.

  “Me, too,” Cavanaugh agreed.

  Mac glared at them, but he stood his ground. “Actually, I said babies,” he said uncomfortably.

  “You know I’m pregnant? I mean, you’re sure?”

  “Yes,” he said cautiously, obviously uneasy about the possibility that it was a trick question.

  Sylvie simply stared at him, trying to digest that. “How long have you known?”

  He hesitated. “Since we got you pregnant.”

  Sylvie felt her jaw slide to half-mast. “We?” she asked in a strangled voice. “You think …?”

  His lips tightened. “I know.”

  “How …? How …? You think you all fathered the baby?” she asked blankly.

  “I know we each fathered a baby—at least, I’m certain of two. I’m reasonably certain Beau and Cavanaugh also fathered one, but I know I did. And I’m almost a hundred percent certain about Hawk, too.”

  “But …but …but …. That isn’t even possible, is it?”

  Mac’s lips tightened. “Not humanly.”

  She gaped at him. “Then why do you think …?”

  He seemed to wrestle with himself. “We aren’t human, Sylvie,” he said roughly.

  Sylvie blinked several times. “Of course you are!”

  “At best, we could only claim to be half human! But I’m not even betting on that anymore. We just look human to you. I don’t know what we are—wolf—maybe—but we aren’t human anymore and we haven’t been in a long time. I know you’re pregnant because I’m not human and I know we all bred you because I made you come in heat to produce enough eggs for each of us. It was for the good of the pack.”

  Sylvie’s mind was still swimming against a tide of disbelief, but that comment produced a spark of anger. “You made … for the good of the pack?” she asked faintly.

  He scrubbed his hand over his face. “We needed to mate. You wouldn’t understand the drive. It was maddening. We all felt the urge and it couldn’t be ignored. If I hadn’t done it, we would’ve all been fighting for dominance over the one and we couldn’t afford the distraction—let alone the danger to you. It was dangerous enough as it was.”

  Sylvie scooted out of the booth abruptly and made a dash for the bathroom. She made it, but just barely. She’d slammed both doors on the way in but Mac, the ass, followed her. “Out!” she said weakly when she could catch her breath.

  He hesitated but finally closed the bathroom door.

  She felt like hell when she’d finished emptying her stomach, weak, washed out and completely empty. Shuddering, struggling to keep from gagging again, she finally got up and brushed her teeth and washed her face. She was still weak and shaky when she dragged herself from the bathroom.

  Mac, she discovered, was waiting. He scooped her up and carried her to the bed. She felt too bad to protest, or beat him around the head and shoulders, but she wanted to. It was a relief to lie down. She curled into a ball and squeezed her eyes shut.

  Mac, for once showing no sign of possessing a sense of self-preservation, sat down on the bed and began to stroke her back. “Better?”

  “No, I don’t fucking feel better!” she snapped crossly. “I’m pregnant! With four! My god, Mac! What were you thinking?”

  “I’m not sure you’d call it thinking,” he said tightly. “I don’t know how to explain it beyond saying the beasts took over. I wasn’t thinking. We weren’t thinking. We were acting on instincts.”

  A handy excuse if she’d ever heard one!

  “It just … sort of snowballed out of control before I knew what was happening. I sensed that you were fertile and the others did, as well. I’d established myself as the leader. I knew it was mine by right, but I could feel them edging toward a complete loss of control. And then, somehow, I knew what to do to solve the problem.”

  “Whose damned problem? Not my problem!” She sniffed, struggling with tears. “I thought you were all just really horny. It wasn’t bad enough thinking you all just wanted me because I was the only woman around! Now you’re saying it was just instinct because I happened to be fertile at the time!”

  “It wasn’t that way, god damn it!” Mac growled. “And it didn’t have a damned thing to do with the fact that you were the only woman around! Because you weren’t! Give me a little fucking credit! I guess I can see where you’d get that idea, all things considered. Regardless of how things played out, though, I didn’t just decide on you because you were most handy or just there. We were within ten miles of a village and there were plenty of women there. If I’d just wanted ‘a’ woman, or we had, we could’ve fou
nd one without any damned trouble.”

  Sylvie sniffed, willing to be convinced. “Really?”

  Mac looked angry. “I thought you were my woman. I thought you cared about me.”

  Sylvie gaped at him, deeply disturbed to abruptly find herself on the defensive. “Oh! That is so not fair!”

  “Just not enough to have my baby.”

  Sylvie swallowed convulsively. “I love you.”

  He looked willing to be mollified. “But you hate me for getting you pregnant.”

  Sylvie scooted closer to him and put her arms around him. “That’s not true! I’m … I’m just scared! I’ve never had a baby! I don’t know what I’m going to do if you’re right and there’s four—or even two.” She wrestled with her pride a moment. “I’m not young anymore, Mac! What if … what if I can’t do this? What if …? Eggs get old and they aren’t really any good anymore and the babies ….”

  His arms tightened around her. “They were healthy. I know I would’ve sensed it if they hadn’t been. I don’t know how, but I know none of us would’ve felt the drive if we hadn’t known you were right for us and we could count on getting healthy pups off of you.”

  He couldn’t have said anything more comforting. Next to being pregnant at all, the fear that she couldn’t produce a normal, healthy child was the most terrifying thing about the entire situation—that and the fear that she would disappoint Mac.

  And the others.

  The sniveling cowards! They’d sneaked off and left Mac to take the heat! Of course, he was the instigator, but they hadn’t held back that she recalled! In point of fact, if she hadn’t felt so desperate, she thought their enthusiasm might have been more than a little scary.

  Dismissing her anger with them for the moment, she finally allowed herself to consider that she was actually going to be a mother when she’d given up all hope of it.

  Easing away from Mac, she settled her hand on her abdomen as the certainty sank in to her and the awful feeling that the rounded mound was something bad vanished. Abruptly she felt a thrill of joy, pleasure at the firm rounded flesh instead of fear and disgust.

  “You want me to have your baby,” she said wonderingly. He hadn’t said he loved her, not in so many words, but didn’t that mean he did?

  He cupped her face, meeting her gaze. “Does that mean you aren’t pissed off at me anymore?”

  Sylvie frowned. The sudden suspicion assailed her that she’d been manipulated very skillfully.

  And Mac was damned good at that!

  She sighed a little irritably. “I’ll think about it.”

  He uttered a huff of breath. “Guess that means you aren’t interested in giving me a little?”

  She felt like punching him. “You are such an asshole! You drop a bomb on me like this and expect me to be in the mood?”

  “That’s what I thought,” he muttered. Releasing her, he rolled from the bed. “And before you decide how damned insensitive I am, you might think about the fact that I haven’t had any in a while! I’ve been busting my balls to get us all out of that hell hole with our skin in tact!”

  He had a point. She knew he did and she could empathize with it. On the other hand, he was being an insensitive asshole and he hadn’t told her he loved her! “And maybe you’ll think about the fact that honey catches more flies than vinegar!”

  He slid a look at her as he paused at the door. “Shit catches more flies than either one!” he growled.

  Sylvie gaped at the door when he slammed it behind him. Indignation swelled within her. “What the hell did he mean by that?”

  * * * *

  Sylvie supposed it was a sign that she was at least half convinced that Mac wasn’t going to dump her that she felt comfortable enough to get pissed off and let him know it. She wanted more reassurance, though, damn it!

  True, there was a certain comfort in knowing he still wanted sex with her, but just being horny wasn’t any indication that he had a specific target—her! It left her feeling like none of the things he’d said could be taken to heart.

  She extended the anger to the rest of the ‘pack’, as Mac was growing more and more prone to refer to them. If they thought for one minute that it was going to be fine by her if Mac did all the talking, they were wrong!

  And he’d referred to the babies as pups! What was up with that? A mental slip because he’d begun to think he was more wolf than human? Or did he know something?

  That was a very unnerving thought. It didn’t matter to her that they were different. She loved them the way they were. She hurt to think of what had happened to them, but she certainly didn’t feel less attracted to them because of it. She didn’t feel any reservations about having their babies—if she was.

  Except the pup thing worried her just a little.

  Maybe he’d just meant they were half and half? And of course they were—half of their father or fathers and her—she thought they would have to be, anyway. But what did she know? They didn’t understand it completely and they were closer to understanding than she was.

  She put that from her mind. What ever they were, she loved them and by extension, she couldn’t help but love her babies. If they were the same as their fathers, then she’d be thrilled. She just wanted them to be strong and healthy.

  The Cajuns Beau took them to stay with were a little scary, but despite the initial distrust on both sides, they were friendly and courteous and helpful. Sylvie almost had the feeling that one of the reasons they were so nice to them was because it gave them an opportunity to thumb their noses at the authorities they hated and distrusted but, in the end, it didn’t really matter why. And it didn’t matter that they weren’t exactly honest, upstanding citizens.

  Actually, it was good that they weren’t because the Cajuns would’ve felt compelled to turn them in instead of helping them and they wouldn’t have had any idea of how to go about such things as inventing new identities and getting them a car owned by one of those new identities.

  Sylvie was almost afraid to go to a doctor after what she’d learned, but Mac insisted and for once, instead of delegating the job to one of the others, he took her to her appointment himself.

  He didn’t seem in any rush to get out once they’d parked the car and Sylvie began to worry that he might have sensed that something was wrong. Finally, he dug his hand into his jeans pocket and turned to face her.

  She turned to face him, a little uneasy when he took her hand. To her surprise, he slid something cold and metallic onto her finger. She looked at the ring, blank with surprise when he’d finished and held her hand in his.

  There was a faint tremor in his hand that made her more uneasy.

  He cleared his throat. “I told them you were my wife,” he said finally, his voice sounding strangely roughened.

  She shouldn’t have been surprised when she’d posed as Beau’s wife and Cavanaugh’s, but she was. “Oh!”

  He closed his fingers around her hand when she started to withdraw it, swallowing audibly when she glanced at him curiously. “In my mind, you are.”

  Sylvie felt her face warm with pleasure. “Really?” she asked breathlessly.

  He pulled her close, nuzzling his face along her neck. “Really.”

  She turned her face for a kiss. His kiss was surprisingly tender. It made her throat close with emotion, made her regret that she’d been so cool with him since he’d told her about the babies. She stroked his hard cheek when he broke the kiss. “I love you … Cole … uh … What’s your name now?”

  He drew back, giving her a look. “Damn it, Sylvie! We kept our first names so you could remember them!”

  She sent him an apologetic look. “But I’ve always called you the same thing you called each other. I’m used to it.”

  “Well, you need to get used to the new ones.” He shook his head. “At least get used to the first names. We’ll work on the rest. It’s Cole Tyler. And you’re Sylvie Tyler. Don’t write Sylvie Stone when you fill out the forms!”

  She r
epeated the name under her breath in a chant when they got out of the car and Cole led her inside, switching the chant to thought once he opened the door. In spite of the attempt to keep her mind focused on it, though, her mind kept flickering to the ring and the sweet things Mac—Cole!—had said. She came so close to signing in as Sylvia Stone, she felt cold wash over her.

  She smiled a little weakly at Cole when she’d finished and went to sit beside him. She could tell from the look on his face that he was sure she’d screwed up. “It’s fine,” she said.

  He didn’t look particularly relieved. Deciding to pretend she didn’t notice he was looking perturbed with her, she focused on admiring her ring in her lap, twisting it around her finger to study the design. It was a beautiful band. Tiny rosebuds sprinkled a vine that twined all the way around it. It was a little loose and that worried her.

  She smiled at Cole warmly and leaned close. “It’s beautiful! I love it!”

  He flushed, but some of the tension eased from his shoulders. He looked as if he started to say something, but she was called to the back just then by a woman with a clipboard. Fortunately, she reacted to her first name, rising immediately.

  She leaned down to kiss him before she left. “Don’t you be looking at any other woman while I’m gone!” she said teasingly. “You’re mine!”

  He chuckled when she straightened and gave him a sassy look.

  It was twice the ordeal that she’d expected. Memories of her past haunted her as she went through the routine of being measured and weighed, giving up samples for tests, and then climbing onto the miserable examination table. She focused on the ring Cole had given her, though, and finally took it off to study it, wondering if she could get it resized without ruining the design.

  That was when she saw the inscription inside of it. All my love, forever—Cole.