by Eden Beck
The doctor eyes the two of them for a moment, unsure of whether or not he should even answer. After a moment, he lets out another disconcerting sigh.
“Well, the rules are there for a reason, you know. It’s not all vapid showcase. There is a method to the ceremony.”
“There isn’t a rule about intercourse in the midst of turning,” Marlowe says, his cheeks blushing even as he says it. His eyes briefly flicker over to mine for a moment before he continues. “We made sure.”
The doctor dismisses his comment entirely as he continues on with his explanation.
“There are no rules that apply to her pregnancy now. It could be that her body is an unstable blend of both wolf and human, stuck in its pre-shifted form since she was pregnant before her first shift occurred. Her body won’t allow her to shift while she’s pregnant, as much as it desperately needs to. Therefore, her pregnancy has been hastened. Think of it as a sense of evolutionary flexibility. Her wolf nature and her human nature are working together for the survival of both her and her pregnancy. It’s actually quite a marvelous thing, albeit an abomination.”
“Careful,” Rory says with a snarl.
“And then, of course, it could just be that her body was already going through an accelerated change at the time of conception, and that same acceleration has leaked over into her pregnancy,” he adds before Rory has the chance to strangle him. “Either way, her pregnancy is using one month, instead of three, for each trimester. My guess is that she’ll give birth within a month’s time.”
A month’s time.
My throat suddenly feels like it’s swelling shut.
I’m going to be a mother in less than a month. Even after everything that’s happened—from falling in love with Rory, Marlowe, and Kaleb, to finding out they’re werewolves, to being turning into one myself—somehow this is the least believable of them all.
“Is that why she’s so big?” Kaleb asks, his eyes once again flickering over to me.
I look back down at my own swollen body, and to be honest, I can’t blame him. I swear my belly grows larger with each passing second. Even with the accelerated pregnancy, I still feel like I look bigger than most women I’ve seen at full term.
I don’t know how I’ve not noticed it before.
But then again, I do.
Between the blinding pain of being poisoned, the two failed shifts, and the dark veil that’s made the time blur … I haven’t exactly been lucid these last weeks.
“You really are fortunate, since she won’t be able to conceive again.”
Rory once again looks like he’s about to punch the old man in the face. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
The doctor spits out a laugh. “Only that you’re in luck. She’s not having a baby …”
Rory steps forward, his face pale. My own mind flashes with visions of my earlier fear. Of monsters.
And then the doctor finishes. “She’s having three.”
Rory freezes in his tracks. We all do.
I thought I’d never see the boys look more shocked than they did when I first found out I was pregnant. I was wrong.
When I look up at them now, their faces looked every bit as shocked as I feel.
“Three?”
I look up at Lydia next. This is why her mouth dropped open earlier.
She hands me the picture of the ultrasound in her hands and I take it from her fingers. Rory and Marlowe immediately rush to my side and all four of us stare at the little black and white image I now hold.
There, on the small square of film paper, are three blurry but still very identifiable babies. I feel the tears start to roll over my cheekbones as all three of them press their heads to mine and hold me.
I’m overwhelmed.
We have much more than even a single baby to protect, we have a whole little pack. Our own pack.
That single afternoon of blissful love-making in the enclave of the forest, gifted us with three healthy, and extremely reliant pups. They haven’t even been born yet, but they’ve already survived being poisoned. Now they just have to survive through to their birth—and me along with them.
I am so happy, but also so scared and freaked out that I feel like a bombshell of mixed emotions.
When the doctor leaves, the boys and Lydia all walk him out after making sure that I’ll be okay for a few minutes by myself. I think they’re still not convinced that he isn’t a threat … and I don’t blame them.
I thought they were protective before. Now, I feel like they’re going to be three times that.
One month.
That may give me time to give birth before Remus’ attack, but what does that even mean? Does it mean anything?
I don’t know anymore.
For a while, I sit alone in the bed holding the picture of the ultrasound in my hands, when suddenly I am gripped by panic. I can’t do this.
I can’t do this. I can’t give birth to three babies in the woods amidst the middle of an oncoming attack. I haven’t even turned yet. I don’t even know if I can turn. All of my rational thought suddenly seems to flush out of my mind as a fight-or-flight response kicks in and I panic.
I’m already responsible for so much of what has happened to the boys and their family, to Romulus and his pack. What is going to happen to them if I fail now? What’s going to happen to the boys if I can’t have these babies, or if we all end up dying before they are even born?
Or worse, what happens if they are killed by Remus and his pack shortly after they enter into the world?
What if it falls on me to protect them, and I fail?
I grow scared to the point of hysterics, my breath growing short and my vision blurry. I need to get out from between these four walls that suddenly feel as if they are closing in on me.
I get up and hurry out the door of the bedroom—though hurry is such a strange word when my walk has turned into more of a waddle—and head down the hall away from where I hear the boys talking to Romulus.
I don’t stop until I’m out the back door.
I don’t even stop to listen to what they’re saying because I feel like I’m suffocating with hysteria. I walk as fast as I can towards the edge of the forest and then into it, trying to find a patch of seclusion and calm. I just want to feel the nighttime air and the trees and the stars.
I sit down on the ground when I am too fatigued to walk any further and stare up at the moon.
I want to turn.
I want my body to transform. I don’t want to be bloated and heavy and tired and in pain. I want to transform and be a wolf so that I can run through the nighttime forest at a furious speed and feel the wind in my fur.
I don’t think about anything else right now; not the three little pups inside of me, not the boys or the doctor or my mother. I don’t think about anything at all except for the feeling of wanting to be free and not scared anymore.
But once again, I am unable to transform.
I may be feeling panicked and reckless, but thankfully my body is not. My body is protecting the babies.
I sit there on the forest floor, beneath the moon that taunts my wolf form out to play. The moonlight teases my body to shift, but my body refuses. It may not be the full moon, but it’s close.
Close enough to ignite an ache in my bones.
I almost wish that I would pass out again, right here on the forest floor, so that I could lay unconscious instead of feeling the terrible fear and pain that I have to endure instead. When I am finally able to get up again, I start to slowly walk back toward the house, knowing that the boys and Lydia and even Romulus are probably fretting over where I’ve gone by now.
But it turns out that they aren’t the ones doing most of the fretting.
On my way up to the house, I walk by the cabin—and discover that it isn’t as abandoned as I remember. As I left it.
There, standing in the middle of the driveway, is my mother.
22
Sabrina
My mother.
/> The person I’ve longed for, ached for almost as much as my transformations.
And also, the same person I’ve felt ashamed of myself for wanting. After all she’s done to me—I shouldn’t want her. Not after she left me. Abandoned me.
She stands like a ghost beneath the trees. A flicker of a memory past. A whole past life now forgotten.
I’m beyond stunned and surprised to see her here—a look that’s mirrored on her own face. Her own surprise is maybe more warranted than mine, given the state of me. Something that she doesn’t miss, of course, as her eyes slide down from my own shocked expression to my swollen belly.
Even if I wanted to hide it from her, to keep myself and my babies safe from her, it would be impossible for me to hide. So instead, I brandish my stomach like a sword out in front of me, sticking my hips out to accentuate the blossoming life squirming—and I mean squirming—within. As if sensing my own emotions, the three tiny lives quicken within me.
My mother stares at me, mouth agape, for a long moment—long after my own surprise has waned into wariness. She says nothing. No words will come.
So, once again, I’m the one left taking charge.
I walk slowly up to her and as much as part of me wants to wrap my arms around her and feel my mother hug me back; I don’t. The look on her face is one of disappointment and … of all things … disgust.
At the swollen form of my body. At me.
That look, as much as she tries to hide it, it hurts me more than any cramp or pain I’ve ever felt.
That look makes it impossible for me to stem the tears that gather at the corner of my eyes.
“Mom?” I say, my voice staring to shake. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to see you,” she says. Her voice is cold, and it doesn’t sound like her, it sounds more like my father. Certainly a side effect of being with him again, and for so long. I remember how long it took me to shake it when we first left. It’s part of the reason I’d never dream of going back. Sometimes, sure, I’m overwhelmed by emotion.
But that’s preferable to the cold numbness of being around him.
My mother looks me over again, her mouth still agape. I imagine how I must look. More than my pregnancy, I’ve been fighting poison for the last two months. A poison that very nearly took my life, and still sometimes I worry may still claim me.
She finally finds words again.
“What in the hell has happened to you?”
I swallow, hard, then look down at my protruding belly. “Well, this certainly isn’t a burrito baby.”
My humor does nothing to quell the growing tension between us.
She lifts one hand up to half cover her mouth, her eyes narrowing. “Did this happen …”
She trails off, her eyes glazing over as she mentally counts the months, trying to guess how long ago this happened. When she does meet my eyes again, I know what she’s thinking.
From the look of me, this happened before she left. Before the boys even came back.
From the look of me, it means she left her pregnant daughter here to fend for herself. She should look ashamed, but she doesn’t.
I swallow again. “There’s so much that’s happened,” I say, carefully. I don’t know where to start, so I cross my arms across my chest and take my turn looking her over. I’m not the only one looking worse for wear.
“What are you doing here?”
I don’t mean for it to come out as an accusation, but the sound of it is unmistakable in my voice.
She purses her lips. “I never should have left you here alone.”
“Agreed,” I say, taking a half step forward. My arms don’t move from their protective posture across my chest. “But that doesn’t answer my question.”
She shakes her head over and over, her eyes sliding away from me to the forest, the gravel drive, the cabin. Anywhere but me.
“I … I had to see you,” she says, her voice now shaking as mine did at first. “I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
The grip of my own arms around my body tightens.
“You could have called.”
It comes out as cold as her. Our roles have reversed, now.
She shifts uncomfortably on her feet. I can smell the uncertainty on her. She reeks of it.
“And how would you have explained all this?” she asks, her hand gesturing to my stomach. “So, who is it? One of those Gray boys?”
The way she speaks their names, it sounds … dirty.
I narrow my eyes at her. “I thought you liked them.”
“Well, that was before they knocked up my underage daughter,” she snaps, with a humorless laugh.
“I wasn’t underage,” I say, “it’s just … it’s complicated.”
“I imagine,” she says, mirroring my posture by crossing her arms across her chest.
There’s no warmth in her gaze. No forgiveness. No understanding.
But how could there be, when she knows nothing? She understands none of my life, none of what’s been going on these past months, this past year.
Suddenly, my walls begin to crack. I feel my posture slump. I feel a heavy weight that makes my shoulder’s sag, my arms drop to my sides, and my face fall.
“There’s so much I need to tell you,” I say, and this time, my voice comes out faint and small.
And just as I’ve desperately wanted to these last weeks, I launch into an explanation that goes too far.
I tell her about the boys and the wedding and the pregnancy … those things alone enough to overwhelm her already fragile state of mind. But I don’t stop there.
No.
Once I start telling her bits of the truth, the rest of it comes rushing out.
I tell her about the shifters. About the packs. About my own turning.
I should have known what was going to happen next, because with each word I say, my mother’s face goes a shade whiter. I should stop talking.
I shouldn’t have said anything at all to begin with.
I knew this would be too much for her. But I also hoped … I hoped she could be strong enough for me. If not to understand, then at least … to support me.
Because she’s my mom and I needed her to know about all of it because I need her.
When I am done telling her everything, I stand beneath the trees and the waning twilight, staring at her and waiting. I wait for her to tell me that everything will be okay and that she loves me and is here for me.
I wait for her to wrap me in a warm embrace and stroke my hair as she used to do when I was a small girl. I wait for her to tell me that she’s staying now and that she will never go back to my father nor choose him over me ever again.
I knew better than to wait for those things, but I can’t help myself. I want it too badly to give up.
But she doesn’t soften.
“I can’t believe what a mess you’ve gotten yourself into, Sabrina,” she says as she stares at me with wild eyes that don’t know whether to lash out at me or not. “I don’t even know who you are anymore.”
“Mom, please,” I start to say, but she doesn’t listen. My mom doesn’t listen to me.
As always, when faced with the unknown, she crumbles. I watch it before my very eyes.
I watch as she chooses between falling apart and fleeing. And even before she moves away from me, I know which one she’s chosen.
She quickly gets in her car and slams the door and starts to drive away. This time I know she isn’t ever coming back.
I open my mouth to call after her, by my throat is too thick or too swollen to make a sound.
Instead, I just stumble after her down the gravel drive.
This isn’t happening.
It can’t be happening.
But it is.
Just as quickly as she appeared, she’s disappearing again.
I pick up the pace, running as fast as my stomach will allow me until I trip over the rocks at the end of the drive and throw my hands out in front of me to catch my fall. Bu
t something else catches my fall instead, a pair of arms that pulls me up before I can hit the ground and pulls me against his chest.
“It’s okay, Sabrina,” Romulus says.
For a small moment, I am so surprised that it is Romulus who is here and holding me that I don’t cry or even breathe. But then I just can’t help it, and I burst into tears and hold on to his waist as if my life depends on it. Romulus holds me tightly as I cry, and he waits until I stop.
When I am finally able to look up at him, he doesn’t look angry at me for having run off again; he looks sad.
“Let’s have a talk,” he says gently. “Just the two of us.”
23
Sabrina
The image of my mother is still burned into the back of my mind.
If Romulus hadn’t arrived, if he hadn’t seen her too, I would have thought it was just a dream. Just another horrible nightmare.
It certainly has left me feeling that way—like my racing heart won’t slow even as my brain tries to piece together what just happened.
When we get back to the house, Romulus takes me to sit by the fire and pours me a glass of wine.
“I don’t think I’m supposed to drink this,” I say as I gesture to my very pregnant stomach as if there’s a chance he forgot about it, even for a second.
“It’s fine,” he says with a smile. “Trust me, your body doesn’t work the way human bodies do anymore. The alcohol will burn off long before it reaches the pups.”
I guess he would know more about how this works that I do. After all, he went through it with Lydia, at least to one-third of the extent anyways.
I wonder what else he knows about wolf pregnancies that he hasn’t thought to share with me before.
As if reading my thoughts, a small smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. “Please, don’t think I’m an expert. I just thought poison and alcohol might not mix well. But now that you appear to be through the worst of it …”
He shrugs and sits down across from me.
I take a sip of wine and close my eyes momentarily at how good it tastes. For the first time in months, I don’t immediately choke.
