Jen turned to face her friend and attempted to swallow down the bitchy remark she was thinking. It wasn’t Sally’s fault Jen’s hormones were still declaring war on her body; she would try to keep her friend from being a part of the collateral damage.
“If by ‘okay’ you mean I’m about ten seconds from having a squirrel-on-crack moment, then hell-to-the-yes, I’m okay.” So much for swallowing the bitchy and reducing the collateral damage. “I love my daughter. I do,” Jen said as she started pacing again. “And I would do it all over again even knowing what I know now. But can I just be real with you right now, healer?”
“Pretty sure real is all you have right now,” Sally muttered. Jen ignored it and kept on trucking.
“I don’t understand what I’m feeling, Sally! It’s like someone opened my skull, jacked around in my brain all Hannibal Lector style, and now everything that was once working right is screwed six ways to Sunday.”
“I wouldn’t sayeverythingwas working right before…” Sally said and took a step back when Jen took one toward her.
“The point is, my emotions are more screwed up than a whore on Tax Day.”
“What does that even mean? That doesn’t make… I feel like the things you are saying aren’t really what you’re trying to say.” Sally frowned.
“I’m trying to say that every time I showered today I was constantly sticking my head out because I thought Thia was crying, but she wasn’t. So I’d stick my head back in, and the damn crying was back. It’s like she already knows how to mess with me.”
“Sweetie, how many showers have you taken today?”
“That’s not important!” Jen said, stomping her foot. “What’s important is that when I had that baby”—she pointed toward the open door—“I didn’t just lose a placenta. I lost more than a placenta! No one told me I would lose more than a bloody, messy placenta!”
“I thought you took a birthing class online?” Sally asked, her frown deepening. “I mean you knew the umbilical cord wasn’t going to stay, right? But what else did you lose? I mean, what else is there besides the placenta, a baby, and umbilical cord?”
Jen grabbed the front of Sally’s shirt, causing her long time BFF to squeak. Jen pressed her forehead to Sally’s and glared into her eyes. “I lost my soul,” she hissed out. “And my mind. They’re both gone.”
“Okay, well,” Sally said slowly. “It’s good you recognize that maybe something isn’t quite right at the moment. You remember you read about postpartum depression? Maybe—”
“Of course I remember reading about it, you milk-less cow.”
“No need to resort to name calling,” Sally chided as she grabbed Jen’s hands and tried to pry them from the front of her shirt.
Jen tried not to growl. She really did. Or at least it felt like she was trying hard not to. But it didn’t sound that way when she spoke. “But I also said I wouldn’t be one of the mothers who suffered from it,” Jen continued. “I turn into a wolf, I’m married to a werewolf, and I just had a daughter who is only alive because someone gave up their life for her. There is no room for postpartum issues on my schedule.”
“Too bad, so sad, Blondie. Depression penciled itself in on your calendar, and right now, bitch, you be crazy.”
“That’s something I usually hear her say, not you.” Jacque appeared in the hall and stepped up beside Sally, who was still trying to pry Jen’s hands from her shirt. “Do I even want to know why you are calling our new mommy a female dog?”
“Jen said she wanted to keep it real, Jacque,” Sally said, letting her eyes shift to Jacque and then back to Jen. “I’m keeping it really freaking real.”
Jen turned her snarling glare on her redheaded friend. “She says I have postpartum depression.”
“And I say grass is green and the sky is blue.” Jacque responded. “I don’t think stating the obvious should upset you this much.”
Before Jen could argue, her mate’s booming voice came down the hall.
“Jennifer, why are you attacking our healer? You just had a baby. You can’t go around attacking people.”
Jen’s head whipped around so fast she imagined it looked like an exorcism was taking place. And if flames could have erupted with her words, they would have flown from her mouth like a gaslit bonfire. “Don’t you think I know what I just had? I’m the one that had the bleeding mess yanked out of my girl parts.” Jen roared at Decebel, the incredulousness dripping from her voice as her nostrils flared, and her eyes gave off the faint glow of her wolf. Jen attempted to bring herself under control, but she could tell her efforts were futile. Anyone in the vicinity was about to get a spectacular show.
Chapter Six
“We haven’t gotten ourselves into trouble in like … four days. Famous last words.”
~Jacque
Jacque narrowedher eyes on her irate friend. Jen looked more like a frightened beast than a woman three days out from having a baby. But then again, Jacque thought, perhaps those two things are one in the same.
“Female, please calm down,” Decebel said, his voice taking on the Alpha quality that worked on the rest of his packmates. But it wouldn’t work on Jen.
“Does he have a maiming wish?” Sally asked. “I mean, like, does he have some sick fetish where his bat snitch crazy mate claws his eyes out while yelling, ‘I know I had a baby, dumbass’?”
