Ken laughed and sat on the end of their bed. “You’re saying I should consider myself lucky?”
“I’m saying that I think you’re doing an amazing job as her mate, her husband, and as a father-to-be. I know this is stressful, but you’re handling it well.”
“I don’t feel like I am. I’m a wreck.”
“Son, I’d be worried about you if you weren’t.”
Other than Badger, Duncan Lister was the closest thing Ken’d had to a father since his own had died when he was a kid.
Everyone had thought the old shifter died nearly fifty years prior, suspected of killing himself after his mate—Dewi’s maternal grandmother—died in a logging truck accident.
Until Ken and Nami discovered the former pack Alpha, shifted and practically feral, living in the Idaho woods. Duncan had saved them from the Mexican drug cartel members hunting them.
Duncan had missed the birth of Dewi, and other grand- and great-grandchildren…and the vicious murders of Dewi’s parents.
But he was here now, and Ken had never been so glad for the Prime Alpha’s soothing presence.
Ken dropped his voice. “Promise to tell me if you think I’m screwing up.”
Duncan stepped inside the bedroom and gently nudged the door shut with his foot. “I think you’re doing an amazing job, Ken. In all areas. I know you’re terrified. The truth is, so was I, so was Charles, so is every new father. Unless he’s some sort of psychopath. Anyone who tells you that the birth of their children, especially the first one, doesn’t fill them with fear is either lying or extremely dangerous. Or delusional. It doesn’t matter if you have an only child or a dozen or more pups—it’s normal and natural to feel that way.”
“You’re not lying to me or Priming me now, are you?”
“I respect you too much to do that to you. About this, anyway.” The playful gleam in the shifter’s eyes finally relaxed Ken.
“If she’s like this now, I might be begging you to Prime me closer to her due date.”
Duncan snorted, sounding every bit like the lethal wolf he was. “Do you honestly think I’m going to give you the easy way out, son?”
CHAPTERTWO
DEWI
Dewi triedto focus on her laptop screen, on the report awaiting her response, all while fighting the urge to grab the laptop and heave it into the nearest wall.
Or rather, heave itthroughthe wall.
How am I supposed to get any fricking work done feeling likethis?
Her moods now revolved around easily enraged, exhausted, hungry, horny, and having to pee.
Or sound asleep. As in naps, which wasn’t exactly an activity she’d partaken of for most of her life, unless it followed sex.
Now?
If she sat in one place too long and closed her eyes, she could easily nod off.
Which the doctor assured her was completely normal and nothing more than her hormones playing a number on her. To think of it in terms of a human’s experience multiplied by ten.
Especially since she was a Prime Alpha, which was, literally, unheard of. Even female Alphas were rare. Dewi would be expanding the knowledge of shifter biology in this way.
Terrific. I’m a science experiment.
She sat back, grabbed the bowl, and shoveled another spoonful of the coffeefied cake batter into her mouth.
Actually, the doctor—who’d promised not to tell anyone else this as long as Dewi managed it on her own—was worried she wasn’t gainingenoughweight. That her normally fast metabolism had kicked into overdrive thanks to her pregnancy hormones. A common issue with “normal” wolf shifter women but one the doctor guessed was accelerated by her Prime Alpha situation.
And since she was the only known Prime Alpha female, making her obviously the very first known pregnant Prime Alpha female, there were no baselines.
