“Do you have a helmet of some kind, with a cage to cover your face?” he asked. “Or like, a hockey stick or something? Tennis racket?”
I paused to look at him skeptically. “Really? Do I look like someone who plays sports?”
He shrugged, but then he tensed right back up when something made a high-pitched chattering sound. “It sounds angry,” he hissed at me, ducking deeper into the blankets. “Do you think it has rabies?”
I grabbed the blanket and whipped it off him, making his squeal. “Come on. I’m not going out there alone. I need you to protect me.”
“No way! It’s probably going to chew my face off! Don’t you like my face?”
“I love your face, and I love you.” I bent over the bed to kiss him, before I took his hand and started to pull him with me. “It’ll be really easy, I promise. We’re just going to open the window, and then we’ll herd whatever it is straight outside. Easy peasy.”
That was such a lie. There was nothing easy about herding what turned out to be a very irate gray squirrel. It involved a broom, two throw pillows, much flailing, even more screaming, but eventually we managed to coax the thing out the open window.
Joel and I collapsed on the couch, sweaty and sore. “We can’t keep doing this,” Joel groaned, his head dropping onto my shoulder. “I won’t be able to wrangle wild animals when I’m nine months pregnant and roughly the size of a blimp. Can’t you tell your jaguar that I don’t need the extra calories?”
I threw my hands in the air. “I’ve tried! You try talking to him!”
Which, of course, led to me shifting so my mate could have a heart-to-heart with my beast.
My jaguar took up most of the couch, our head in Joel’s lap, as he smoothed his fingers down our flank. Our body rumbled with a nonstop purr of utter contentment. “I appreciate that you want to take care of me,” Joel said, rubbing the spot between our eyes. “You’re such a pretty, sweet kitty, aren’t you, and you just want to help. This is your baby too, isn’t it,” he said, and the truth of it rang through me.
Of course! Just as a wild jaguar cared for its young, my beast wanted to do the same, and he was doing it the only way he knew how.
“Do you know what Ireallyneed?” Joel continued, rubbing our ears between finger and thumb. “A den, somewhere safe and warm where I can keep our baby safe, with pillows and blankets. Do you think you could help with that? You could use the second bedroom.”
I could feel my jaguar’s attention latch on to the idea, and I knew we had him. It was unlikely that I would stop sleep-shifting anytime soon, but at least we’d given my jaguar something a little less lethal to focus on.
Looked like I had some shopping to do, or one morning, we might wake up without any pillows or blankets left on the bed for us.
Chapter 22
Joel
Mymate’sprotectivenesswascute at first. But it stopped being cuterealquick.
On Monday morning, working my usual shift at the café, the bell over the door rang, and my head immediately snapped up. Even before I caught his sweet scent, I could feel my mate’s presence like an incoming storm. The hair on my arms lifted in goosebumps, and I shivered as I waited for lightning to strike.
“Hey, I didn’t expect to see you this morning,” I said, resting the empty dish bin on my growing belly. I had just hit the five-month mark, and it was really starting to pop. “Couldn’t wait to see me?” I teased, but then I clocked the look on his face, chagrined and apologetic, as he leaned in to kiss me on the cheek, rubbing my belly to say hi to the baby.
“It wasn’t me, exactly. It was my…” He paused, looking around to see who was listening. “Friend,” he finished with emphasis on the word, implying his jaguar. “He’s been really pushy this morning with his need to check on you. And I figured I could use a coffee.” He shrugged helplessly.
I laughed. “Sure. Let me just clear these tables, and then I’ll whip something up for you.” I loaded up the bin with the discarded plates and mugs, but when I turned around to head back to the kitchen, there was North.
“Here, let me help you with that.” He didn’t even wait for me to answer before he took the bin from my hands and carried it to the back for me. Brent, who was working the counter, just turned to look at me, eyebrow raised.
“I…” I laughed awkwardly. “Alphas, am I right?”
Brent, who happened to be an alpha, as well as a new father, just nodded in understanding. “You’re not wrong.”
I’d been able to coax North to leave after making him a mocha latte, with extra whipped cream for his “friend,” but if I thought that was the last time he would stop by my work, I would be sorely mistaken.
On Wednesday afternoon, when I was walking the dogs through the park, who should happen to be taking a stroll at the same time? Oh yes, it was North.
I narrowed my eyes at him as he attempted to pull a, “Fancy meeting you here.”
“I know what you’re doing,” I seethed, jabbing a finger at him. “You think now that I’m pregnant, I am incapable of doing anything on my own. You think I’m weak.”
He winced, saying, “I promise I don’t think anything of the sort,” while simultaneously taking the leashes from my hands and looping them over his own wrists.
