“No, I think it’ll definitely be good. It just reminds me of my mate when he was pregnant. He would dream up weird foods, too.”
“Hey, this is not a weird food!” Then his words truly hit me. “Are you saying I’m pregnant?”
He didn’t answer me, and the word “pregnant” kind of sat there.
His mate was waiting for him when he pulled in. At first, I thought there might be something wrong, but then he was handed a huge chocolate chip cookie, fresh from the oven. It was just an “I miss you.” I got that, because I couldn’t wait to get back to my mate.
I hated how my brain always went to the worst-case scenario first like that.
“Thanks, guys. I’m gonna go take a nap. I’m kind of tired.”
Creven mouthed “pregnant.”
I was halfway back to my cabin when I figured it out. He wasn’t teasing me. He was hinting.
Running straight to the healing station, I grabbed a pregnancy test and ran home with it. Bryden’s library shift ended early onTuesdays, which was good because I really needed to pee and was waiting to take the test until he arrived.
The first thing I did when he came in was run to the bathroom and take it. I hadn’t even finished washing my hands when one line became two. So much for a three-minute wait. I brought the test out and held it out to him to look.
“Does this mean what I think it means?”
“We’re gonna be dads.”
“Dads!” His voice cracked.
I tossed the test in the garbage. As I came back to my mate, he went to his knees and put his face near my belly. “Hey, I hear you’re in there. I just wanted you to know your father can’t wait to meet you.”
Our little one was just the size of a pinhead and probably didn’t have ears yet, I wasn’t sure on that part. They were just beginning their journey to birth, but I didn’t stop Bryden from having a full-on conversation with them. It was all kinds of adorable to hear him going on and on, about how happy he was that our little one was coming.
I was, too.
20
BRYDEN
We both had the day off and were discussing what to do.
“We could stay in bed and read.” Roland looked at the pile of books we’d borrowed.
Though we were only supposed to have two at a time, the librarians were allowed more, and as Roland was my mate, Evelyn gave him “librarian’s mate” privileges.
“Yeah.” I peered out the window. “But it’s such a beautiful day. Why don’t we explore more of the pack land?”
We’d run around the perimeter on pack runs, and I’d swum in the river creek, but the land stretched for miles, and we hadn’t seen most of it.
Roland yawned and stretched on the bed. He agreed with my suggestion but said he needed a nap first and could we go after lunch. My mate had avoided morning sickness, though he did get more tired than usual.
There were white fluffy clouds in the sky when we finally set off in a different direction than we usually did. If we’d followedthe river creek, we could have reached the perimeter in a few minutes, and that was where the security guards had picked up the horse scents.
Instead, we walked over the small bridge constructed by pack engineers and headed inland, following a small trail. Roland loved mushrooms, and he was an expert in deciphering between the poisonous kind and the rest. We’d been told of a place where edible mushrooms grew, and he was looking forward to gathering some. Not only because he enjoyed eating them, but he was aware the zebra shifters turned their noses up at mushrooms.
“They’re all for me.”
My bear also wasn’t a fan of fungi, preferring to scout for berries.
Roland squealed when he found the mushrooms, and he ate some before we put the remaining ones in a basket. The wind had picked up, but my mate hadn’t noticed because he was obsessed with picking mushrooms. I shivered because it’d been hot in the morning, and the temperature had dropped.
The snippets of sky I viewed through the trees were darker than when we started, but rain wouldn’t bother two shifters. The mushrooms might get soggy, but other than that, we’d be fine unless we had to swim, because Roland preferred to stay on dry land.
