1This shit’s official
Molly struttedup and down the length of Brock’s wraparound porch gesturing to her brand-spanking-new shiny Bounty Hunter Apprentice badge clipped on her hip. “Take a real good look, guys. This shit’s official!” she boomed, her wide smile taking up most of her face. We all whistled and cheered her on. Tianna, Reo, and Haru heckled her, but you could see the delight on their faces. They were damn proud.
Cass and I shared a grin.
‘Took me two times to pass my apprentice test,’my bestie said. ‘I’m proud of our girl.’
I chuckled. Cass wasn’t the best with written tests, and the proctor had been a fae who’d distracted him, directing his thoughts straight to hanky-panky.
‘I’m proud of her too.’
Molly getting officially badged was a bright spot in an otherwise dark week. After Calista and her bitch siren sister disappeared into the underworld, I’d barely slept. Any day now they could march through with their army and try to enslave humanity. Brock posted a handful of wolves at the gate to the underworld at all times, with instructions to kill whatever came out of it and call us. Still, this was my destiny or whatever, which made it difficult to pass off the responsibility.
Haru and Reo said I’d need all nine tails in order to close the gate, and even then they didn’t know exactly how I’d manage it since I was a hybrid. Only a kitsune could permanently seal the gate, and I was only half kitsune, half witch. Nothing about the situation was ideal. In fact, everything about the clusterfuck we currently found ourselves in was as far from ideal as it got. Humanity’s survival hung in the balance, and we were figuring it out on the fly.
My dad was MIA, and I’d only shifted one time in the week since Calista and her sister disappeared into the gate—three more times to go. My new power: enhanced hearing. I could hear heartbeats, which was cool, but it also made it hard to sleep. Brock’s and the baby’s heartbeats pounded in my head all night long, when I needed my rest more than ever. Shifter pregnancies were accelerated. Gestation lasted a total of six months instead of nine, which meant this baby was going to be popping out of me in ten weeks or so—ready or not. Brock was trying to teach me to not focus on the sound of their beating hearts, but I was struggling. In truth, I was struggling to adjust to many aspects of my new crazy-as-fuck life, but fate hadn’t bothered to ask my opinion on the matter.
Brock sidled up to where I leaned against the porch railing to whisper in my ear. “Sabine is here.”
Today we were going to find out the sex of the baby. Brock was trying to act neutral, but I knew he was dead set on a boy, so the universe would probably give us a girl to spite him. I couldn’t think of a single thing that had gone to plan since Brock and I first met.
I gave Cass a nervous smile and pushed off from the railing. “I’ll be back in a bit,” I told Molly. “Remember, if you screw anything up, that badge gets taken.”
She saluted me. “Yes, ma’am. Have a good ultrasound, ma’am.”
Little shit.I grabbed a loose grape from the nearby picnic table and chucked it at her face. Laughing, she dodged it easily, which only caused my grin to grow wider. Molly had become like a little sister to me. I’d moved in with Brock just last night, after Molly signed a lease on Gran’s cabin. I was renting it to her for ten dollars a month. That’s about all she could afford. Hopefully, having a place of her own would keep her from blood-whoring with Croft. I liked the vamp attorney well enough, and I loved that he was the new head of the local seethe of vampires. But I didn’t want him to keep draining my dear friend of blood. She was always pale and shaky for a good while after his visits, and I’d had enough of that. Besides, her little ménage with Reo and Haru seemed to be going well. The brothers stayed at the cabin with her. Every night. All together.
You go, girl.
Brock laced his fingers through mine and led me back to our shared bedroom. The first thing I’d done was bring over all of Gran’s witchy shit. I’d placed it sporadically around Brock’s place, partially because I needed the stuff and enjoyed the constant reminders of the one woman who’d loved me when no one else had, and partially to test how much Brock loved me. So far, even though werewolves in general had an aversion to witches and their gear, he hadn’t said a word or raised an eyebrow. The man was total perfection.
“I was thinking teal for the nursery, with a mountainscape hand-painted by a local artist. If it’s a boy, of course,” he told me as we walked into the room.
“Sounds good. And if it’s a girl, no mermaids.”
Brock chuckled, giving me a sexy grin. “Agreed. Not even a hint of one. We can tell the artist to leave out water entirely.”
“You guys ready to find out the sex of the baby?” Sabine asked as she fiddled with some settings on her portable ultrasound machine.
Brock cringed. “The words sex and baby shouldn’t be used in the same sentence.”
Sabine rolled her eyes. “Fine. Gender.”
I waved them both off. “We’re beyond ready. Brock is already talking about hiring local artists to paint the nursery.”
Sabine grinned and pulled out the wand as I kicked off my boots, lay down on the bed, and inched down the waistband of my maternity pants. Yep, I’d graduated to the elastic band stuff. Cass teased me mercilessly about the new additions to my wardrobe, but coming from an imp who shopped in the toddler section of stores … I wasn’t very offended.
My belly was pretty prominent considering I was past the halfway point of the pregnancy. I couldn’t deny it anymore.
I. Was. Knocked. Up.
Sabine squirted cold gel on my belly and brought the wand down over my bellybutton. I was so grateful to have graduated from the internal dildo ultrasound. That wasn’t fun for anyone.
Brock sat on the bed on my other side and leaned forward, watching the blobs on the screen like a hawk and clutching my hand like it was a life raft and we were lost at sea.
I used our pack bond to speak:‘Chill out a little. I can’t feel my fingers.’
He immediately let up on my hand and grinned.‘I’m just so excited.’
