Deirdre stared right back, then clamped her lips together and clapped a hand over her mouth.
My heart sank. She knew something. She had bad news, I saw it in her eyes. But I couldn’t ask.
It wasn’t until she convulsed and a squeaking sound escaped that I realized she waslaughingat me. Deirdre fell back against the cushions, wheezed, “Doggie daycare?” and started howling with laughter.
“That’s not funny,” I said.
She kept laughing, though at least she covered her face with a pillow to try and stifle it.
“I’m serious,” I said. But she’d cracked through the shell of panic that had encased me. I heard how crazy I must have sounded, ranting at her about daycare for the baby who was still just a ball of cells. My voice wavered as I added, “It was a serious question.”
Which just set her off again into gales of laughter, huge hollering shouts that dragged a smile to my face even when I desperately wanted to frown. So I just gave up and collapsed on the couch across from her. A giggle worked its way up my throat and then I was laughing just as hard, though it mixed with quite a few tears. We were both incoherent for far too long.
She finally exhaled and pulled the pillow off her face. “Damn. Thank you, I haven’t laughed that hard in years. My abs are killing me.”
I rubbed my jaw. “I didn’t mean it to be funny. It’s a serious concern. What the hell do they do about kids? Do the kids just spontaneously turn into animals? What if they get stuck as animals? Is it a hormonal thing, so it happens when they’re teenagers? I don’t have any knowledge in this area and I’m pretty sure there isn’t a ‘What to Expect When You’re Expecting a Werewolf’ book.”
Deirdre chuckled and propped her feet up on the coffee table. “I’m not the best resource on this, hon. I’m a witch. I know what witch kids are like, and you should count yourself lucky you’re not having one. But there are plenty of resources for shifter babies, believe it or not, so don’t let that be a major factor in your decision about what to do.”
What to do. I’d thought about it in a split second after I saw the positive test, but in my heart I couldn’t terminate the pregnancy. It didn’t feel right. And the baby would be part me and part Dodge. I wanted that in my life, selfishly, if I couldn’t havehim. “I’m going to keep it. There’s not another choice, for me.”
“Okay,” she said, nodding. “So that’s the first decision taken care of. And – forgive me for asking – why do you think Dodge doesn’t want to be with you? That he dislikes you?”
The genuine curiosity on her face made my heart sink. What had he been telling her? Had Dodge made up some excuse and blamed the distance on me? It didn’t sound like him, but my feelings were so frayed I couldn’t make sense of anything. “He hasn’t visited me. At all. He freaked out at the hospital and he wascrazy. I got him shot and he was hurt and had to rescue meagain. I put everyone else in danger. He kept saying he knew I didn’t want anything to do with this supernatural stuff, that he wasn’t going to ask me out or ask me to stay or anything like that. And he hasn’t. He hasn’t even called.”
My eyes prickled again at the whole sad story laid out like that. I sounded pathetic, pining over a guy who walked away without too much issue.
Deirdre sat up and rested her hands on her thighs, looking at them more than me as she took a deep breath. “Okay, babe. It’s not really my place to say what I’m about to say, but since Dodge hasn’t done it himself, I’m going to anyway. Just... don’t hold it against him. He’s a good guy, or at least tries to be.”
I nodded, my heart jumping to my throat. I braced myself for something awful or heart-wrenching.
“I’m not sure how much you remember from when you were kidnapped.”
I shivered, shaking my head; I didn’t want to relive that. Didn’t want to think about it or hear about it.
Deirdre nodded and went on. “I won’t go into the details. It’s not about that. Dodge scaled a ten-foot chain link fence in wolf form to get to you inside the tiger cage. He held the tiger at bay, injured and by himself, for over an hour, while waiting for help to arrive. Before he found you, he and Silas killed half a dozen guys in the sanctuary, because they were monitoring the security cameras to make sure the tiger killed you and probably would have finished the job if he hadn’t finishedthem.”
I watched her, wanting to see the truth in her eyes. She didn’t blink or look away. There was infinite sadness and compassion in her gaze, enough that it made a lump in my throat.
“He wouldn’t leave your room at the hospital,” she said quietly. “It was days before Miles finally dragged Dodge away to shower and eat. He didn’t want to leave you. And when he came back, he literally lost his mind when he thought someone hurt you. Other people tried to get in, to get to you, and the wolf side... is not reasonable when it comes to protecting things it loves. In his mind, only he could help you and keep you safe. That was what mattered.”
I wiped my cheeks. “But he never said...”
“You were afraid and in pain,” she said. “He sensed that, and it pushed things into an uncontrollable area. Miles was there and managed to get a hold of him, but Dodge would have killed everyone in the room if it meant keeping you safe.”
I shivered. “But that’s not... That’sterrible. Does that happen often, that they lose control? How can I be s-safe around him if he’s going to freak out like that all the time?”
And how could I have a baby with a man who turned into a raging werewolf whenever someone was mean to me?
Deirdre hesitated, then went on and chose her words carefully. “There is... an exceptionally strong connection between a shifter and their life partner. You’ve seen how Miles is with me, right? And you’ve met Rafe and Meadow, and Edgar and Isobel. You noticed how they are and how they connect and communicate?”
“Yeah.” It both turned my stomach and made me irrationally jealous.
The corner of her mouth quirked up like she knew exactly what I was thinking. “That’s what he feels every minute of the day for you. Because you’re human, you might not feel the same way. You might not sense it. But for Dodge... There is nothing in the world that could break himexceptnot being able to help when you need him. He may lose control – it’s rare, honestly, from what I’ve seen and heard – but there will never be a time when he would harm you. Or a child. In fact, you might be the only person, other than Miles, who could bring him out of something like that. I’ve had to... distract Miles when he’s in a temper. The right word or touch tames the savage beast, as it were.”
She shrugged, head tilted as she watched me. “I know that doesn’t make it less scary when they can turn into huge monsters and make a lot of noise. But it’s the truth. He found you before anyone else, when we had easily a hundred people out searching. Dodge went right to you. He knew. God knows how, but they’ve got a compass when it comes to finding their mate.”
Mate. My heart tripped over itself as I struggled to understand what she said. If Dodge cared that much for me, if he’d been crazy to protect me, then why hadn’t he called or visited since then?
