Stupid, fucking, knuckle-dragging, shit for brains, self-centered, stupid… Dillon ran out of fresh insults for Sawyer long before he ran out of fury. How the hell had the dumb bear gotten him pregnant? How the hell could his body betray him by getting pregnant?
Men don’t get pregnant! The number one rule of the universe! Not possible!
And yet… Dillon ran a hand over his stomach. As flat as ever, even after a winter of sex, food, and sleep, and more sex. And more sex. And food and sleep, which… Having Sawyer nearly to himself all winter certainly provided plenty of opportunities for this screwed up situation to occur.
Was there really a cub inside him? Its little heart thumping away in there?
Cubs were always for someone else, not him. Not the guy thrown out of his home sleuth by an Urso who thought Dillon polluted the hills for who he was and what he needed. Who he needed. Wanted. By an Urso who wouldn’t train him and teach him what he needed to know to survive as a bear in a world that didn’t understand bears. His parents hadn’t been a lick of help, whether they wouldn’t, or they couldn’t, stand up to the bigoted waste of fur who’d turned him out into the cold.
A cub. For real? All the nausea was morning sickness? All the jokes were real?
Which—oh no. Heuking in the morning was one thing, expanding to the diameter of a Volkswagen was another, and birth—oh fuck.
Just growing this cub inside might kill him.
And Sawyer was so happy! Well, yeah, wasn’t he the Big Studly Papa Bear? All “I knocked you up, I’m Da Bear with the magic dick-juice that puts babies in another man!”
Yeah, the second Dillon turned that idea on its head, the dickwad cried for condoms to save him from the same hideous fate. Big old jerk. He saw the problems clearly enough when his insides were threatened with gestation. Fucker.
So what could he do about this horrible joke the universe just played on him?
Things that grew inside where they shouldn’t and threatened to kill the carrier were medical emergencies. Doctors were supposed to cure such conditions.
And yet… This… this… cub was already installed. And growing. Apparently happy. And Sawyer had put this possibility inside him.
With Dillon’s hearty help.
Part Sawyer. Part Dillon. Entirely impossible.
But… A reality. A cub. Their cub.
Dillon’s mama had sworn he’d be the death of her whenever his pranks got out of hand. Last he’d seen her, she cried while furtively stuffing his pack full of sandwiches. When harboring her gay son might have truly been the death of her at the paws of their crazed Urso, she hadn’t given up on him. Mama Bear. Defending him, giving him time to run.
Dillon wouldn’t give up their cub. His brave mama’s grandcub. Even if nothing made sense now. Too many unanswered questions. He glanced at the clock. Two thirty. Time to go get those answers.
Sawyer hadn’t turned up again by the time Dillon dressed.
Didn’t matter. Dillon didn’t need him and his attitude. Or his car. This town wasn’t that big.
Big brave bear was sitting on a rocking chair on the veranda when Dillon stepped out in into the fresh air. “Ready to go?” Sawyer rose, keys in hand.
“I’ll walk, thanks.” Dillon marched straight down the path between the azaleas, jerked a magnolia bloom off the tree and munched on the tasty blossom while pondering the absence of sidewalks in a town where the residents tended to freeze up when a car went by. He got all the way to the medical office before catching another whiff of bear.
Dr. Livingston ushered them both into his office. “Shall we start with your questions or with what I’ve found? Because it isn’t much. What I found on bear reproduction is quite different than human reproduction, and there’s really no way to decipher how much of it applies to you.”
There was no comfortable place in the office chair, or in his skin, or in his life. Dillon shifted anyway. “What I mostly want to know is if I can risk this…” he stumbled over “pregnancy”, because how could that really apply to him? “Now that I know we might be able to have a cub… I want them.” He wanted them with a rush of warmth nearly strong enough to knock him out of his seat. Sawyer crept his hand toward Dillon’s, cupping his fingers where he gripped the arm of the consultation chair hard enough to creak the wood. “I just don’t know how…”
If he didn’t say “how to survive this” then his worst fears couldn’t come true, could they?
And maybe the doctor misunderstood the nature of his worries, because he dashed on to practicalities. “We C-section about 20 percent of all deliveries, Dillon. I’ve reviewed the ultrasound, and I’ve been able to determine where the fetus is attached, so the surgery won’t be complex.”
“A couple of shifts and you’ll be good as new,” Sawyer put in. His eyes were huge, as if he hadn’t really contemplated the things scaring Dillon most. Well, he hadn’t, had he? All “We’re having a cub!” when Dillon faced the hard work and risked damage no shift could fix. “I promised I wouldn’t let anything bad happen.”
“That’s a big promise, Sawyer.” Dillon didn’t want to shoot his mate down completely. “Doc, how long do I have before this is a big horrible issue?”
Dr. Livingston rubbed his temples. “That’s one of those bear or human things. Bears need about three months of actual gestation and have very small cubs, and humans need nine months and have much larger cubs. Erm, babies.” The doctor shifted uncomfortably. “Is this something we could ask your family about? Mom? Sisters?”
“Oh hell no.” A lump grew in Dillon’s throat. “Contacting my family is a bigger problem than being pregnant.”
“Bless your heart,” Dr. Livingston sounded like he really was calling down benedictions this time. “We’ll figure this out somehow. I’ve consulted with another shifter, not a bear, but she said to expect about a six and a half to seven pound cub. Um, baby.”
“That’s about what my sisters and sisters-in-law used to talk about. But I don’t know how far along I am.” How long had he been unwitting host to offspring in the making?
“Six and a half pounds?” Sawyer went dreamy. “That’s big enough to cuddle without breaking.”
“That’s way too big to get through any orifice I have!” Dillon shouted.
“We’re not talking a natural birth, Dillon. Your orifices are safe.” Dr. Livingston patted the air, hush, hush. “Unless male bears do something we don’t know about here. At least it’s not twins.”
Oh joy, a way to make the horror worse. Multiples ran in the bears: that’s how Dillon accumulated sixteen nieces and nephews. Lots of cubs to dandle and snuggle and tickle and blow raspberries on tummies… And give back to mommies and daddies and run away home before diapers and bedtimes became a hands-on project. Though he’d been urped on more than once.
“I’ve never actually changed a diaper.” Dillon followed the thought out loud. “My siblings are a lot older than I am, and I’m not much older than their kids.” Four of his nieces were actually older than he, and used him as a superior sort of dolly when they’d played House and Tea Party. He hadn’t minded—they’d fed him cookies.
“Why don’t you and Sawyer come over for dinner? We can give you an inservice on our son.” Dr. Livingston smiled indulgently. “He’ll be a great hands-on experience.”
Wasn’t as if Dillon could go home and practice on the most recent sets of nieces and nephews. Plus, hunger would be rearing its head again soon, and damned if he wanted to be beholden to Mr. Unsympathetic for chow or car keys or anything else. “Thank you. We’d be delighted.”
Sawyer could keep his double take to himself, and maybe Dillon could drag the conversation back to the necessary. “Back to how long I’m going to be…ah…swollen up?”
The doctor looked abashed. “We can’t go by the last date of a period you’ve never had. Bears have this confounding factor of delayed implantation, so we can’t even go by the date that’s the likeliest, based on sexual activity.”
“Every day’s a likely day when we’re hibernating,” Sawyer informed the doctor, a big goofy grin back on his face, damn it! “If we’re awake, we’re probably eating, or ah, mating.”
He’d been primed to say fucking; Dillon just knew it. And true enough, but crass when explaining to someone who fainted as a method of clutching his pearls. Well, maybe Mother Moon made Southern possums of sterner stuff. How’d he become a doctor, when every appointment ran the risk of him landing on the floor?
Dr. Livingston passed black and white printouts across the desk. He’d scribbled measurements for various body parts on the baby-shaped blob. “Your morning sickness argues for earlier, but the fetal measurements argue for later. If you were human, I’d estimate you’re ten to eleven weeks along based on fetal size.”
Dillon swallowed hard. Not blobs. His cub. His to protect, his to cherish. And Sawyer’s: other papa leaned across the gap between their chairs to gaze on the pictures with his lips parted. But damn it, his mate better quit patting Dillon’s thigh like he’d performed a clever trick by getting pregnant!
“But you’re not, and frankly, I’m having to guess on what bear shifters should be based on averages of bear and human, and expected weight at birth. Is there really no one in your home sleuth who could provide better information? I could call them.”
“No!” Dillon all but shrieked. Hadn’t he convinced the doctor his family was a problem? One sister kept in touch, but she’d never keep her mouth shut with baby news. Or she’d turn against him like the others. “Don’t call anyone there!” Oh fucking crabapples, his old Urso would send a hit squad if he even suspected the abomination he’d turned out untrained got pregnant. “If they thought for a moment you’re calling about me…” No promise Sawyer’d made could be strong enough against the potential backlash, even with the entire pack of werewolves to help. Dillon knew how the pack was divided on the subject of bears, leadership, and probably whether or not the sun rose in the east.
“The nurse/midwife I found in Colorado is conversant with shifters. It’s not like the AMA or other professional associations have a shifter specialty list. She’s the only name that came up in a dozen phone calls who has OB experience with our kind.”
“Ah, but she does have experience!” Sawyer pounced on the information. “Who is she, where is she, and what’s her phone number?”
“Since I still don’t have OB type body parts,” Dillon snarled, “what exact use is she going to be?”
Dr. Livingston went slightly glassy-eyed for a moment. “Prenatal care, for one. Margo Frost is quite competent to recognize healthy people, and she’ll be able to identify most anything going wrong in the early stages and can flag me down, or her own supervising physician if you require immediate attention. You’ll see her once a week, because we simply don’t have enough data to call you anything but a high-risk pregnancy.”
“High risk?” No shit, Sherlock. The “pregnancy” part, though… Dillon’s insides flipped around. At least—the swirling, whirling maelstrom might be his own insides. Or maybe a future little acrobat in there. Moon but he hoped Sawyer was taking notes of the rest of the doctor’s information, because Dillon could only rest a hand on his belly and try to wrap his mind around being a father.