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CELESTE
I was going to be sick, and the toilet was too far away.
I ran as fast as I could, knocking my knee painfully against the bathroom door frame as I rushed into the tiny room. “Ow!”
The heat in my face rose and I grabbed for my hair, holding it out of the way as I launched my body forward.
“Bleh....”
The acidic bile rushed up my throat and into the toilet bowl, splashing against the sides and making me retch and choke even further. The smell burnt my nose and tears rolled down my cheeks, until finally, mercifully, it stopped.
I reached for the thin toilet paper beside me, pulling it from the roll and dabbing at my mouth.
I swallowed hard, though my mouth was too dry.
Yuck.
“Oh... dear God.” That was terrible.
And it hadn’t stopped yet.
Every day I’d been sick.
Every morning, to be precise. Until about lunchtime.
For two weeks.
I couldn’t ignore the truth any longer.
“I’m in trouble here.”
The front door to the apartment banged open and I jumped up off the floor and took a seat on the toilet, my head spinning with fatigue and low blood pressure.
“Celeste!”
I pushed the bathroom door quickly shut and pulled down my pants, so it looked like I was using the toilet for something more than vomiting.
In case he came in. Like he had done many times in the past.
There was no such thing as privacy if you were a member of the Little Rock bear’s den.
I called out to him. “In the bathroom. I’ll be out soon.”
The bile rose again. Oh, no. My gut churned and tightened.
I closed my eyes and forced the vomit back down, swallowing hard against the automatic reflex to let it all out.
I couldn’t let them know my secret.
I couldn’t.
They’d never forgive me.
Loud footsteps walked up the hallway, then a fist pounded the door, hard.
I jumped, shivering with fear.
“Hurry up!” The voice was rough and loud. “The kitchen isn’t going to clean itself, woman!”
I rolled my eyes, but only because he couldn’t see me. If anyone in this place knew the kitchen needed cleaning, it was me.
“Um, one minute. Sorry. I’ll be right out.”
He grunted and walked away.
I relaxed against the commode as I heard his footsteps fade away, my whole body shaking with stress.
How long was I going to be able to hide this from the den?
And when they finally found out, which was inevitable, what would they do? Force me to get an abortion? Or something worse?
I exhaled in a long sigh. Time to get moving before he came back and dragged me out.
I opened the bathroom door and moved to the sink to splash some cold water onto my hot cheeks.
Uncle Dennis, my adoptive father’s brother, was my “employer”. He had set me up to work seven days a week in a job no one else would do—cleaning this run-down block of apartments.
The bears owned the apartment block. Some of the floors were rented out to outsiders, but the rest were occupied by members of the den, including me.
And the way I paid for my tiny bedroom in this apartment I shared with four others, was to clean every bathroom in the block.
All forty-six of them.
I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, garnering whatever self-preserving courage I had.
Just one step at a time. You can do this.
I walked to the old kitchen and grabbed some saltine crackers from the cupboard, crunching on the only thing that seemed to keep the nausea at bay.
I took a moment to allow the food to reach my belly and settle the queasiness, and then I got to work.
Of course, it wasn’t just my job to clean every bathroom in the block of apartments. It was also my delight to clean the kitchen and the entire apartment I slept in. Even though five of us lived here.
I had just finished wiping down the benches and cleaning out the kitchen sink, when my nose began to burn with a sudden foul smell. My throat convulsed. Oh, no. The others were back.
Then the front door flew open and three, burly, bear-shifting men walked in.
Great. My uncle was front and center, strolling in with two of the others who’d shunned me when they found out I was human.
The smell of them.... Oh my God.
I couldn’t hold in the need to throw up, the second their musty stench hit my nostrils.
I rushed to the newly cleaned kitchen sink. My back heaved as my stomach emptied the meager contents I’d managed to keep down.
“What’s going on with you? You sick again?” My uncle’s voice was angry, annoyed. Like it always was whenever he spoke to me. Or at least, like it had been ever since I reached maturity and the bears had decided I was unworthy of a mate.
Not a single man from the den had wanted me.
Not that I’d wanted any of them, either. But it hurt. Despite all my hopes and dreams of a real family, I’d been rejected.
Wholeheartedly.
I nodded and rinsed out my mouth as quickly as I could. “Ah, yeah... sorry. I’ll get back to cleaning.”
I kept my head down, attempting to walk around the three man-mountains standing in the middle of the kitchen.
Each smelled as bad as the other.
“Stop.”
The command in my uncle’s voice made me freeze. Or as close as I could, considering I was shivering like a leaf in the Fall breeze.
“What...?” My uncle bent down and smelled me, sniffing loudly, before his lip curled up in a snarl. “You smell even worse than usual. Almost like a.... wolf.”
My eyes closed and my stomach dropped to my feet.
They knew.
They must know, and they would punish me for my mistake.
Rough hands grabbed my chin and forced my head up.
“Open your eyes.”
I did as commanded, and Uncle Dennis’s eyes bored into mine.
“Tell me. Now.”
“What... I mean... Tell you?” I was stammering, I was so scared.
My arms and legs shook. Goosebumps covered my skin.
I felt as if I would fall to the floor if he let go of my jaw.
“Lou, Davie, come here and smell her. Tell me if you smell what I do?”
Oh, God, no!
I kept my arms pinned to my sides and tried not to breathe.
This was the most humiliating thing about being part of this family. They all said I smelled weird.
Worse than weird. Bad. Disgusting.
Or that’s what the bears said.
So, I scrubbed myself clean three times a day, even taking antiseptic into the shower some days to disinfect myself.
It hadn’t changed anything.
They still hated me and said my smell made them sick.
“She’s knocked up,” Lou grunted.
“Yeah, but by who?” Uncle Dennis growled.
He shifted his grip to my throat and forced me backward until my spine touched the wall. I gasped for air, trying to control my growing panic.
No!
I grabbed for his hands and pulled on them, trying to loosen his grip, the pain making my head spin. He squeezed tighter, until I couldn’t breathe at all.
Oh God... Am I going to choke to death, right here, at his hand?
“None of us wanted you, so it can’t be a bear’s baby. Who was it, you little slut?”
I couldn’t lie. I had to tell them the truth. I’d been lonely and desperate, and the man I’d met made me feel more loved in a single hour than I’d ever experienced my whole life.
He released me enough that I could finally answer him.
“Just... a guy. In town. At a bar.”
Uncle Dennis dropped me to the ground. I inhaled quickly, needing the air. I stayed where I was, on my hands and knees.
I wasn’t getting back up just to be knocked down again. I’d learnt that lesson the hardest way, many times over.
As one of the only non-shifting women in the whole den, I was the weakest by far. I had the scars and the healed broken bones to prove it.
“It smells like a wolf,” he growled above me.
I kept my head down. They weren’t talking to me.
“We always knew she smelled like them,” Uncle Dennis said.
“One of their human mates.” Lou spat.
What?
I listened intently, though I tried not to show how interested I was.
A wolf’s fated mate? How was that possible? I knew about the concept of fated mates, of course. I’d lived among the bear shifters for long enough. But... I was human. That seemed impossible, in my mind.
“You know the Alpha doesn’t want the wolves getting any more of them,” Lou growled and I heard Uncle Dennis’s sigh.
Any more of them? Of what? Humans? Mates? What are they talking about?
“Let’s take her to the Alpha and find out what he wants to do with her.”
They hoisted me to my feet, and I went with them without complaint, even though the Alpha, Trevor, terrified me even more than Uncle Dennis. Being submissive to the bears had kept me alive and relatively well fed.
I relaxed as much as I could, calm descending over me. It was probably unnatural and unhealthy, this calmness, but I’d known this day would come, sooner or later.
They’d realize I wasn’t suited for their den, and they’d either kick me out, or ship me off somewhere.
But now that the worst had finally arrived, my shakes and panic seemed to disappear. My mind worked faster than it ever had, focusing in on the one thought that mattered. There was more than me at stake now. My baby needed protection from the men who towered over us.
There was only one thing to do. As soon as I got the chance, I had to run.
And thanks to Lou inadvertently spilling the beans about my wolf-like smell, I now knew where to go for refuge.
Tayte, the Alpha wolf-shifter from the bar, had said something strange the night we met.
About a woman, a doctor, who was the first human mate they’d found in town.
I’d memorized that piece of information somehow through my alcohol-fogged brain.
My baby and I needed protection, and the daddy wolf who had made this baby with me was the only one who could give us the protection we needed.
***
DEATH!
They’d sentenced me to death!
The family that had taken me in as a baby, and raised me. The family I’d slaved for, all these years. Whom I’d tried to love to the best of my ability. I’d spent years caring for their children, their homes... and this was the result?
With a single word from the new Alpha, Trevor, they decided I needed to die.
I still couldn’t believe it.
They’d all turned their backs on me.
I sat in my locked bedroom, still stunned at the turn of events. They had chosen to kill me in the morning, because tonight they were too busy with important bear pack stuff to bother with a little human like me.
They probably thought I’d never even consider escape. But they were wrong.
So wrong.
I placed my hands gently over my stomach. I had the incentive now, and I wouldn’t sit around and wait to be killed, like they probably assumed I’d do.
Idiots. They hadn’t even bothered to chain me up.
In the past I’d always meekly fallen in with their plans.
Not this time.
Not when my life, and that of my growing baby, was on the line.
As soon as the noise of the pack quietened down halfway through the night, indicating that most, if not all of them were finally asleep, I managed to pick the lock and break out of my bedroom. I’d done it before, when they’d left me alone, in case I ever needed to get away one day. Not that I thought I’d ever actually need the skill. But it wasn’t difficult with the old locks, and a couple of hair pins bent in a particular way.
I crept through the apartment, avoiding the creaking wood panels I knew by heart, and ran. Through the exit door into the stairwell, down the many flights of stairs and out into the cold night air.
I didn’t even stop to shiver in the tank top and thin jeans I wore. I just started running. Through the city, heading for the hospital. Toward the woman who might be able to help me.
A doctor, named Claire.
God... please.
The bear’s apartment block was as far away from the inner city as they could get, almost on the outskirts of the city, in fact, but the streetlights lit my path, showing me the way to safety.
My heart galloped in my chest.
My throat burned as I gasped air in and out of my lungs.
And I didn’t stop.
As soon as the bears realized I was gone, they would chase me, and I’d be done for. I had no protection, no weapon. The only things I had were my two legs and the will of a mother fighting for her child’s life.
It had to be enough.
I kept running, city block after city block, though my tired body screamed at me to stop.
Adrenaline pumped harder through my system and I increased my pace, turning corners as quickly as I could.
The streets were deserted. It had to be past two a.m.
I didn’t really know the exact time.
I kept going, pausing to breathe at an intersection to get my bearings, my chest heaving with exertion.
Which way?
They didn’t let me out into the city very much and I wasn’t familiar with the street signs, though I’d lived here all my life.
I looked and looked, then saw a sign I recognized.
Yes! The supermarket. It isn’t far from the hospital.
Keep going.
I pushed off again, my legs screaming at me for those first few steps until I found my rhythm once more.
The hospital, safety, was about six blocks now, by my reckoning. My thigh muscles burned as I tripped on some uneven pavement, but I kept running.
The night was silent, except for my ragged breathing.
I could only imagine what would happen when the bears woke to find me gone. Growling and screams of rage would follow. I knew their tempers, their fighting and hunting abilities.
I’d watched them my whole life. And if I became the hunted, rather than the observer, then I was as good as dead.
Unless I could find her in time.
Claire. The doctor.
I turned one more corner and ground to a halt.
There it was.
A huge, white building with bright lights and doors that opened automatically.
I staggered the last hundred feet, my energy depleted and my body relaxing as my safe haven was finally in sight.
I stopped on the sidewalk, fear skittling through me.
The bears would be able to track me straight here if I went inside the hospital right now. They’d already tracked Claire there once.
I had to throw them off the scent, at least a little.
Damn it.
I staggered to the right, going another block down, though fear truly raced along my nerves now.
I ripped off my tank and dropped it onto a park bench.
I walked to the next bench and took off my jeans, leaving them beneath the seat.
“Oh my God.” It was freaking freezing!
I jumped up and down, clad only in my old underwear, and then ran back to the hospital.
Hopefully that would help.
I ran straight into the Emergency Room and the bright lights enveloped me.
I was shaking, freezing, panting and half-naked. I felt as if I were about to drop to the floor in a faint.
Nurses rushed at me from everywhere, with blankets and juice, and nice words.
They admitted me straight away.
“What’s happened dear, were you attacked? Shall we call the police?”
An old nurse was preparing a bag of fluid and as she came for me, needle ready to put in my arm. I stopped her.
“Can I please have a shower? I smell bad, and I’m so cold.”
My scent would be greatly reduced after a shower. And thanks to the bears grabbing me early yesterday and then locking me up, I hadn’t had one in over twenty-four hours.
“Of course, you can, after we’ve done a few tests.”
I stood up. I couldn’t let her win this one. “No please. It’s important. I’m pregnant and I need to see Claire.”
“Claire?” The nurse blinked and put down the needle. “She’s not working tonight but I may have someone else who could help you.”
I shuffled toward the shower room. “Please. I just need two minutes in the shower, then you can test me as much as you like.”
The nurse nodded and I jumped into the shower, scrubbing my trembling body with the sterile-smelling soap and even washing my hair. Someone had left some shampoo in the stall and I couldn’t resist. I didn’t get that luxury much at home.
“Here you go.” Someone stuck her arm into the cubicle and offered me a fresh white towel.
I turned off the water and reached for the towel. It was clean and fluffy. “Oh, that’s heavenly! Thank you.”
The person behind the door laughed.
“What’s funny?” I asked, frowning her way, though she couldn’t see me.
Surely the fact that a hospital towel was the cleanest piece of linen I’d seen in my whole life wasn’t to be laughed at.
“I’ll explain in a sec. I was told you came in with no clothes. I had some spare yoga pants and a sweater in my locker.”
She placed the bag just inside the bathroom, then shut the door again.
Tears prickled in my eyes and I blinked them back.
“That’s... ah ... so kind of you.”
I quickly dried my body and wrapped my wet hair with the towel.
The yoga pants were the perfect size, though a little tight around my tummy, and the jumper was snuggly and warm, though way too big.
How tall was this woman?
I glanced at my reflection in the mirror. I was red and blotchy, but clean and safe.
I’d take it.
When I stepped out of the bathroom there was a young nurse sitting on the bed.
She grinned at me with a lazy confidence I’d only seen in the extremely powerful shifters in my den.
All men.
“Um... I’m Celeste,” I said.
She grinned. “Nevaeh.”
“Nevaeh...” I’d never heard that name before.
“That’s why I laughed. You said, heavenly. My name is heaven spelled backwards.”
I stared at her, wondering if she was joking.
She laughed. “It’s true. Hippie parents. I used to hate it, but since meeting my guys, I don’t stress anymore.”
Had she just said “guys”? As in, more than one?
She didn’t answer my question, though. Instead, she pulled her cell phone from her pocket.
“I know you wanted to see Claire, but she’s at home. She’s pregnant and working less hours. Why did you ask for her?” Nevaeh’s tone was casual, but I had the strangest feeling she knew why I was here.
“Ah... that’s great about her being pregnant.”
Maybe I shouldn’t have come here? I didn’t know these people. How could I trust them?
This was a stupid idea.
I edged toward the door.
“Um... I think I’ll get going.”
Nevaeh stood up. “Hey, don’t freak out. You’re pregnant, too?”
I hesitated, then realized I’d told the first nurse the truth. So, I nodded.
Nevaeh moved around the room and gestured to the bed. “I’m not going to hurt you, I promise. Have a seat and I’ll explain.”
I had pretty good instincts when it came to evil intent, and as I reached out with those senses, I came up with nothing.
Hmmm... okay.
I walked back to the small bed, climbed onto the thin mattress and pulled the blanket over me. It was so nice to be warm.
Nevaeh stepped toward me, her movements slow and non-threatening. “Mind if I put the drip in now that you’ve showered?”
I nodded. “Sure.”
Not for me, but for the baby.
I rolled up my sleeve and she walked the rest of the way across to me, sliding the needle into my hand effortlessly and then taping it down.
Wow. She was good at that.
“You need your fluids,” she said, as though that explained everything, then sat again in the chair by the bed. “Look, Celeste, I’m willing to tell you everything about me and Claire, but you have to show me that you need to know. If you know what I mean?”
She smiled and waited. I got the drift and sighed.
What did I have to lose at this point?
“I’ve lived with the bear shifters just near the edge of town, for most of my life. But they found out yesterday that I’m pregnant and they decided to kill me. Me and my baby. So, I ran.”
Nevaeh slid to the edge of her chair. “Holy shit.”
“Yeah.”
Then she snorted. “Sounds like my last month.”
Sorry? “Ah... what?”
Nevaeh shrugged and met my gaze. “I’m not sure if you heard what happened with Trevor and his dad, but I’m the female that Trevor was stalking.”
She was the girl? My gaze ran over the woman in front of me. Tall, thin and super-pretty. “You’re the one who killed our Alpha.”
I was shocked. I’d expected someone so much bigger, stronger, and more shifter-like.
Nevaeh nodded. “Unfortunately, yes that’s me. He was trying to kill my mates.”
She looked a bit regretful, but not overly sorry. And I didn’t blame her, if what she said was true.
“Trevor’s our Alpha now. I never much liked his father but Trevor’s just as bad. Worse in some ways.”
Then I slammed a hand over my mouth. I couldn’t believe I’d actually said that!
Such a comment would have normally gotten me whipped, or my arms broken.
Nevaeh winced. “I wish I’d gotten him, too. Bastard.” Then her gaze zeroed in on me.
“So, why are you here, Celeste? You obviously know about the shifting world. And you’re running from the bears. How can Claire and I help you? And how did you know to come here for her, anyway?”
I licked my dry lips and Nevaeh handed me a bottle of water.
I smiled with gratitude.
She was being so nice to me. I needed to be honest with her. “I heard about Claire from Tayte, a guy I met in a bar a couple of months ago. He told me about his town, and how Claire was the first female mate they’d found in years.”
Nevaeh’s eyes opened even wider.
“Tayte told you about the pack? About Claire?”
She looked surprised, and a bit upset.
I jumped in to defend him. They probably weren’t allowed to tell humans about their world. “Yeah. He could smell the bears on me, so he knew I lived with them. And he was pretty drunk... so was I. I’m not sure he meant to tell me so much, but don’t worry, I never said anything to any of the bears about Claire. They knew anyway, somehow. That the wolves had found their first mate. That’s why they tried to keep you away. Wait a minute.”
All the pieces suddenly clicked into place. “You’re a wolf mate, too!”
Her lips stretched up into a huge smile. “Yes, I am. But do you mean too, as in like Claire... or do you mean too... as in, like you?”
She raised her eyebrows and my hands flew to my still-flat stomach.
I didn’t want to answer that, and if I were being honest, I didn’t really know the answer. I was going only on the word of the bears. What would they know about wolf fated mates?
“Is Tayte the father?” Nevaeh asked quietly.
I waited a heartbeat, then told the truth.
I nodded. “Yes, that’s why I came here. To find Claire. To ask for her help in getting to the pack. I know I come with a whole lot of trouble at my back, but I need to find Tayte and see if he will be willing to protect me and the baby.”
Nevaeh pulled her cell phone from a pocket and began pressing buttons.
“Who are you calling? It’s probably three in the morning.”
“Three thirty, actually.” Nevaeh put the phone to her ear and gestured for me not to stress with a flutter of her hands. “Trust me, Grayson’s gonna wanna hear this.”