Chapter 19
LAUREL
I’d slept on the couch. How dumb was I? I had the chalet to myself, the master bedroom all fluffed up, and I fell asleep on the couch in a bathrobe, with a fleece blanket over my legs and the guitar on the floor. I must have been playing long into the night.
Rubbing my eyes, I checked my phone and found twelve recordings. Nine were of the work-in-progress I’d tentatively called Magnificent Mess, and three of another melody with just three verses, something about the rain and mist in the mountains, and lone beasts lurking in the forests.
I didn’t dare to listen to the recordings for fear that the excitement I’d felt last night would fall flat today. Coffee first, maybe a shower, then I’d see if I was in the mood to play some more.
Setting the phone aside, I stretched my legs and groaned. The couch was comfy, but my lower back ached anyway. My own fault. I wriggled my toes and moved my legs.
Huh.
That wasn’t just any back pain. It spilled into my belly, warm and achy. And why was my bathrobe damp?
I threw the blanket off and untied the sash.
Wide-eyed, I stared at my bloated underbelly and hardening cock. It was dark with blood. My hole prickled, wetness cooling on my rim.
My stomach cramped up.
I ran to the bathroom, emptied myself, and took a shower, thoroughly washing my crease. Relieved, I felt my stomach relaxing. Maybe it had been the ice cream I’d had for dinner.
Except the slick kept coming even after I’d climbed out of the shower. The stomachache went away, but my belly remained swollen. My muscles felt all mellow and soft, especially around my hips and ass, and the clean T-shirt and sweats I’d put on itched. I wanted to be naked.
And I wanted my bears here with me.
God, I missed Monty and Jordy. Had it only been one night? How could I miss them so much? But I was getting distracted.
I wasn’t hungry but forced myself to eat a banana and dry toast for breakfast. The ache in my lower back returned, so I did a few yoga exercises. It didn’t help.
Then I noticed that while I’d been stretching and contorting my body, a wet spot had formed on the back of my sweats. Which were tented in the front.
Fucking hell, I was hard and leaking like a faucet!
I was doing my best not to jump to conclusions, but the symptoms were getting harder to ignore.
This wasn’t normal.
After drinking a glass of water in a futile attempt to calm my rising panic, I called Hunter. Only in Beauville would the doctor answer the phone himself and right away. I was lucky to catch him between patients, it seemed.
“Hunter Black, MD. How can I help you?”
“Hi, Hunter, it’s Laurel.” Lord, I sounded shaky.
“Hello, Laurel. Everything okay?”
“Not really. I wouldn’t be bugging you at work if it were, right?” I let out a nervous chuckle.
“What’s going on? Are you unwell?”
I rubbed my swollen stomach and adjusted my cock in my sweats. “I’m not sick. But I have symptoms.”
“What kind of symptoms?”
“Like heat, but not in heat.”
Hunter paused, the silence ominous. “I think you have to be more specific.”
“My hole is leaking, and I’ve been hard for almost an hour now, but I’m not feeling aroused. My underbelly is bloated.”
“When was your last heat?”
I scrunched up my face, redoing the math in my head. Yes, I remembered it correctly. “Nine months ago.”
“Are you in pain? Lower back? Lower stomach? Cramps?”
“Just a faint ache. But I feel empty and itchy. My nipples are sensitive.”
“Look, I can’t say for sure it’s an approaching heat unless I take a blood or slick sample.” He paused and sighed. “But it’s the most plausible explanation.”
“It’s too early,” I piped up, grasping at straws.
“Yes. Very.”
He knew I knew how this worked. I was in the bear-shifter capital of this state, and I was going into a sudden heat. It didn’t take a medical degree to figure out what was happening. Someone’s pheromones set me off, and my body decided to pop kids for a shifter.
Or shifters, plural.
I couldn’t even start unwrapping the implications. It was too much, too sudden… The timing, dammit!
“Can there be any other explanation?” My voice came out pleading.
“Early onset heat can be caused by hormonal imbalance, but it’s rare, and usually, you’d experience symptoms earlier in life. A lot of false alarms between heats, interspersed with periods of lowered libido. Any of that ring a bell?”
I blew out a breath. “I’ve always been on the clock with my heats, and all my checkups showed normal values.”
In the silence that followed, I could hear my own heartbeat.
“Laurel, have you been spending more time with someone?”
I rubbed my forehead, two faces flashing in front of my eyes, two cocks as I held them in my hands, two mouths on my nipples…
My magnificent alphas.
Fuck. This was a mess.
“Please, Hunter, don’t tell anyone about this.”
“I won’t. Do you need my help? A ride, perhaps? Or I can find him for you and talk to him, but it would probably be better if you told him yourself. I assure you that whoever he is, he’ll be happy.”
“Suppressants aren’t an option, huh?” Did I want that? But as soon as I suggested it, my mind went back to the B&B, to Jordy and Monty, the memory of their combined scent so powerful, I could smell it here with me. The fierce longing almost brought tears to my eyes.
“I mean, they work,” Hunter said. “The side effects are nasty.”
“I know. Did that once a few years back.” The worst two weeks of my life. Wrote the most depressing song of my career about that.
Hunter was quiet for a few beats, and I knew that I wouldn’t be taking any suppressants. Not this time.
“You’ve met your mate, Laurel,” he said gently. “That’s always a good thing, you know?”
“Yeah.”
Hunter had been trying to find his omega for ages, and here I was, shitting on that.
“There’s a chance he’s aching for you just as much. Talk to him. You need him to come to you as soon as possible. And call me if you get cramps before he arrives, okay?”
Talk to whom? Monty or Jordy? Both?
Then I slapped my hand against my forehead. “Hunter, wait. I’m about to get pregnant, aren’t I?”
“Nine out of ten omegas get pregnant during their first heat with a bear shifter,” Hunter recited flatly. “The urge to breed usually gets too strong to resist.”
“Nine out of ten. So not everyone.”
“I can give you contraceptives, but you’ll have to actually take them.”
“I have pills left from my last heat. They would be effective, right? Against shifter cum?”
Hunter let out a small chuckle. “Yes.”
“But I’ll be tempted to skip them when my brain gets soaked in horny hormones, and I’ll want to get knocked up, because shifter stuff. Right?”
“Yes, that’s usually the issue.”
“Hunter, I’m in no state to make any decisions whatsoever. My career’s in the air, and I’m getting mated and pregnant on top of that?” My voice rose in pitch.
“It’ll be okay, Laurel. I promise. Everything will turn out just fine. Go find the contraceptive and tell me how many pills you have left.”
Holding the phone to my ear, I ran to the master bedroom and rummaged through my luggage. I still hadn’t unpacked. I found the velvet toiletry bag and shook out the contents on the bed. Painkillers, mints against acid reflux, earplugs, chewing gum against motion sickness, and…
“Got them!”
Putting Hunter on speakerphone, I opened the tiny white bottle and peered inside. “There’s at least nine. No, eleven.”
“You’ll only need six at the most. Expiration date?”
“January.”
“Wonderful. Take one now. Immediately.”
I popped it in and swallowed. It was so small I didn’t need to wash it down with water.
“You’ll take one a day until the day after the last heatwave.
Without impregnation, the heat will last up to five days.
When your mate gets there, tell him about the pills, and put them on the nightstand so you have them ready.
He needs to help you take them. You might not be entirely rational or conscious during the heat, so you need to talk about this beforehand, okay?
He needs to be on board. Now set a timer for every day, this exact time, plus a reminder half an hour later. ”
I found my alarm app and set the reminders. One for eleven every day, and the same at eleven thirty.
“Done.”
“Good. You should end the call and talk to your mate.”
I let out a trembling breath. “You’re not going to ask who he is?”
“I figure I’ll know soon enough. This is Beauville, after all.”
“Thanks.”
“Good luck, Laurel.”
I stared at the phone in my hand.
Call my mate.
But who was it?
Because two bear shifter alphas had been leaving their cum deep inside me for the past few days. And I was wildly attracted to both of them. Missed both of them.
How was I supposed to know who was my fated? What if I wanted both?
Dammit, I didn’t have Jordy’s number.
Hands shaking, I scrolled through my contacts and pressed the call button.
Here we go.
“Laurel! Hi! How are you?” Monty sounded so excited.
Panic made my heart race, but I smiled. He would be here with me soon.
“I need help.”
“I’m at the B&B, but I can come to you.”
“Where’s Jordy?”
“He’s gone to the pub. They’re opening early for Sunday lunch. You sound rough. What’s happening?”
At that very moment, a slight cramp squeezed my middle, and I gasped. I didn’t have time to choose words and compose sentences.
“I’m going into heat. And I think it has something to do with you.”
A beat of silence followed. Then, “Oh fuck.”
“Monty?”
“I’m coming, Laurel. I’ll be right with you. I’m ending the call so I can shift, okay?”
“Okay.”
“It won’t even take three minutes.”
I heard a rustle of fabric and a banging of doors, and then the phone went silent.
I walked downstairs, my hand on my belly. The cramps weren’t too bad. It didn’t hurt. Not yet.
Phone in my hands, I sat on the stairs, facing the entry door. Three minutes, Monty had said.
It was bound to feel like a lifetime.