Chapter 5
Ian
Istare at the short list of book titles on my screen, willing another message to come through, but Julia doesn’t text me again. I type and delete a response to her at least ten times, but I don’t send it.
She needs time to process. If I push, the greater the chances are that she’ll block me. Who knows, maybe she already has. She seemed…rattled by the news that we’re a fated pair.
It’s shocking to me, too, but I’m not married to someone else. And I’m not human.
Who is her husband, anyway? Does he treat her right?
How old are her kids? What does she like to do for fun?
I’m itching to know more about her and her life, but I don’t even know her last name or where she lives.
Only where she works. I can’t even look her up online.
It’s a restless night, and I spend most of it looking through the baby books I bought, pacing on the deck outside, and admiring the huge, yellow full moon tonight.
I wonder if Julia is looking at it, too.
In the morning, when I’m making my breakfast—oatcakes and eggs—my phone vibrates with a call.
Who calls at seven-thirty? Probably one of my brothers.
Unsure I want to tell them anything about finding my mate yet, I let it go to voicemail.
But when whoever it is calls back a second and then third time, I get worried it might be bad news, so grab the phone and answer.
“What’s going on?” I snap. Maybe I’m a little more on edge than I’d like to admit. “I’m in the middle of cooking.”
“Oh. Um. Sorry. I didn’t mean to bother you.” Julia’s voice on the other end of the line is small and breathy and makes my tail wag furiously. “Is there a better time?”
“Nooooo!” I slide over and switch off the stove burners. Breakfast can wait. “Sorry, I thought you were someone else. This is a great time. Um, talk to me. Tell me what’s up.”
She hesitates for a split-second, and I worry she might hang up. But then she says, “Okay. I had some time to think about what you said yesterday, and I realized I might have dismissed you a little too quickly. Now that I’ve had time to process, I have some questions.”
My head gives a throb, and I realize I’ve been holding my breath. I let it out in a rush. “Shoot. Ask me anything.” I will tell this woman whatever she wants to know. My bank balance. The size of my dick. The dumb things I’ve said to people during job interviews. Anything.
“Obviously, you and I can’t have a relationship,” she begins.
This isn’t obvious to me. In fact, it seems pretty easy for us to be together. She just needs to dump the human husband, and I’ll show her the level of devotion she can expect from a wulver fated mate. But I bite my tongue and let her talk.
“I want to help you have a family of your own, if I can. Some friends of mine used a gestational carrier to have their son, and I can’t imagine their family without him in it. If I can give you that kind of joy, that kind of love in your life…”
“You can.” My throat is tight. She’s such a good person. I can feel how sweet and kind she is through the phone. “You’re the only one who can.”
She chuckles. “We don’t know that yet. I’m forty-five. That’s getting up there. That’s one of my questions, actually. Am I even a good candidate for surrogacy at my age?”
I want to howl with excitement. She’s really considering it.
It’s not ideal to contemplate a life without my mate, but pups of my own?
That would be a hell of a consolation prize.
“We can find out. I’ll make an appointment with a wulver doctor to check you out if you want.
They know more about hybrid pregnancies than I do and can tell you what to expect.
And if you wanted to talk to my sister-in-law, she’s pregnant right now. ”
“I remember. Three boys and a girl,” Julia murmurs. “I don’t know how I feel about multiples.”
“It’s not always a litter,” I rush to reassure her. “Conall and I were both only pups.” I leave out the fact that our older brothers were a litter of five.
“Good to know. I’m just trying to envision how it would all look. I want a clear picture before I bring it up to my husband.”
She hasn’t told him. That’s not good. He could be a huge roadblock. “Of course. I’ll address whatever concerns you have. Listen, do you want to come over? We can iron out the details in person and I can show you the nursery?”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she says swiftly, and I realize how dumb that was to suggest. Yeah, come to a remote cabin in the woods to meet up with a guy who is desperate to impregnate you. Great plan, Ian. I wonder why she’s not jumping on that.
“Somewhere in town, then? The coffee house again?” I suggest.
“Um, okay. After work today, same time?”
“Perfect. See you then.”
She looks different today. Equally beautiful, but her hair is braided on the side, and she has lipstick on. Her cheeks flush when she sees me sitting at the same table. Our drinks have already arrived, so I nudge the sugar bowl toward her when she sits.
She doesn’t immediately doctor her drink with it, though. First, she takes some tablets from her bag and chews them. “Lactose intolerance,” she explains. “I usually use soy milk.”
“Shit. I should have asked. I’m so sorry.”
She smiles, shaking her head. “It’s fine. I’m just letting you know because the pups could get it from me. You might need to use special formula. I mean, if we go ahead with this whole thing.”
“Okay.” My pulse is racing, being so close to her. My tail thumps against the leg of the chair. “Does that mean you wouldn’t want to nurse them?”
At the thought, I’m helpless to the magnetic pull of her breasts and find myself staring at their lovely, weighted curves. Her shirt is lower cut today, and I can see the very top of her cleavage, just a tiny peek above the neckline that calls me like a beckoning finger.
When I realize I’m drooling, I wrench my gaze back to her eyes. They’re crinkled at the corners. I think she’s laughing at me.
“Probably not a good idea,” she says softly, her expression growing serious. “If I did, I’m not sure I could let them go.”
Then don’t! I roar on the inside. Keep them! Be mine!
But on the outside, I nod. “I take it you aren’t interested in co-parenting.”
She busies herself with adding sugar to her glass mug. When she finally raises her head, she’s biting her lip and her eyes are shiny. “I—I wish I could. It’s just not possible. It would disrupt my family…”
We’re your family, too, I want to growl.
By we, I mean me. She’s my family. The pups don’t exist yet except in my heart. And if I want them to ever be real, I can’t scare Julia away.
This has to be hard for her. She’s taking a huge risk by even meeting with me, and I’m grateful that she is brave and compassionate enough to do it anyway. I don’t want to meet her with frustrated demands when she’s coming from a place so loving.
So I nod again. “I’ll have the paperwork drawn up for you to relinquish parental rights.”
She lets out a giggle that verges on hysterical. “I can’t believe we’re talking about birth when we don’t even know if I can get pregnant.”
“You can.” My nostrils flare, drinking in her ripe-peach scent. “You don’t need to worry about that. But if you don’t believe me, I made a doctor’s appointment for Tuesday afternoon. Does that work for you?”
She checks her phone, her cheeks flaming. She nods. “I can do Tuesday.”
“That’ll be enough time for you to run a background check on me,” I joke. She returns my smile. “I’ll have a lawyer draw up an agreement to make it clear that I will assume all expenses related to the pregnancy and birth. All expenses for the pups. Anything you need during that time…I’ll cover it.”
Or afterward. Or any time, for the rest of our lives.
“My husband will be happy to hear that,” she cracks, although neither of us laugh.
“Can we talk about him?” She gives a wary nod, so I bulldoze on. “Is he good to you? Is he kind? I apologize for asking, but is he…safe?”
“Oh, you mean for the babies? Yes, of course. He’s never laid a hand on me. He’s not that type of man.”
I notice she hasn’t answered me. Not really. But it was a very personal question from someone she doesn’t know at all. I decide to remedy that. “Is there anything you want to know about me that would put your mind at ease as far as our children growing up in my home?”
Her breath catches at the description, but she hides it well behind a sip of her latte. “Of course, I’d love to know more about you and your family. I don’t know a ton about wulver culture yet, although I did some reading last night.”
My ears perk up at that. “Oh yeah, what did you read about?”
She shakes her head and giggles, her deep blush extending from her temples all the way down her neck.
“Ah. Knotting?” I smirk across the table at her.
She rearranges her face into a prim expression despite the lascivious color of her cheeks. “That was just one notable topic among others.”
“Well, I’m a pretty typical wulver.” I let that sink in for a moment, let her imagination run with it before I continue.
“Let’s see. You already know I’m a woodcutter.
I live up in the foothills in a house I built myself.
I go fishing a few times a week. I love to bake for my friends and family.
My sire is Scottish, dam’s French-Canadian, but all us pups were born here in Oregon.
I have six brothers, five older and one younger, and they’ve all found their mates.
All of them have pups already, so ours will have plenty of cousins to play with. We’re a close family.”
“Your parents had seven kids!?” Her eyes widen.
I grin. “Aye, wulvers may be loners at heart, but we have big clans. They’ll be happy to meet you if you are open to it, Julia. Fair warning, they’ll campaign hard on my behalf. You’ll be hearing nothing but the best about me. They might even convince you that I’m worth it.”
I wink at her, but my heart is aching, because I know she’s going to say no.
Of course, she doesn’t want to meet my family.
She doesn’t even want to meet our pups. I get the feeling she’d rather not even see them when they’re born so she doesn’t get attached.
I don’t give her the chance to voice it, though.
“Now it’s your turn. I want to be able to tell our pups about their mother. ”
“Oh. There’s not a lot to know about me.
I’m an only child. My parents are South Korean, but I was born here.
They split up when I went to college and both moved back to Korea.
My dad passed away a few years ago, and my mom lives in Busan.
Um, I have an English degree and a master’s in education that I never used because I had babies instead.
They’re eighteen and twenty now, off at college, and I really miss them.
I love being a mom.” She’s quiet. Then she shakes her head.
“I’m sorry. It just hit me that I won’t get to see them grow up. ”
By them, she means our pups. There are so many things I want to say and can’t, so I choose my words carefully.
“That’s up to you. Nobody will stop you from seeing your children.
Or I can send you updates. You get to decide.
I told you, I’ll take what I can get. We can structure our agreement any way you want. ”
She pulls in a quavery breath, hands balled on the table like she’s about to push back and bolt. “This is a lot, Ian.”
Impulsively, I reach across the table for her, hoping she won’t retreat. And to my surprise, her fist blooms like a flower, her small fingers twining with mine. We hold on to each other for dear life.
“It’s going to be okay,” I tell her. “We’ll figure it out together.”