Chapter 18 - Sam
Rachel sat curled on the couch, scanning something intently on her laptop when I walked in. She had a cute furrow to her brow as her eyes darted across the screen, and I had to remind myself that I couldn’t walk over there and kiss her.
“Anything interesting?” I asked.
She tore her gaze away from the laptop, a small, mysterious smile playing on her lips. “I think so.”
Her smirk spread as if she was amused at a private joke. I tilted my head, scanning her from head to toe. There was something different about her. A sort of calm, but also a sort of nervousness. She bit her lip even as her eyes sparkled.
“Something wrong?” I asked.
She gave a half-laugh. “No, nothing wrong. Well, not exactly. It’s…” She hesitated, licking her lips before gnawing on her lower one. She took a deep breath as she steeled herself.
“I have something to tell you,” she said.
I raised my eyebrows, spreading my hands in a go-ahead gesture. She stood, her fingers tightening as they gripped her jeans. I searched her face, trying to figure out what on earth had happened that would cause her to act like this. She bit her lip as she inhaled again.
“I’m pregnant,” she said.
The words didn’t register at first, like they were a foreign language. Then I was sure I hadn’t heard her right. But when I searched her face and saw the nervousness and hope there as she stared back at me, waiting for my response, I realized that I had heard her perfectly.
Pregnant. Rachel was pregnant. With my child.
Without realizing I was doing it, I glanced down at her stomach. It was perfectly flat, of course. But I could have sworn that I could sense our unborn child there.
I hadn’t always wanted to be a father. When I was a kid, I had sworn off women altogether and told my parents hundreds of times that I was never going to have kids of my own.
Over the last couple of years, however, I had changed my tune and started thinking about what it would be like to have a kid, to show them the best places to hunt, how to stalk, and play hide and seek.
How to be both a wolf and a kid, and I had realized that I wanted that.
However, I had never expected it to actually happen, let alone with Rachel.
I swallowed, realizing that I still hadn’t spoken when her nervous smile faded into nothing, her eyes growing wide with uncertainty.
“Seriously?” I asked, surprised at how hoarse my voice was.
She nodded, still on tenterhooks as she braced herself for my true reaction.
I gave a half-laugh of disbelief as my face broke into a cautious grin.
“That’s—” I wanted to say great, fantastic.
But I didn’t know how Rachel felt, and I didn’t want to put any further pressure on her.
She looked happy, but for all I knew, she was actually dreading the situation, and I didn’t want to make the situation worse.
“How do you feel about it?” I asked first.
She blinked, confused. “I’m…stunned,” she finally admitted. “But also ecstatic.”
“That’s completely understandable,” I said. “Because I feel more or less the same.”
Relief broke across her face at the words, and I could practically see a veil of uncertainty and fear lift from her features. She beamed.
“Really?” she asked.
“Really.” I pulled her against me, wrapping my arms around her as I tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. Then, barely realizing I was doing it in the first place, I held the back of her head and brought my lips to hers.
Startled at first, she leaned into the kiss, pressing harder against me as her fingers gripped the back of my shirt. I held her there for as long as possible, holding her tight as my wolf growled in approval. After a long moment, I reluctantly pulled away from her.
“I don’t think there are words to properly describe how I feel,” I said. “So I think I’ll just have to go with elated.”
“Really?” she asked again, the faintest hint of a smile breaking out.
“You’re starting to sound like a broken record,” I teased. “Can you say anything other than ‘really?’”
Scowling even as her eyes danced, she swatted at me playfully. “Careful,” she warned with no real malice, a smile still dancing on her face. “You do not want to piss off a pregnant wolf.”
I broke into a wide grin as I caught her wrist, rubbing my thumb along the heel of her palm. “You know me. I’ve always had a dangerous streak in me.”
“More like a death wish,” she fired back with a grin.
I laughed. “That, too, probably,” I admitted.
Then a sobering thought slammed into me, like something flinging a bucket of ice water onto my face. A very specific someone, who happened to be the pack alpha, my boss, my best friend, and Rachel’s brother.
“There is another problem, though,” I said, lowering her hand and releasing it.
She stiffened, her features taut as she nodded. “Elias,” she said. A brief look of panic washed over her face. “You didn’t tell him about us having sex, did you?”
“Hell, no. You should have figured that out by the fact that I’m still breathing and not a eunuch,” I said.
She broke into a brief, startled laugh, erasing some of the tension that had been looming over both of us. “So if he found out about the baby…” she trailed off, but I knew what she was trying to say.
“I would be lucky to walk out of that conversation with all my limbs intact,” I confirmed. “He still thinks that we’re doing this out of obligation.”
She worried her lower lip, her hands still running along her stomach. “What should we do?”
“For now? I say we keep it to ourselves. And the doctor. We should schedule an appointment for that, by the way.”
Her brow creased. “Elias is smart. And I don’t want someone else figuring it out and him finding out from someone else.”
I shook my head. “I’m not saying we hide this forever,” I said. “Hell, that’s not going to be possible. Your scent is going to change soon enough. But with everything going on with the wraith, I don’t want to add another thing to Elias’s plate.”
“Plus, you like your organs inside, and you’re afraid he’s going to tear you to shreds for hooking up with his sister?” she asked with a smirk, one eyebrow raised.
“That might be one reason,” I admitted.
She laughed again. She had a great laugh. It was as if the pregnancy had removed some of the unease that had always seemed to wrap around her, like she was finally letting herself open up more to me.
“At the right time,” she agreed. She gave a sly smile. “Besides, between you and me, I sort of like the idea of you and me having our own secret.”
I pulled her against me, running my fingers along her spine as she shivered at my touch. “I do, too,” I murmured.
As she nuzzled against me, though, a new hesitation entered that fray.
I had been working to quell the protective instincts I felt whenever it came to Rachel.
I had been wrong when I had called her weak, and she deserved me to trust her.
Most of the time, I did. Hell, she had better defenses than I did with her magic.
And since I had backed off, things had gotten better.
But that was different. That was before I found out Rachel was pregnant.
It wasn’t just her that I had to think about anymore.
And no matter what I felt about Rachel and her powers, I couldn’t forget the fact that she was now carrying our baby.
Those protective instincts that I had been trying to temper flared back up in a flash.
And I realized they weren’t going to go away.
And as long as they were there, I wasn’t going to be able to focus on anything else.
I cared about Rachel and this baby. I would be damned if I was going to let anything happen to either of them.
She’s going to hate you, a voice reminded me. I shoved the thought down. She might be angry, but she would have to understand. I was doing it for both of them. And if I did this right, there was a chance she wouldn’t ever find out what I had done in the first place.
As I stared after her, I made a promise. No matter what, I was going to keep Rachel and our baby safe. I’d do everything in my power to make sure that happened, even if Rachel hated me for it.