5. Chance
Chance
“When do we leave? Rena asked warily.
“I’m not sure,” I replied honestly. “We won’t know anything until Danny and Rosemary check in. Could be as early as tonight.”
Rena looked down at herself. I thought she looked fucking great. The leggings she was wearing cupped her ass like a lover, and I could barely see the outlines of her nipples through the I Punch Nazis graphic on her T-shirt. Loved the sentiment. I’d punched a few Nazis in my time.
“I need to go home first,” she said, looking back up at me. “I need clean clothes and toiletries and…shoes. A coat.”
“We can do that,” I assured her. I wanted to see where she lived. Was she one of those clean lines decorators, or did she like all the girly, frilly shit? I guessed clean lines. She’d been dressed classy as hell when I found her, and the car she’d wrecked was hot as fuck.
“Oh, good,” Alice said, interrupting us as she and Aunt Helen walked through the kitchen door. “You’re awake. How are you feeling today?”
“I feel fine,” Rena said, her shoulders straightening a little.
Alice scoffed, looking her over. “Nice shirt.”
“It’s Reese’s.”
Alice’s lips twitched. “Figures. You started your antibiotics?”
“Gave them to her this morning,” I confirmed.
“Good.” She gestured at Rena. “Come on into the medical room. I want to get a look at those stitches in your side.”
“Hi,” Rena said, looking beyond Alice. “I’m Rena. I don’t think we’ve met.”
“Hello,” Aunt Helen greeted, moving forward to shake Rena’s hand. “I’m Helen.”
“Nice to meet you.”
“Aunt Helen and Uncle Mordecai have been friends with my parents since dinosaurs roamed the earth,” I explained to Rena, making Aunt Helen shoot me a look.
“Not quite that long,” Aunt Helen corrected dryly. “But a long time, yes.”
“They were here for the bridal party thing.”
“Reese mentioned you,” Rena said with a nod. “It was really sweet of you to come.”
“All right, enough chatter,” Alice announced. “I don’t have all day.”
She strode toward the hospital room.
“She acts callous,” Aunt Helen told Rena softly. “But she’s infinitely kind.”
Rena nodded, smiling a little before following Alice.
“Congratulations,” Aunt Helen said, reaching out to squeeze my forearm.
“Thanks, Auntie.” I glanced at the doorway where Rena had disappeared.
“Go. We’ll catch up later.”
I was on the move before she’d finished talking.
When I entered the room, Reese was standing near the bed in the center of the room, her leggings pulled halfway down her thighs, and her shirt pulled up right under her breasts.
Aunt Alice had already removed the bandage and was studying the stitches along Rena’s side.
“Chauncey, come here,” she said in a tone I didn’t recognize.
“Chauncey?” Rena asked, her eyes lighting up.
“Fuck off,” I replied, my eyes on her side.
“What do you see?” Aunt Alice asked, pointing at the row of stitches.
The wound looked great. The redness was gone and—oh.
“I’m not wrong, right?” Aunt Alice asked.
“Hey, Danny reached out,” Ambrose announced, poking his head in the door.
“Ambrose, come here,” Aunt Alice ordered.
“Feeling a little like a zoo animal,” Rena grumbled.
“What?” Ambrose asked as he came toward us. He looked down at the wound, and his eyebrows rose. “Huh.”
“What?” Rena asked, looking down at herself. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Aunt Alice said, shaking her head. “Your wound is almost godsdamn healed.”
“What?” Rena bent, trying to see it better.
“She’s right,” I told my mate, glancing between her face and the almost healed wound that she’d received yesterday. “I bet we could take the stitches out.”
“We’re waiting another day,” Aunt Alice announced firmly.
“Strange,” Ambrose said thoughtfully.
We all stood there in stupefied silence for a few moments.
“How is that possible?” Rena asked slowly, a hint of hysteria in her voice.
I jerked my head at Ambrose. He quietly turned and left the room.
“I’ve got no idea,” Aunt Alice said with a huff. “It’s almost as if—” She looked at me. “Did you ingest any blood yesterday?”
“What?” Rena yelped.
“No.” I stared at Alice in horror. “Of course not.”
“Really think about it,” she replied. “Is there any chance you might’ve ingested some of her blood? It was everywhere, Chance. You were covered in it.”
I thought back to those minutes when I’d been terrified that she was dying.
“I kissed her head,” I replied hoarsely. “Could that be it? There was blood in her hair.”
“There’s no blood in my hair,” Rena argued.
“I cleaned it out,” I replied, feeling a little dazed. “Right after Ambrose stitched your forehead.”
“That could’ve been it,” Alice said, her eyes unfocused. “But how would Rena have ingested yours?”
“She didn’t,” I replied instantly. My mate had gone very pale and was swaying a little on her feet.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Rena asked. “What’s going on?”
“You’re healing too fast,” Alice replied calmly. “A normal human wouldn’t heal this fast. A mate, however…I’ve seen that happen.”
“But we haven’t completed the bond,” Rena said, looking at me as if waiting for me to confirm what she was saying. “Right?”
“Not the normal way, no,” I assured her.
“I haven’t had any of your blood,” she said, her voice rising as she stared at me in accusation. “That’s what you have to do, right? Exchange blood? We haven’t done that. You have to ask!”
“It’s more complicated than that,” I said. “But yes. I have to ask.”
“You two were a mess when you got here,” Alice said grimly, rising to her feet. “There was blood everywhere?—”
“Did you cut yourself?” Rena asked, her eyes sweeping over me frantically. “Were you bleeding?”
“No,” I assured her, raising my arms out at my sides. “You saw me in my underwear. I don’t have any open wounds.”
“No,” Alice said softly, crossing her arms and then raising one hand to tap her fingers against her chin. “But you were crying.”
“What?” Rena breathed, her gaze meeting mine.
“That’s not how it works,” I said firmly, ignoring the question in her eyes.
“We barely know how it fucking works,” Alice said with a huff. “Does it normally work with other bodily fluids? Not that I’ve encountered. Is it out of the realm of possibility? No.”
“You’re saying we’ve completed the bond?” Rena asked, looking back and forth between us. “Without consent? Without even knowing?”
“I don’t know,” Alice snapped. “I don’t know if you’re healing like this because of the proximity to your mate.
Mating bonds are always changing, always evolving.
They aren’t the same from one couple to the next.
So I don’t know. But you’re healing very fast. Faster than any unmated human I’ve ever seen. ”
“We have to know,” Rena argued, panicked. “I have to know.”
Alice opened her mouth and then closed it again. For the first time in my life, she was at a loss for words.
“Rena was artificially inseminated last week,” I said quietly, watching my aunt closely. “She can’t make a decision about cementing the bond until she knows whether or not she’ll have a human child.”
Alice winced and nodded slowly before looking back at Rena.
“Artificial insemination? Not in vitro fertilization?”
Rena nodded.
“Does that matter?” I asked. I didn’t know what the difference was.
“It matters. But it’s far too early to tell,” Alice said gently.
“The success rate for artificial insemination is only ten to twenty percent. If it was successful, then I don’t believe the car accident would affect it.
” She paused. “But when you add in the fact that your body is showing signs of the mating bond without fully completing it?” She grimaced.
“What?” Rena asked softly.
“In my opinion, you shouldn’t let the chance of an unlikely pregnancy hold you back from completing the bond.”
“Oh,” Rena said. She seemed to deflate.
“I could be wrong,” Aunt Alice said, reaching out to pat Rena’s shoulder. “I’ve been wrong before.”
“But you’re probably not,” Rena said. She pressed her lips together firmly and gave a jerky nod. “Thanks for telling me.”
Aunt Alice patted her shoulder again and then left us in the silent room.
I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know the odds of that kind of medical procedure.
I didn’t know if the mating heat or the mating bond affected those odds.
All I knew was that Rena was clearly upset, and I found it very hard to be.
If she were pregnant, I would have to find a way to live without her, and I didn’t think that was possible.
“I’m sorry,” I said, fisting my hands at my sides. “That’s shitty news.”
Rena shrugged and sniffled. “It was a low chance of success already. I was just rolling the dice, you know?”
“Aunt Alice said she wasn’t sure. She could be wrong.”
“She’s a doctor.”
“That doesn’t mean she’s all-knowing.”
“No, but she’s probably right.” She quickly wiped her face with the back of her hand and then smiled at me, her eyes still glistening a little. “So, anyway…you cried?”
“Fuck off,” I replied, reaching for her.
The moment I got my arms around her, she dropped her head to my shoulder.
Her arms twined around my waist, and we just stood there in the quiet for a few minutes.
Disappointment radiated off her, and I felt like shit, like somehow it was my fault that she wasn’t getting this thing that she’d wanted so badly.
Maybe it would’ve been better if someone else had found her in that wreck. If a human had called an ambulance, there would’ve been no chance of the mating heat messing with her body. Guilt wasn’t an unfamiliar emotion for me, but it still weighed heavily as I rubbed her back.
“I knew that it might not work,” Rena said with a sigh. “The doctor said to be prepared to do a few cycles before it was successful. There was a large possibility it wouldn’t take the first time.”
“It could still happen,” I reminded her. “We don’t know for sure. That was the most unsure I’ve ever seen Aunt Alice, actually.”
Rena just shook her head, tipping it back to look at me. “We know this mating heat is happening,” she said pragmatically. “It’s not a possibility. It’s a fact.”