Page 47 of Possessive Mate

Elena wasn’t a huge fan of that saying. Sure, rain wasn’t all bad, but it could often put a dampener on things.

As if she saw the continued uncertainty in Elena’s eyes, Layla whipped something out from behind her back. It was a small, handheld device with what looked like a probe shaped like a microphone.

Elena raised an eyebrow and out of the corner of her eye, she saw a similar look on Hanson’s face.

“It’s a heartbeat doppler,” Layla said, shrugging her shoulders. “Humans are good for some things.”

“How…how does it work?” Elena asked, feeling more than a little stupid for not knowing what a heartbeat doppler was.

“I just stick a little jelly on your belly and use this end to find the baby’s shoulder blade. Humans have to wait until sixteen weeks for this kind of thing, but we werewolves and our shorter pregnancies get to pick it up a lot earlier. Violet guessed you’d be about five to six weeks from your last period, is that right?”

Elena cringed at that. How witches knew things like that was beyond her. She nodded, gritting her teeth.

“Well, shall we try and give it a go?” Layla asked, looking between her and Hanson. She then paused on him and said, “Maybe you’d prefer to wait outside.”

“I…I can go if Elena wants me to?” Hanson suggested, looking to her.

But even before he had finished, Elena reached for him.

If this was the moment she learned that she had lost their baby, she didn’t want to be without him. She had been alone the last time, and it had broken her. But how would it be learning such a fate with the father at her side?

Suddenly, she wasn’t so sure.

“It’s entirely up to you,” Hanson told her, holding out his hand.

Elena looked at it, and in a split second, she grabbed on tight, pulling him closer.

Layla came around the other side of the bed and reached down under it to grab something from underneath. Elena washed her squeeze a lubricant-like jelly onto the probe end of the device.

Humans and their little gadgets were strange, but if it worked it was worth a try.

“If you wouldn’t mind just lifting your top,” Layla said, and for the first time Elena realized that she was wearing clothes. The last thing she had known, she had been naked in the woods, having shifted to fight her way into the barn and rescue Hanson.

Now she wore what looked like an old oversized t-shirt and a pair of shorts. If she had to guess, from the floral design on the front of the t-shirt, she’d say they were Layla’s.

She moved to pull up the t-shirt with one hand only to feel her ribs and shoulders aching painfully. She winced, remembering the battering she had received from the wolves of the enemy pack.

“Here, let me help,” Hanson insisted, reaching out with his free hand to gently pull her t-shirt up.

“Thanks,” she said, smiling at him, hoping he’d see in her eyes how sorry she was for snapping at him only a few minutes earlier.

“No problem,” he told her, giving her hand a gentle squeeze.

“Okay then, shall we?” Layla asked, holding up the doppler.

Again, Elena felt the urge to reject the offer. She wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to know. She wasn’t ready to let go of the hope that maybe, just maybe, she had been given a second chance. If she had lost another baby, then what real hope was there for her?

As if he sensed her hesitation, Hanson squeezed her hand and leaned in close, whispering in her ear, “Do you trust me?”

A quiver ran through Elena at the way his warm breath stroked her earlobe.

“Yes,” she whimpered with a small nod.

“Then trust me when I say everything is going to be fine,” he told her, and he rested his free hand on her shoulder, stroking the bare flesh just above the collar of her t-shirt with the ball of his thumb. It sent a warm tingling sensation down her spine that did give her a little more reassurance that all was, in fact, going to be well.

“Okay, go ahead,” she said, relieved that her voice sounded much braver than she felt.

“Brace yourself,” Layla warned as she perched herself on the edge of the bed and leaned over her. “This might be a little cold.”

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