Page 20 of Secret Shifters Next Door

It hadn’t occurred to me that Miles would actually find more info because the file he’d compiled was beyond thorough. Whatever information he found must have been buried somewhere, or it was new.

“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” I said, then disconnected.

As I sped to the office, I tried to think what Miles could have found. A police report? Some connection to the hunters? A picture of her over a cauldron casting spells? The last image made me laugh as I turned into the security firm’s parking lot.

As I walked into Miles’s office, the first thing I noticed was how nervous he looked. He was pacing back and forth across the room and seemed upset. He didn’t even notice me until I cleared my throat. He stopped pacing and blinked at me before closing the door.

“You know, I usually don’t do things like this. It’s like my moral compass is spinning. No true north, you know what I mean?”

“I have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about,” I answered honestly.

Miles winced in irritation. “I had Blayne do some heavier digging. We went for medical records.”

Blayne worked as our security analyst, but before his brother died, he’d been a pretty good hacker. There was almost nothing he couldn’t get into. Miles was good, but nowhere near Blayne’s level. If he’d called him in to dig, he really did want every single piece of information out there.

Miles went on. “I don’t often go for medical. It’s usually nothing applicable to what we do as security providers. But while we were looking into it yesterday, a new addition was logged in Harley King’s file. It blew our damned minds, and I’ve been trying to figure out how to tell you since. You have to see it for yourself.”

Miles picked up a thin stack of paper stapled at the top corner and handed it to me before sitting on his desk. It was like he’d been running a race and had finally crossed the finish line. He looked exhausted and relieved all at once. With a frown, I glanced at the packet. At first, I didn’t even know what I was looking at. Then I noticed there was a range of dates and what looked like medical notes. It was from an OB/GYN. The first page was from a doctor’s office in New York. Harley’s name was listed on every date. I only skimmed through it before comingto another page that was dated the day before, at a local county doctor.

I looked up. “Man, why do we care about when her last pap smear was?”

Miles rolled his eyes. “Can’t you read? She’s freaking pregnant.”

My eyes widened, and I went back over every single word. This time I did notice a positive pregnancy test on the first page. I flipped to the very back and found an ultrasound image captured yesterday. The black-and-white image clearly showed the curled body of a fetus.

I shook my head and raised my eyes. “So, the Luis guy knocked her up. Is that what you’re freaked out about?”

“Look at the damned dates, Tate. The form says she’s three months pregnant. That lines up almost exactly with the one night you guys had in New York.”

What he was hinting at was crazy, and I looked at him like he was. “Miles, this is like elementary school shit. Shifters and humans can’t have kids. She was dating Luis at the same time. Damn, she could have had sex with him the day before.”

Miles ran a hand across his face. “I had Blayne pull phone records, too. I read through her texts to the Ortiz guy. It looks like they were maybe having trouble for a few weeks before you guys hooked up. Some pretty pissy stuff back and forth, definitely didn’t look like a happy couple that humped every Wednesday and Saturday.”

He was getting on my nerves. “Look, Miles, humans and shifters can’t have kids. Facts. Simple as that.”

Miles raised an eyebrow. “And until a few days ago, it was afactthat shifters couldn’t be mated to humans. What does your dragon have to say about that?”

The words slammed into me like a hammer. My dragon purred deep inside my mind in answer to Miles’s question. Itwas content and excited. Could it sense a baby within her womb? Could it actually tell if it was ours? For the first time in my life, I felt like there was a stranger inside me. The dragon and I had always been intertwined and connected. Now, it was speaking a language I didn’t understand.

Should I confront Harley? How could I do that without letting her know I’d pried into her most confidential secrets? No. I couldn’t ask her about it without rocking our already shaky relationship. If the kid was mine… Geez, I had no idea what I’d do. I’d never even considered having a child. I pinched the bridge of my nose when I felt the impending headache.

Frowning, I asked, “Why couldn’t I sense the baby?”

“Huh?” Miles looked confused.

“Pregnant women. You know what I mean.”

Shifter senses were incredibly enhanced compared to human senses. We could hear and smell things normal people could never imagine. I’d been surprised by Harley being across the street that first day because the smell of cut grass had overwhelmed everything else. Once I was in front of her, I recognized her scent. But pregnancy filled a human with hormones, enzymes, and every other thing you could think of. Often, I walked through a store and could immediately tell which women were expecting.

Understanding dawned on Miles’s face, and he looked thoughtful. “Maybe because it’s yours?” he said with a shrug. “It might be that a human-shifter hybrid is, like, invisible or something. Not sure.”

I tossed the papers onto his desk. “I need to get out of here. I’ve got some stuff to think about.”

Miles nodded. “Yeah, I got it. Let me know if you have everything you need.”

Five minutes later, my truck rumbled down the highway, my mind still reeling from what I’d just learned. Everything wasmixed up, yet somehow it made both total sense and seemed impossible at the exact same time.

My hope that the drive would clear my head turned out to be fruitless. Three hours later, I found myself parked in a pull-off to a hiking trail. The sun had set two hours ago, so the spot was secluded and deserted—the perfect place to shift. I wouldn’t be seen here, but I wasn’t worried about that. I just wanted to be free, to feel the wind rushing beneath my wings as I let every problem I had fall away.

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