Page 144 of As The Shifter World Turns

Our eyes were glued to the screen and the technician moved the wand over my belly. Grainy black and white images appeared. Nothing about this reassured me the baby was fine. Until a thrumming filled the room.

“Is that—?” I burst out. I’d read the book and the blogs and watched countless videos with Ryder and alone in bed at night.

“Yep, that’s your baby’s heartbeat.”

Ryder bent over and put his head against mine, his tears dripping onto my face and mingling with my own. “I love you,” he whispered.

“Me too.”

Love wasn’t the issue. But for now we were together, our baby was growing and doing all the things expected of them at this early stage.

Even my wolf was emotional at the first glimpse of our child.

Clutching a photo of our little one, we got in the car and drove home. And as we got to Ryder’s door in Sunshine Manor, he pointed to the third floor. “Now that Seb’s gone, I could move into that apartment. Give you your space.”

No!My wolf yelled in my head, not wanting Ryder to leave us.

My first reaction was also,No. I wanted him close, not on the floor above. Worries about money also filled my head but I batted those away. I had a good job and could easily afford the rent.

“But if we wanted to save money, it’d be better for us to stay in my place,” he suggested.

That,my beast yelled.

I took a moment and concentrated on my breathing. “That’s a good idea.” My emotions were all jumbly after seeing the baby and Ryder saying I love you. I didn’t trust myself to say anything else.

“I’ll start dinner,” he said, heading to the kitchen. “Put your feet up.”

“No, I’ll help.”

Us cutting, slicing and stirring in the kitchen was when we were most at ease with one another. And right now, I wanted to be physically close to Ryder.As I leaned in front of him and grabbed a cutting board, his breath on my neck had me turn my head slightly. Our faces were inches apart. His enticing aromafloatedover me and I placed my lips on his.

Daire

It still felt weird wandering around my apartment. Even though Ivor hadn’t been living with me for a while, I expected him to walk in the front door exhausted after work. But in a way it was kinda nice having the place to myself. While shifters were used to being naked around one another when we shifted, walking around a shared apartment with no clothes on wasn’t something we did. But I was about to get my gear off now.

Even though I hadn’t found a tenant for Seb’s place, I was cool with taking more time to find a suitable one. And so was Micah. He was part owner of the building, though he only owned a small percentage. But he’d helped me out when I’d been in a jam financially.

There was a knock at the door and I yelled for them to come in assuming it was someone from the manor. But it was Nate.

“Hi. Did we arrange to meet?” I asked as I sifted through my memories.

“Nope. But you mentioned having an empty apartment in the building and I wondered if I could check it out.”

Of all the things I’d expected him to say, that wasn’t one of them. Having Nate live in the building would be super awkward if we broke up. We weren’t officially together, were we? But he’d caught me unawares, and I replied, “Ummm okay. Let me get the keys.”

“2A is occupied by a long-term renter,” I explained. “And Neil, who you met, lives in 2B.” When we got to the third floor, Martin’s door opened.

“Hi,” he said as he and Toby emerged. “Nice to see you again, Nate. This is my son, Toby.”

“Hello,Toby.”

“Hi,” the boy replied. “We’re off to get burgers.”

“This is it,” I told Nate as I unlocked the door. “There’s not much to see other than a carpet the last tenant left here.” That was Seb and the rug had holes in it which was probably why he didn’t take it. “The place has been cleaned.”

Nate glanced around but didn’t go into the bathroom or turn on the kitchen faucet. He didn’t check out the view from the bedroom window. Instead he sauntered up to me and slapped his hand on my ass.

“I got you here under false pretenses.” Warning bells going off in my head had me thinking he was going to ask for a loan. My grizzly roared and clawed his way to the surface. “Hey, don’t look like that. It’s nothing bad.”

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