Page 143 of Hawke

Once we were just a step away from Bram, I whispered in his ear, “Daddy.”

Hawke paused, his eyes widening.

I tried to hold back laughter. I amused not only myself but also everyone in the room. The tension had disappeared. They all watched, and I waited for the rest of the room to laugh along with me, but maybe they knew better.

“Can you believe you’re going to be a daddy?” I asked.

Hawke broke his gaze from Bram. Tajah reached for him and pulled him out of the line of fire.

Hawke shook his head, his forehead resting on me, letting out a breath.

“No, I never have. I didn’t think I would have a mate.” He swallowed heavily, sitting down in the chair next to the sofa.

He placed his hand on my stomach, rubbing it tenderly.

“How did this happen? I gave you the preventatives. This… How?”

“Mistakes happen, and you know Bram has been weak. Plus, when should women ever really trust a male to use contraceptives, I mean really?” I smiled, placing my hand on top of Hawke’s, who was still rubbing my stomach tenderly.

He scoffed. “Yeah, I should have known.”

I nuzzled into his neck. “It will be great. This little pup will have the biggest family to love him, too. I bet he will ride his first bike by three, huh?”

Hawke let out a bark of laughter. “If you think we are raising our pup around a bar, you are insane.”

I raised an eyebrow at him. “The Iron Fang bar is the safest place. You said so yourself.”

Hawke nodded. “I said that, didn’t I?” He paused for a moment. “Are you okay with it this soon? I feel like I just got you to myself.”

His thumb continued to rub circles around my stomach.

“In case you haven’t noticed, I think we have a large pool of babysitters to pull from.”

Anaki waved excitedly in the corner.

Hawke rolled his eyes and sighed loudly.

He used his finger to push back a strand of hair away from my cheek and trailed his fingers down to the curve of my breast.

“I hope our baby enjoys sharing because I cannot give these up. Maybe they will let me have a snack, too.”

My face reddened, and I snorted a giggle.

“Everything okay now?” Journey whispered from across the room. “Because the goddess says you need to come out now. Your wolf is all convinced to come out!”

Hawke sighed heavily, kissing my cheek once more and rubbing my belly one last time. “It won’t hurt the baby?”

Journey shook her head. “No, the only time it is unsafe is when she is in the later part of her pregnancy like normal shifters, she says. Just the last month would be uncomfortable for her to shift.”

Hawke, as well as the rest of the crew, took me outside. Everyone was in higher spirits except for Bram. He looked utterly defeated, but Tajah and Beretta stood by him, giving him words of encouragement, but even that did not bring him any more happiness.

I would have to speak with him later, but Journey was too busy trying to explain the process of how a shift feels and what I should expect turning from a human into a wolf.

Pain. Basically, more pain than I could ever imagine.

And Hawke wasn’t happy about it. He was groaning, moaning on and on about how I had to do this twice. Which, technically, my soul was doing this twice, but this body was doing it once. I didn’t remember the first time.

And now that our souls were bonded, I would never have to do it again. Our souls were completed, and that meant in the afterlife, we were to be together forever.

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