Page 25 of Wrong Turn, Right Bear
But the phone beeped. A message from Chuck, reminding me of our meet up in less than an hour. Theo and I had to shower so there’d be naked time with slippery skin coated in soap and water teeming on our bodies.
I pushed the meeting back an hour but even so we were racing to make the rendezvous on time.
Chuck was standing in the place where he’d met Theo after the blister incident. His grandson, Errol, was behind him, his head bowed, much as his wolf had done the night Theo saw us.
Chuck introduced Errol and nudged him forward, the boy’s downcast eyes, a sign he wished he was anywhere else.
“Sorry I scared you but my wolf?—”
Chuck cleared his throat.
Errol started again. “It was my first real shift and me and my wolf kinda got carried away. You were his first human and he was fascinated by you.”
“You gave me quite a scare but thank you for having the courage to apologize.”
Errol responded with a small smile. “Grandpa has been helping me pull my beast back so he doesn’t cause any more incidents.”
“Great.”
The boy’s smile turned into a cheeky grin. “He liked your scent but it’s different today. Why is that?”
Theo sniffed under both arms and glanced at me for an answer. Errol was probably confused. He’d been inside his beast for the first time. The sights, smells and sounds were so confusing during that first shift.
“Ash?” Theo was expecting an answer.
But Chuck replied with, “Usually strong emotionschange a person’s scent, whether human or shifter.” He guffawed. “Either that or you’re pregnant.”
Theo snorted. “That’s not possible because we only?—”
Chuck cleared his throat and sent my mate a look that cut him off. He jerked his head at Errol.
“Oh well, yeah, it couldn’t be.”
“Only takes one time.” Chuck put an arm around Errol’s shoulders and they said their goodbyes. “And I agree, your scent is different.”
“Why are they making such a big deal about my smell? Surely after our antics in the shower, I got rid of all remnants of slick and cum.”
Something niggled at my brain and I dredged up a memory from my youth when I attended a Saturday shifter school every weekend. It was a sex ed class and like the teens we were, we’d sniggered and nudged one another and rolled our eyes at the teacher. But there was something in a text book we’d studied, just a paragraph about humans and shifters mating.
Damn. I should have warned Theo. We should have taken precautions. He was so new to the shifter world. He hadn’t even attended a full moon run. And now? Now he was … I couldn’t say the word. Not that I didn’t want to be a parent. I did. But there were so many hurdles to get over before we started a family.
Is he…? My bear hadn’t picked up on the change in his scent.
“Why don’t you sit.” I eased my mate onto the same tree stump he’d sat on days earlier.
“Why do I sense you’re about to tell me something life-changing?”
“It’s not bad. And we don’t know if Chuck and Errol are correct.” I asked myself how a fifteen-year old first time shifter had sussed out the difference in my mate’s scent when I hadn’t.
“Spit it out.”
“Where do you want to live? That’s probably something we should discuss.”
Theo’s head tilted to the side. “What does my scent have to do with my job?”
“Ummm, indirectly it does or it might. That’s to be confirmed.”
“Ash, look at me.”
