Page 18 of Sweeter Than Honey
“Christ.” Jett leaned on his arms on the hood and hung his head. His face visibly paled. “I’m sorry, Cara. I shouldn’t have pried. I didn’t mean to—”
“No, no. Our relationship wasn’t like that. We didn’t even know each other. I mean, I didn’t even know his last name until yesterday.” She was rambling again. Her cheeks blazed hot. “It was a drunken one-night type of thing. He didn’t know about the baby. I was on my way to tell him when I found out he’d died in an accident.”
Jett looked at her with those brilliant purple eyes as if processing what she’d said. Was he judging her? She couldn’t tell. Something about the thought of her baby daddy being dead seemed to have rattled him a little.
“A one-night thing? Well, that happens. Still, I’m sorry to hear he’s passed.”
There was true concern in his voice and no judgement.
“I won an award. I drank too much in celebration. Let loose a bit too much. And here I am.”
“Why are you here?”
She moved a tiny bit closer, catching a whiff of his wild scent. “I went back to the bar where I’d met Roan to ask the bartender about getting his contact information so I could tell him about the baby.” She grimaced. “It was a shifter bar and every man in there turned to look at me, even kind of crowded around me, so the bartender had to take me in the back room. She said that the Kansas City shifter packs follow some arcane laws. Since Roan had no heirs besides my baby, his estate and pack hierarchy were up for grabs by whomever gets their hands on the heir.”
“Christ.”
“I was so shaken by what she’d said that I never asked what happens after the baby is born? Are we safe then? When can I stop worrying?”
Jett shook his head stiffly. “We don’t have any laws like that, so I’m not sure. Wouldn’t it make sense to take the inheritance for yourself and be done with it?”
“I haven’t had time to think about that. How does that work? Do I just walk in and show off my belly and take the throne or what? What stops someone from trying to take my child even if I do that, and like, have a mutiny or try and overthrow me or something? Jesus, it’s Game of Thrones, shifter style.”
One corner of his lips curved up. “I don’t know, but I am familiar with a way you can turn the tides on this.”
She shivered at the intensity in his eyes. “Do I want to know?”
“Probably not.” He returned to her Jeep. “You’re early enough in your pregnancy that you could have your child imprinted by another shifter. It changes the cub’s DNA, essentially. It would make him or her no longer the biological cub of the, well, the original father.”
Cara took a wobbly step backward. “You’re joking.”
His expression said he most certainly wasn’t. “I’m not. It’s protection asset shifters have to protect fatherless cubs. Say, a female’s mate is killed, and she has no one to protect her or her child. Imprinting makes the cub belong to the new mate, genetically and in every other way that matters. But it only works early in gestation. I don’t know the exact timeframe for it to work, but I can find out.”
Silence dropped between them, hard and heavy. It went stagnant. Then expanded. And finally, Cara let out a breath. They were talking about this so nonchalantly. He made it sound like it was no big deal while her brain stumbled over itself trying to make sense of what he was suggesting.
“You’re saying I have to have sex with a shifter who will then inject, for lack of a better word, his DNA into my growing fetus, thus changing the child’s genetics from Roan’s to his own?”
“Correct. But it needs to be an unmated shifter who has not yet sired any cubs.”
He set down a pair of pliers and pondered the engine. Her heart was pounding loud in her ears. The blood rushed from her face and her hands, leaving her fingers and cheeks icy cold. It was the reaction of pure disbelief, right? How could something like this even be possible?
“That’s scientifically impossible... isn’t it? Not to mention filled with ethics that I can’t begin to think about right now.”
“Well, if it’s the difference between running for the next eighteen years, or getting back to something of a normal life, I’d say it’s worth consideration. There are plenty of good shifters here.”
She threw up her hands. “I’m not—I'm not shopping for a car, Beard. I can’t just... just, go through the store and pick out a man to play mad scientist on my fetus.”
He made a ‘suit yourself’ gesture. “I’m going to have to tow your Jeep. I can’t fix it without parts.”
Another well of panic threatened to throw her right back into Hyperventilation, Round Two.
“Is that really my only option?”
“Unless you plan to push it all the way, yes.”
She cocked her head and popped a hand onto her hip.
The lid to his toolbox slammed shut.
