Page 92 of Wolf Bonded (Rejected Moons 2)

The others are already waiting at the dinner table. We’ve pushed most of the tables up against the walls now, but there’s a long rectangular one we’ve kept to eat at. There’s something intimate about sitting down to dinner together. I can understand why people before the Reversal would have done this.

“That smells amazing, Milo,” Emlyn says with a grateful grin as I spoon pasta onto her plate.

“It sure does,” Nate says. “Give me a double serving.”

Emlyn laughs at him. “Finish your first serving,” she tells him. “Then we’ll see if there’s enough for seconds.”

“There is.” I always cook enough for seconds. We’ve all got experience with being hungry. And we’ve all reached the point where we don’t feel the need to deprive ourselves in case we can’t get food later. Giuseppe’s has so much that it makes sense to just eat as much as our bodies want.

“I have another surprise today,” I say.

They all put down their forks and look at me.

I go to the bar, reach up, and produce a bottle of red wine. “I found the thing that opens this,” I tell them, holding up the little metal tool with the screw on the end. “We can have wine now without smashing the bottles. Aren’t you glad we waited?”

Nate, who was, predictably, the biggest proponent of just snapping the necks of the bottles to get to the wine, holds a hand out eagerly for the tool. “Let me do the honors.”

“Do you know how?” Emlyn asks.

It’s a fair question. I’ve certainly never seen one of those things before.

Nate starts to fool with it. “Get some glasses, yeah, Milo?”

“Get three,” Emlyn says.

“You don’t want any?” I ask, pulling glasses down from the rack above the bar.

“No…I shouldn’t,” she says.

“How come?” I ask.

Emlyn draws a deep breath. “I was going to tell you guys this a couple of days ago, but I’ve been trying to figure out what to say.”

Immediately, I’m nervous. “Tell us what?” I ask, putting the glasses down on the table and taking my seat. “Is everything okay? You’re not sick, are you?”

If sheissick, it’s very irresponsible of her not to have told me right away. She knows I’m the best healer we’ve got. There’s no reason to keep that information from me.

Unless whatever’s wrong with her is something she thinks is beyond my skill to heal…

But she shakes her head. “I’m not sick,” she says. “It’s nothing like that.”

“Then what is it?” Wilder asks.

“I’m pregnant,” she says.

For a moment, nobody speaks.

Then Nate lets out a roar of triumphant laughter. “Are you really?”

She nods. “I thought I might be, and then a couple of days ago, I was really sure. I’m late, and I've been feeling kind of nauseous, so…I checked.”

Wilder is watching her closely. “You mean magically.”

She nodded. “I examined my body. And I felt it. I’m definitely pregnant.”

I close my eyes and examine her myself. It’s hard to access magic when we’re inside, but the moon is still above us, and I can feel that. I search Emlyn for anything unfamiliar.

And there it is. A tiny shining life, deep within her, something that is part of her and yet isn’t. Something that wants to grow and become its own independent entity.

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