Page 33 of The Awakened Wolf

The pain in my belly shifted to my chest. Did Sebastian think I might do the same to him? I wished I could reach out across the miles and tell him that I would never let him go if he would just come back. It didn’t matter to me whether he was an Alpha or a Beta or from Manhattan or the Bronx or any of it. He didn’t even have to be a wolf.

“Please,” I thought, begging Leto to somehow help him hear me, “Come home.”

A telltale creak made me turn to see who was interrupting my pity party. When I saw Evan, I stopped pretending I wasn’t a teary, smeary mess and gave him a smile, despite the growling of my wolf, who’d snapped back to full attention now that he’d arrived. We hadn’t been alone since our ill-fated kiss because Kiana wouldn’t let me leave my room except to come up here. His smile flared and then died, brief as a match strike, as he settled beside me.

“You look like you could use someone to ruminate with,” I said. “And a razor.”

I’d never seen him this scruffy. It was like he’d decided to get into character for his big role as shotgun wedding - male lead and wanted to make sure he looked the proper victim. If nothing changed in the next twenty-four hours, he’d be my mate. Forever. I shivered. This seemed like a better idea the other day.

He didn’t respond to my jabs, deciding instead to lean into small talk about Cody and the Children. It was painful. The pauses grew longer and more awkward with each exchange. What the hell were we going to do for the next, uh, forever years if we couldn’t talk to each other now?

“Is there any word on Blaze?”Evan shifted topic.

“Kiana won’t tell me anything.”

“How is Jesmyn? Is she still symptom-free?”

“Other than the wounds not healing, she’s okay, but one of the others who was bitten has reported nausea and headaches.”

That made five total shifters whose disease seemed to have… progressed. We still didn’t know how. Goosebumps flared on my arms, along with the recognition that my upcoming mateship ceremony and lack of small talk rhythm with my best friend were the least of my worries. My thoughts turned back to the missing Children of Leto. I couldn’t help thinking they might have the answers we all needed, but how was I going to find them if Kiana had me on pup-producer lockdown?

I flushed, frustrated. What insanely stupid priorities we had as a species. How was it more important to keep anyone from knowing I’d slept with my fated mate than it was to make sure shifters were safe and that we learned all we could about how to combat the One-Eyed Psychopath and his woolly mammoths?

“I wish we could sneak Jayla in here to examine them,” I said.

“We should invite her to the wedding. I mean, I do feel like the groom’s side is going to be a bit thin as it is…”

I snorted at this, though it wasn’t a bad idea—in some netherworld where my sister wouldn’t go apeshit when a human appeared at our nuptials. With a sigh, I leaned my head on Evan’s shoulder. “Remember not to call it that in front of the others. It’s a mateship ceremony.”

His frown tugged at his patchy black scruff. “Why?”

“Because the purpose of the partnership is pups. We must always remember…” I said, in my best imitation of Damien’s insufferable nasal voice.

Evan was quiet for a moment. “Listen, Elyse. I don’t want you to worry. I know what I said the other night but if you need me to give you pups to be safe and accepted, or just because you want them, I’ll do that. I’ll figure it out.”

My wolf snarled, and I lost it on her.

Stop shitting on him for trying his best to be a friend! We don’t have a lot of choices, and we could do a lot worse than someone like Evan.

But I knew he was also promising something that he shouldn’t have to promise. That it wouldn’t be him to be my baby-daddy. I sighed. “That’s sweet, Evan. Really. But maybe we can revisit it after we figure out how to undo a shifter death virus, overthrow a government, and possibly kill a god.”

His lips twitched. “Fair.”

We watched the last fingers of sunlight vanish in silence, somber, but comforted to be somber together.

“So,” Evan finally spoke. “Uh… how are you feeling?”

A week ago, having Evan ask me if I felt pregnant would have elicited a tidal wave of embarrassment, but we’d been living in bizarro-world for so long now that I was getting used to it. “I wouldn’t feel anything yet either way, but I’ll know for sure in a few days.”

“Okay, so like, you wait a few days until… um, this weekend maybe. And then you take a test? Do you take human tests? Do I need to get you one? Or like a lot? In movies, women seem to buy like, fifty of them.”

He’d gone from the strong silent type back to a babbling nouveau dad in one question. It never ceased to amaze me that males, even human men, who were exposed to way more of their female partners’, um, how shall we say, physical needs than shifter males, still seemed to know absolutely nothing about our plumbing and how it worked.

I did my best to suppress a laugh. I failed.

“If I were a woman, that would be the plan exactly. Fifty boxes just to be sure.”

He elbowed me gently. “But because you’re a female…”

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