Chapter 164
I feel sore all over. I’m starving, and my mouth feels sandy. Super gross. I sit up, looking around to find that I’m outside. Well, not outside exactly. Under the house. The sun is rising and beginning to peak through the dark sheets hanging all around. There are pillows and sheets everywhere. Like the coolest fort to ever exist. There’s a strange calmness in my body. The buzzing I’ve felt since shifting is gone.
“Go back to sleep, Angel.” Knight wraps his arm around me and pulls me back. “You can use the break.” I laugh and turn my head to look over at him. His eyes snap open, and he smiles. “Hi,” he greets me tenderly. “How are you feeling?”
“Like I just got my ass beat,” I admit. My voice is raspy, and I feel my face heat up knowing why. “What happened? What is all this?”
“Well, you went into heat while we were running around. While I was getting rid of our guests, you came inside and crawled down here. I brought you what I’ve been gathering for you. You made this. It’s called nesting.”
“I made it or Midnight made it?”
“You did. Our wolves hibernate at this time. They sleep. They get the rest they need because wolf spirits are always alert when we aren’t. We all recharge. Are you hungry? Do you want to get cleaned up?”
“Yeah,” I sit up to find that I am completely naked.
I stare at the bruises on my thighs. I place my hands over them, lining my fingertips up with each one, knowing they belong to him. I can feel Midnight stirring inside of me, and at the sight of his gloriously naked body, the cheeky girl gets excited.
“You’d think six days of this would have sufficed, you greedy girl,” he smirks as he slips on a pair of boxers.
As I watch him closely, I see that he has lost weight. His cheekbones are more defined. His eyes are a little sunken. I’ve never seen Knight with stubble before, but oh my god, it looks so good on him. What really worries me is that he’s a lot more beat up than I am.
“I did that to you?” I ask him.
“Oh, yeah. I am going to love giving you more little gremlins, Angel.” The most arrogant smile I’ve ever seen on his face greets me when he glances back at me over his shoulder. He steps outside of the fort, leaving me here burning with embarrassment. “Come on, Angel. Let’s get you cleaned up.”
All of my clothes are shredded. I reach for one of the sheets hanging around me and wrap it around my body. He reaches down, takes my hand, and pulls me up. He sets me down in front of him and smiles.
“What?” I ask, pulling away. He shuts the hatch and turns to face me.
“Go get cleaned up,” he motions behind me. “I’ll use the shower down here and start on the food.”
“Okay,” I agree and head upstairs.
I am a mess. I catch my reflection in the mirror. My hair is tangled. I’m filthy. My lips are bright red and swollen. He had a lot of fun biting at the mark on my neck, I’m sure. The hater marks are more than enough proof. I gather what I need and head into the bathroom.
Since the first time I went into heat, I’ve been taking every wolf precaution to help me not get pregnant the next time it happened. But as I get under the hot water, I know something is off with me. I know because I knew the first time it happened, and I was in complete denial up until I passed out and the doctor told me I needed to be more careful. I kept blaming the stress.
“Well, fuck,” I say as I begin to clean myself up.
Yes.- Midnight agrees. -We were safe.-
“We were safe the first time as well. We weren’t safe when you took off with Buddy,” I remind her. She thinks it’s funny.
It takes me forever to get the knots out of my hair. The hot water does wonders for the soreness in my body. I feel much better when I put on something comfortable. When I start my morning routine, I notice that the bruising and the marks have all faded significantly.
1/3
Chapter 164
1 find Knight on the phone in the kitchen. The smell of the food has my stomach growling. He finishes up his call and turns to face me with a huge breakfast platter–eggs, bacon, ham, fried cheeses, hashbrowns, biscuits in gravy, and waffle bites. He goes over to the fridge and gets a bowl of freshly
cut fruits.
I reach for the watermelon, needing something fresh.
“You look much better,” he says as he serves himself breakfast.
“This is all for me?” I ask, pointing at everything.
“For us, but yeah. It’s been a while since you’ve eaten anything.”
“You’ve lost a lot of weight,” I comment, pushing the forks toward him. He takes one and grins.
“So have you. It’s just less noticeable because your body is still a little-” he pauses, pressing his lips together.
“Plumpy?” I offer. “I noticed that.”
“It’ll go away in a few hours now that it’s over,” he says, taking my hand.
“I think it’s going to get worse,” I snort.
“Why do you say that?” he asks, confused.
“Well, the first time it happened, my boobs got huge. My hips widened, like a lot. I gained a healthy amount of weight since there were two in there.”
He’s about to take a bite of his cantalope when it finally clicks for him. He stares at me with his mouth wide open, and the piece of fruit in his hand falls on the plate in front of him.
“You can’t- how do you even- what?” he rushes out all at once, the same way Ayrie does, and it’s seriously the cutest thing ever.
“We can wait for testing, but I know. There’s something different.”
“It could be the post–heat swelling. We took precautions. Lots of them.”
“I was on birth control the first time. Maybe the key is letting the wolves handle it. Nothing happened then.”
“You’re fucking with me, right?” he grins.
“I’m not. You can run all your tests when we get back. We can bet on it.”
“I am not betting against that because I am getting very excited about this. What does Midnight say?”
-You’re right. Something is different.-
“Something is different inside of us,” I confirm. His eyes darken.
“Are you okay with this?”
“Why wouldn’t i be?”
“We’ve talked about it, but we’ve never really fully committed to the specifics. We said we’d wait.”
“Right, but if I am, we’re here now.” There is absolutely nothing we can do about it.
“Okay, I think I’m freaking out,” he straightens up and turns away.
I stand up and go around the island. He’s trying to take deep breaths to calm himself. I step into his space and wrap my arms around him. His heart is beating rapidly. I take his hands and pull his arms around me.
2/3
08:24 Sat, 14 Jun
Chapter 164
“You shouldn’t be,” I say gently. “You’re already a really good dad. It’ll be different this time. There is no reason why we should be freaking out, we ca more than okay.”
f
AD
