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  “And I love you, Ruby.”

  I laughed softly, my face against his chest. “I love you, daddy.”

  “See once upon a time that sounded so dirty.”

  “And now?” I pressed my palm to his chest to feel his heart beating.

  “Now it sounds like my future.”

  One more kiss and Ellis left me to put my clothes on.

  I rubbed my belly slowly while trying to find low rider jeans that would sit below my belly and not cut off all my oxygen in the process. “It will be okay, Kincaid. Kincaid Bach. Kincaid Ellis Bach. Nice. Fancy but brave,” I told the baby and found a pair of jeans that once had been too big and now would be my best friends. Hopefully for a few days—I doubted it, probably more like a few hours. But a girl could dream.

  Chapter 21

  “This wouldn’t be happening without you being a New Age and wishy washy Alpha!” a man yelled from the back.

  Pregnancy seemed to be having an odd effect on me, because I actually had it on my mind to stomp over there and clock him.

  “You had no problem with me being a new age wishy washy Alpha a few weeks ago, Harry,” Ellis said, loudly. He caught my look or maybe my scent and reached down to stroke my shoulders. “Being on board with a belief means when staying on board when it’s good or bad. If Frank were the Alpha there would be lots of blood and probably war and most likely a bunch of angry humans banging at the Town’s proverbial doors to take care of business.”

  “And then you’d be bitching too, Harry!” a woman in the front yelled. A few people laughed a few people grumbled and I realized how very badly I wanted to just put my head down and sleep.

  But I couldn’t do that—not here at least. Being the mate to an Alpha was basically like being queen. You don’t sleep in front of your town. You don’t sleep or cry or look weak when even one person smells blood.

  I swallowed hard, dug my fingernails into my palms and waited.

  “Who’s on border patrol?” Ellis asked, effectively dismissing Harry.

  “It rotates. We have a list. Today was Moon and Bertinelli.”

  “Where are they now?”

  The two men rose in the back of the room and waved. “Here.”

  “Anything weird?”

  “Nope. We never thought to…” The stockier one took off his cap, bent the brim, put it back on. A nervous habit. “It never occurred to us that someone was going to be smuggled into town.”

  The other one, a slimmer, shorter man with pale blond hair said, “We’re used to the truck coming in, Ellis. It’s normal.”

  Ellis nodded, his patience amazed me. I would have been screaming at people, despite the fact that I would never have thought to check the truck. “I know. From now on we check everything in and everything out. But we have someone loose in town. Roberta is going to give you all a run-down of what he looks like.”

  Bertie took the stage and started to describe the gaunt man. Doc’s wife Lindsay rushed up to me. “My goodness, Ruby! Look at you. You’re so…how are you?”

  I walked back away from the stage with her. I caught sight of Tyler, Madeline and Peabody by the back of the hall. Separate but included. “Terrified,” I admitted, patting my gut like a basketball.

  “It will be fine, honey. We’ll take good care of you and the baby.”

  “I’m going to become,” I said. “It’s the only way.”

  Her lips compressed but then she forced a smile. “I know. But we’ll make sure it’s as smooth as possible. I’ll be there if you like. To help. It will be fine, Ruby, I swear.”

  Funny, everyone kept saying that. I was doing my damndest to believe it. I grabbed her hand, asking her the question I was afraid to ask Ellis. If I asked him he would worry and he would sense my fear. The real amount of fear. “Does it hurt? When you change?”

  Lindsay shook her head and sighed. “No. But I was born wolf. You weren’t. It could, I imagine. Especially at first. I…” Her eyes shone with tears and that made me both love her and even more anxious. “We’ll do everything we can, Ruby. Everything. I know that the thought of you being hurt is at war with Ellis’s excitement. He’s told me that himself. He’s overjoyed about the baby, but so very concerned for you.”

  I took her hand and squeezed. “It will be fine. If there’s anyone I’m willing to feel pain for, it’s Ellis and Kincaid.”

  “Kincaid?” Her eyes lit up.

  “Kincaid Ellis Bach,” I patted my stomach. “I can’t wait for you to meet him.”

  She kissed me right on the forehead and I laughed. “Oh sweetie, I can’t wait for all of us to meet him!”

  * * * *

  “There will be a reward if anyone takes down one of these people.” Ellis barely got the word people out without snarling. “There will be the same if the gaunt man is found. I put you all on your honor to protect each other, our Town and especially at this moment, my mate. I’m sure the news has spread like wildfire, but for those of you who weren’t at the last meeting, she’s carrying my child. Our child. Your newest pack member.”

  A murmur took up in the hall. The verbal equivalent of a flock of birds jostling for a place in a crowded space.

  “But Ruby is human, we didn’t think it would take!” A tall man with a long reddish gray beard called.

  Ellis nodded slowly, looking like some humble god up there on the stage. “She is. We know it’s unprecedented, and we were worried at first, too. Which is why we are concerned for her safety and that of my heir. Our heir. This heir will be your heir, remember that. He will be the one to bring you to greatness and assure peace, I’m sure of it.”

  Humble man. So infuriating.

  I rubbed my belly and so did Lindsay. I caught Doc looking at her and smiling. Was another baby in their future now? Had I sealed poor Doc Burns’s fate? I grinned at him despite my worry.

  “Will she survive it, Ellis?” A woman asked. She looked more concerned for me than anything.

  It was odd, I noticed, to be discussed like I wasn’t here. Just part of a prophecy. A theoretical figure in their history. The human that grew and gave birth to a wolf baby.

  “Yes,” Ellis said. I was glad he was sure of himself about this. Because sometimes I wasn’t. I’d had a few dreams where I woke up dead from giving birth. And yes, I knew how that sounded. But I had to go forward, I couldn’t give up because I might die. I had to go ahead so my son could live.

  I clenched my hands in my lap. “You will survive,” Lindsay said in my ear.

  “I know.”

  “I know you know, but I’m telling you again,” she said.

  “Will she become?” someone else shouted. “Will she be one of us?”

  Ellis ran a hand through his hair. It needed a cut, which was how I liked it. It made me want to bury my fingers in it and tug. “We believe so. The theory is—and yes, this is uncharted territory as far as any of us know—that the birth will change her. And then she will be wolf too. Turned, granted, but wolf. To some of you that is very important.”

  Someone started weeping in the crowd, which I admit did not help bolster my courage.

  Ellis sighed, looking angry and scared and determined all at once. “To some of you it’s not. Any help from anyone in our community who may have some kind of experience with this, please reach out to us.”

  There was a stark and measurable silence before he went on.

  “Now about the fights going on in town. You don’t drop your beliefs because things get hard or uncomfortable. We cannot start infighting, nor can we adopt the aggressive base nature ways simply because things do not happen fast enough for you. The murders on the edge of town tell you what we are dealing with. Animals, even in the wild, do not kill for pleasure, fun or to prove a point. They kill because they need to for protection or food. We are surely above wild animals in our abilities to control ourselves. Yes?”

  Another murmur and I tried to swallow a burst of pride for my Ellis. I caught Tyler’s look from across the room. He was standing near Iri
s but not touching her. He was protecting her without being overt, protecting her also from her town knowing she was with him. None of us knew how town would react, so I could tell he was assuming the reacting would be bad.

  For a while now, when I looked at him, I saw disdain. Now I saw love, fear, concern. I smiled at him and he smiled back. I put my hands on my swollen abdomen and mouthed, I’ll be fine…

  He didn’t look convinced but he nodded.

  “Ellis,” a big man I recognized as someone named Al called, “How is that going to fulfill the prophecy.”

  In the back, Samuel stood and started to come forward.

  “Not that everyone believes in all that mumbo jumbo,” someone else called.

  That actually made Ellis smile, which made him look less angry and less scared. “I hear ya. The baby will be the bridge. Proof that we don’t need to dominate or be dominated. Half human, half wolf, in our world. A mix of human and wolf. Something profound and good.”

  Another murmur.

  I was hot. So hot. My armpits, my upper lip, my chest prickled with sweat and I stood up to keep myself balanced. I was feeling ill. Dizzy and hot and then cold and clammy. I moved toward the back.

  “Are you okay?” Lindsay asked.

  I nodded, smiled. “I’m fine. I just need to move. Baby on board and all,” I joked.

  I pushed my way past the crowd, feeling like someone had tied a noose around my neck. A panic started to hum in my chest, so sharp and so vibrant that I felt on the verge of screaming, or weeping. Instead, I pushed the bar to go toward the rest rooms. Only I pushed through the wrong doorway. You’d think I’d know Town Hall. I killed a man here. But not so much, I’d gone the wrong way and found myself outside instead of in the hall to find the ladies room. I tried to grab the door as it swung shut, but missed. For security reasons, like most public buildings, for back doors used strictly as exits—the door had no outside handle.

  “Genius, alpha-girl.” I laughed at myself, though. I’d simply have to walk around. After some nice cool air.

  The December wind licked at my exposed skin and it felt so good. I had become increasingly warm as Kincaid grew. I felt like I’d swallowed a small fire or a space heater. The door popped open and I was almost sad. A light sifting of snow had started and every flake that fell on my skin was bliss.

  I expected Lindsay Burns or Iris or Bertie. Instead, Madeline peered around the door. “There you are. They were all aflutter. And since I am neither shifter or vampire or—” The door started to swing shut as she stepped out.

  “No, no, grab it!” I yelped.

  She made a swipe for it and missed. “Sorry,” she said, chewing her lower lip.

  I shrugged, laughed. “Oh, it’s okay. Now I have a good excuse to be out here for a few more minutes.”

  “Is it safe out here?” she asked, suddenly. That set my nerves on edge. Super.

  “Should be. Plus, we can just walk to the front door and go in. The men at the door know who I am.”

  Madeline nodded. “So, are you okay? I think I’m the only human here besides you and I have to tell you, Ruby…I’d be seriously peeing my pants if I were you.”

  “I think I’ll be peeing myself either way, soon enough. I hear bladder control is an issue when you’re—”

  “So you joke the fear off, eh?”

  I blinked at her. We hadn’t really gotten to know each other, Madeline and I. She’d come into town as a woman who’d just lost her sister to shifters. Shifters who were out to prove a point and get retribution for me killing Frank. She’d been silent and solemn from day one, until she killed the buzz cut and fire plug bad guys. Now she was trying to make me feel better and I was being rude enough to analyze it.

  “I guess so. I do tend to do that. I just can’t focus on it…if that makes sense.”

  She nodded once. “It does.”

  “What was your sister like?” I asked suddenly. Then thought better of it. Maybe I shouldn’t have done that.

  “She was a lot like you. Funny, smart, pretty, brave. She was at the wrong place at the wrong time I guess and they got her.”

  “They got her,” I echoed and shivered. I was ready to go in now. The way the trees shook and shimmied at my back reminded me just how much wooded space was around her. And I could see in my mind’s eye that gaunt and horrible man who made my skin crawl and my bones ache.

  “Yes, she said she was taking trash out or something…” she cocked her head and looked far, far away. “I can’t remember exactly,” she said. “Isn’t that odd?”

  I shrugged, hugging myself now, jumping at a small sound in the woods. “Not really. It was traumatic.”

  She was freaking me out, but I was freaked out to begin with, wasn’t I? Gaunt killers and exploding men and shotguns. Girls with dead sisters and shifters everywhere and a baby that was going to come out the size of the Jolly Green Giant if he kept growing at this rate…

  I took a deep breath and smiled. “We should probably get in there.”

  She nodded, her eyes sweeping over the trees and the big empty field behind the Town Hall. “It’s very strange all of this. What my life has become. Where I am.”

  I patted her arm as we turned. “I know that feeling.”

  Chapter 22

  Turned out they didn’t just let me in, they practically dragged me in. Yanking me in so fast I made a noise that sounded like a duck and a turkey had a baby. They yanked Madeline in too and then Ellis was rushing at me fast, his mouth turned down, his cheeks red, the scruffy stubble on his beard looking menacing instead of sexy as usual.

  “I um—”

  He grabbed my arm and physically propelled me to a quiet corner and growled. “What were you thinking?”

  I could tell it was fear—stark, maddening fear—that was making him act this way. I wanted to soothe him but could tell by the set of his jaw that there was no soothing this. So I threw my shoulders back as much as his grip allowed and gave him my best back-the-fuck-up-mister stare.

  “Ellis you are hurting me. Release my arms.”

  His grip loosened but he didn’t let me go. I watched him swallow hard and I could see the pulse at his throat slow just a hair. Okay, good.

  The baby kicked me from the inside, the father gripped me on the outside—men, jeeze. As soon as possible we’d have to have a girl, too, to even out the equation.

  “I got overheated. Lightheaded. I didn’t feel well. I just wanted some air.”

  “So you—”

  “Hush,” I said softly. Surprisingly, he did.

  “I pushed through the wrong door. I’m new here, remember?”

  He gritted his teeth, his jaw working as he tried to stay calm and hear me. Good for him.

  “I was overwhelmed and overheated due to your offspring—”

  He smirked. I tried not to smile.

  “And I needed to walk around a bit, go to the ladies room, and I ended up outside and then Madeline came to check on me. And we talked. And were together the whole time. And we were safe.”

  His hands had migrated to my waist. He held me like a precious thing.

  “The end,” I said softly.

  “Ruby, you should not have been out there together. You both weren’t safe. You weren’t safe, all three of you, is what I should say.”

  “First, let me remind you that Madeline is the one who took out two of the three stooges earlier today and saved my ass. Second, your son is getting so big, so fast, I half expect him to come out and start throwing punches.”

  I can’t remember exactly. Isn’t that odd?

  I shook off my odd Madeline-voiced mental echo and realized that I’d made him laugh. Ellis reeled me in for a hug while the rest of the crowd milled around chatting about tonight’s proceedings.

  “Are we done here?” I yawned. I couldn’t help it. This was all very exhausting.

  “We are. The town is on lockdown, all vehicles in and out are to be checked, anything suspicious in the town proper or on the outskirts
are to be reported. And everyone is an honorary Ruby-guard.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Any word on the O’Dells?”

  “Yeah, I’m grateful we got them out of here,” he said. “They are having a blast at that cabin. Mr O’Dell is even fishing and Mrs O is cooking the fish at night. So, they are none the wiser.”

  I nodded. “Good, thank you for taking care of that. I love you.”

  He stroked my hair. “I love you, too, Ruby. I love you more than even I can comprehend. My gut hurts sometimes I love you so much.”

  “My gut hurts because your son is stomping on it,” I said against his ear. At the words your son, his joy was nearly palpable. It made me feel warm and happy despite the craziness.

  “Let me take you home, Little Bird. We will have wine.”

  “I won’t have wine,” I said.

  “The way this is going, you’ll be having wine before you know it.”

  I’ll also be having a baby and changing into a wolf—if I survive—and sprouting hair. Then I will need LOTS of wine…

  “Are you okay?” he asked, stopping short, reading my feeling like a book.

  “I’m fine,” I lied. I’m terrified…

  He frowned at me.

  “Just tired,” I assured him.

  Ellis nodded and led me through the crowd. We ended up together in the vehicles. Tyler, Iris, Peabody, Madeline, Me and Ellis. I wondered how we’d all paired up this way. It was almost like a mock family. All we needed were the O’Dells to be our older generation and the baby to be our fresh blood.

  Fresh blood…

  I shook off the psychic anxiety I felt at that turn of the phrase. I was being worrisome.

  Might as well get used to it. If I survived the process, I’d have a child to worry about.

  * * * *

  I couldn’t sleep. I was sure that when I woke my belly would be the size of a baby Beluga. I gave myself almost an hour and a half before I surrendered and crept out of the room.

  “Y’kay?” Ellis asked quietly. I could tell he was mostly asleep.

  “Fine. I have to pee.” There. He’d buy that.

  “Hurry back.”

  How exhausting was it to deal with all this, I wondered. Not just me and the pregnancy but being in charge of a town that was basically being infiltrated. Being the person whose head they’d want on a platter if it all went wrong.