Alpha's Child (3 page)

“Are you okay?” Damien asked from the other side of the door.

“I’m fine,” she said.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah.” Julia gagged again, then caught her breath. “It’s just morning sickness, nothing to worry about. I’ll be out in a few minutes.”

He must have sensed that she genuinely didn’t want his assistance because he left. Or maybe he left because he was repulsed.

She supposed she had better get used to repulsing him. Soon enough she would be a blimp. Of course he wouldn’t be able to see how big she got, but he’d be able to feel it, which might be even worse. And what about after she was pregnant? Would she be able to get all the weight off? Her body hadn’t been great before she was pregnant and sometimes she couldn’t help thinking that if Damien weren’t blind, he wouldn’t be with her.

Of course, that was ridiculous. They had been Called together. They were in love. The fabrics of their lives were completely, beautifully, irrevocably intertwined.

But that was the emotional, spiritual bond. How did the physical bond fit in? Right now it was an important part of their relationship; in a way it seemed blasphemous to acknowledge that—it made their relationship seem superficial, insulted the depth of their love—but it was true. And it was beautiful in its own way: They were animals as well as higher beings, and they craved each other’s bodies as well as each other’s hearts.

Would that breathless, burning wanting remain? If Damien’s physical attraction to her faded...would the Calling fade?

She could feel his strong hands grabbing at her, hear the soft growl in the back of his throat as he closed his mouth on her earlobe. It was a primal desire that was impossible to fake, and the thought of it withering away gave her a panicky feeling in her chest.

Her body was done with its purge. She flushed the toilet, washed her face, and brushed her teeth thoroughly. By the time she spit out the toothpaste, nausea was already swirling in her belly again.

Frustration overwhelmed her. Her first literature class was today, which she was very excited about, but she didn’t want to go if she had to worry about scrambling up the aisle to find a trashcan. Of course, with how much college kids drank, that probably wasn’t all that uncommon. But it would still be mortifying, especially on the first day of class.

Feeling like a fat, vomitous, uneducated disaster, she trudged back to the bedroom, hoping Damien wasn’t there to see her in this state.

But he was there...and the bed was littered with a bizarre assortment of items: lemons, over-the-counter pill bottles, jars of cooking spices, some kind of skinny blue wristbands, a box of fruit popsicles, a box of saltines, bags of potato chips, bottles of ginger ale.

“What is all this?” Julia asked.

“I asked Jordan and Dee what helps with morning sickness,” Damien said. “They said there’s a bunch of things but what works is different for every woman. So I, ah, I got them all.”

Tears sprang to Julia’s eyes. The burst of love she felt was too intense to express with words. She clutched the front of Damien’s shirt and hugged him hard, almost attacking him.

“Try the lemon,” he said, laughing as he pulled away. “It’s supposed to be soothing.”

Julia sliced one open, put it to her nose, and inhaled deeply.

“Smells nice,” she said.

“There’s a glass of water on the side table there,” Damien said. “You’re supposed to drink lemon in it.”

Julia squeezed a few drops of lemon juice into the glass of water and drank it, grimacing at the tart taste. Immediately, though, her stomach ceased its gurgling.

“You’re a magician,” Julia said.

“Feeling better?” Damien asked.

“The best,” she said. “I don’t feel like throwing up at all.”

“I’ll shower you with lemons if that’s what it takes,” Damien said.

“Maybe I’ll need a lemon shower to get me through class,” Julia said, “but I hope not.” She stuffed the ginger ale, crackers, and fennel seeds in her purse.

“Do you know where Grandma Dee is?” Julia asked. Julia had been down in the kitchen earlier and hadn’t seen her. Dee had been staying out of the way since Damien had moved into the house, giving them their privacy. It was an odd change from how things used to be. It made Julia feel like less of a child, and probably that was what Dee wanted.

“I think she went for a walk. I saw her go outside a while ago.”

Julia kissed her mate goodbye, then kissed him again for being so thoughtful, then headed out.

When she walked out the back door, she was startled to see someone on the porch out of the corner of her eye. It was Dee, sitting straight-backed in a wooden chair and gazing out into the woods like a sentinel.

No—not
like
a sentinel, Julia realized. She
was
acting as a sentinel.

A chill worked its way down Julia’s spine like a drop of ice water.

“Good morning, child,” Dee said. The ease of her voice didn’t match the sharpness of her eyes as they combed the tree-line.

“Morning,” Julia said. “I’m walking to school with Katherine. I’ll see you later.”

“Okay. Have fun.” Dee glanced at her pointedly. “Be safe.”

Julia nodded as she scanned the woods herself. The trees looked ghostly and skeletal in the thin morning mist. The last time Julia had looked at the woods, she’d felt only the giddy urge to plunge into them in wolf form, to chase squirrels and rabbits and weave among the trees and relish the animalistic freedom. But now the forest looked dense with shadows and hiding places.

Anything could be out there, and they wouldn’t be able to see it until it was too late.

CHAPTER SIX

Damien

“Dammit!” Kyle said.

Damien cringed, waiting for a hammer to fall on his head. When none did, he relaxed.

Kyle was at the top of the ladder, fastening a wooden slat to the eaves for his cabin. Construction was not Damien’s forte, for obvious reasons. He was just there to hold the ladder.

“I really should have bought a level,” Kyle said. “It’s so hard to tell if this is straight.”

“I think the right side needs to be up a little,” Damien said.

“Really?” Kyle said in surprise. “I feel like the left side is—”

Kyle broke off, remembering that Damien was blind, and laughed.

“It’ll be good if it’s not quite straight,” Damien said. “It’ll add character.”

“I can vouch for that,” Jordan said as he passed by. The planks he dragged along the ground knocked against each other.

“Jordan, can you take a look at this?” Kyle said. “What do you think?”

Damien heard Jordan ease down the planks and step back to get a good look at whatever Kyle was doing.

After a long moment of careful deliberation, Jordan spoke.

“I think you should have bought a level.”

Damien laughed.

“You’re lucky I’m not paying you guys, because you’d both be fired,” Kyle said.

Jordan said something back to Kyle but Damien didn’t hear him. He’d cocked his head. He didn’t know why—some subconscious animal instinct had sent an alert through his body. Perhaps the birds and bugs at the edge of the woods had gotten quieter, or a twig had snapped somewhere off in the distance.

And now that he was focusing his attention toward the woods, he thought he could feel something pressing back against his senses…like the weight of eyes watching him.

“What is it, Damien?” Jordan asked.

“Do you sense that?” Damien asked.

“What?”

“I think there’s something out there. In the woods.”

“Shifters?”

“I don’t know.”

All three of them went silent as they strained their senses. It was scarcely more than a tingle on the back of Damien’s neck but it was still there, and the edge of the forest was too quiet, yes, he was almost sure of it.

It wasn’t a pack. If there were any more than one shifter, Damien, Jordan, and Kyle all would have sensed the presences clearly by now. And it wasn’t a deer or some other prey because such an animal would have no reason to watch them for so long—if it sensed them, it would have bolted. No, the thing watching them was a predator.

It could be a scout, sent to gather intel on Damien’s pack. Or a lone wolf, hoping to get lucky and pounce on a female that strayed too far from the rest of the pack.

Whatever the case, Damien felt that this new presence was a threat.

“I don’t sense anything,” Jordan said.

“Neither do I,” Kyle said.

“Are you sure?” Jordan asked Damien. “Do you still sense it?”

Damien wasn’t surprised they couldn’t sense it. Because he was blind, his other senses were stronger—maybe that was it.

“We need to go after it,” Damien said. He wanted to capture and interrogate the wolf, or if they couldn’t do that, kill it. “Jordan, come with me. Kyle, stay here and keep a lookout.”

Damien pointed to where he thought the presence was and Jordan led the way. Damien went at a fast walk, trusting Jordan to tell him of any obstacles on the ground. As he shifted his attention to trying not to trip, his sense of the presence flickered, but Jordan should be able to detect it soon enough.

As soon as they broke the tree-line, they shifted. Damien cocked his ears and sniffed. Lurking under the heavy, earthy smells of the forest was an alien scent. It was sweet and delicate, almost like a perfume, and quite unlike any shifter Damien had smelled before. It was also so faint that he couldn’t be sure he wasn’t imagining it.

“Do you smell that?” Damien asked.

“I still don’t sense anything, Damien.” There was just a hint of uncertainty in Jordan’s voice now.

Damien started moving in the direction of the scent, as best he could gauge it. The sense of the presence lingered on, but that might have just been an aftereffect, like the way his ears rang after he heard a loud noise. He was starting to doubt himself. Jordan should have spotted the shifter—if it was a shifter—by now. Unless it had fled, but in that case, how could they
not
have heard it?

Damien went faster and faster, deeper and deeper into the woods. Branches clawed at him. The scent was slipping away. Or was it already gone? Had it ever been there at all? He banged into a tree trunk hard enough to draw blood but didn’t stop. He wasn’t even worried about eliminating a threat anymore—he just wanted to make sure he wasn’t crazy.

The noises of the forest dropped off up ahead. There was something there. Damien pushed forward with a burst of speed—

“
Damien!
” Jordan yelled, and practically body-checked him to halt him.

“There’s something up ahead,” Damien whispered urgently .

“I know,” Jordan said. “It’s a fifty-foot drop. We’re at the ridge of the valley.”

That made Damien falter. A queasy feeling overcame him. He’d just almost barreled headlong over a cliff in pursuit of…what?

He raised his snout and inhaled deeply one more time.

Nothing.

“You really didn’t sense anything at all?” Damien asked.

“No,” Jordan said.

There was a trace of concern in his voice, concern for Damien’s sanity. Damien shared the concern, with some embarrassment on top. He had been in a hyper vigilant mode ever since Julia had returned with the news that she was pregnant; he was bound to get spooked more often. But he had felt so sure…

“Sorry,” he said, turning back. “Must have just been my nerves.”

“False positives are better than false negatives,” Jordan said.

“I don’t what that means, Doc.”

“It means better safe than sorry, love.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Julia

Julia walked into the house with a shopping bag full of books and found Damien in the kitchen. He was sitting on a chair with his head right next to the open window, listening to the outdoors. Leaning back, he had the front two legs of his chair off the floor in a way that reminded Julia of a cocky high school quarterback. But his face did not match his jaunty posture—his expression was dark, brooding.

“Hi,” she said, putting the bag on the table and wiggling out of her jacket.

“Hey.” He smiled and sat forward. Julia loved that about him. Even when he seemed to have all sorts of weighty things on his mind, as soon as she was with him, all those things vanished and it was only her.

“How was shopping?” he asked.

She had been walking up to kiss him but now she stopped. “What happened to your head?”

Damien frowned. “What’s wrong with my head?”

“There’s dried blood on your forehead.” She reached up and lightly touched the smudge of brownish-red on his temple. The wound, whatever it had been, had already healed.

“Oh, that.” Damien absently placed his hand over her hand on his face, pressing her palm to his cheek. “I just hit my head on something when I was helping with the cabin. A construction site really isn’t a great place to hang around when you’re blind. I was just about to go take a shower, actually.” He cocked one eyebrow while the opposite corner of his mouth slanted up. “Care to join me?” he asked in a low voice that intimated more than a just a shower was going to happen.

“I am feeling a little dirty, now that you mention it,” she said. She took his hand and he led her toward the bathroom. Before they went in, Damien stopped Julia and drew her to him in a deep kiss.

“Hey, listen,” Damien said. “I don’t want you going out into the woods anymore, okay?”

“What? Why not?”

“I’d just be more comfortable if you stayed close to plenty of other people.”

A worm of fear wriggled to life in Julia’s chest.

“Did something happen in the woods?” she asked.

“No.” There was something hidden in Damien’s expression, but Julia couldn’t figure out what it was.

“Then where is this coming from?”

“It’s just to be extra safe. The woods are so big, if anything were to happen, it’d be hard for the pack to get to you to protect you. And it’s harder to sense things coming in the woods. Now that Trax is gone, I don’t think his old pack cares about us at all, and even if they did, I don’t think they’d be organized enough to do anything about it. But you never know. You don’t need to be scared, but as long as you don’t
need
to go into the woods, I figure, why risk anything?”