Once Upon a Shifter (105 page)

"Can I come in?"

Xavier was hovering by the door. For the first time ever, I saw insecurity on his face. He was always so confident, so ready to take on the world. But he didn't know how to cure this, my sadness and his and Asher's from the loss of our baby.

"Yes," I said. I smiled even though my eyes were filled with tears. "Yes." We all needed to heal.

I got back on the bed, and I motioned with my hand for Asher to lay in front of me. He did, his body taking up the entire length of the bed. Xavier was behind me.

I was naked, and Xavier's hand massaged my ass then my clit, focused on my pleasure. Tonight was not about making a baby. It was about forging a connection between the three of us. Asher switched it up so that we could 69. He dove right back towards my pussy, and Xavier took his hand away from my clit. Asher's dick was in my face, and I sucked it down. I tugged on it with one hand and touched his balls with the other. If the increased speed with which he licked my clit was any indication, he liked it. He tapped my thigh right before he flooded my mouth with his warm come. It was salty as I swallowed it down.

I didn't know where it came from, but Xavier had lube. It was cold and wet against my ass. He pushed a finger inside of me, pushing past my sphincter, getting me ready. I could hear him as he coated his dick with lubricant. He pushed it slowly inside of me. I had never had anal before. It felt different. I knew that Xavier wasn't here because I should be pregnant. He was here because he wanted me, and he wanted us to be ok. And it meant the world to me.

He came with a groan inside of my body, filling my ass with his come. It felt different from when he came in my pussy.

I felt good. I knew now that I wasn't just a baby-making machine for them, that they weren't just filling me with their come because they needed to have a child. They genuinely cared about me, and they cared about us. For the length of my stay in their house, we would be ok. All of us would be ok. I turned to Xavier, slipping his cock out of my ass, and I kissed him tenderly.

"Thank you," I said. "That was the nicest time I have ever had."

Xavier walked into the bathroom. I could hear the sound of running water. He came back into the room with two damp washcloths. One, he threw at Asher. The other one he used to clean me up. The warmth felt good on my body. Asher had always been the one to treat me lovingly, but now, as I looked up at Xavier while he cleaned my body, I knew that Xavier felt the same way about me as Asher did. It was written all over his face.

Even though all three of us had our own bedrooms, we stayed there in Asher's gigantic California King bed. Xavier had an arm wrapped around my waist, and Asher's leg was around mine. I fell asleep, entangled in the two of them, safe and glowing inside.

That night was the dawn of a new era.

Job

The next morning, Asher talked to me as soon as I woke up.

"What do you want to do?"

I was touched. I wasn't some poor girl that they had picked up off the street anymore. Before, they had just left me at home to my own devices.

"I have to have a flexible job, of course, but I want to do something that helps other people."

"Like what?"

"How about a crisis pregnancy center?" I remembered how panicked the girls with whom I had grown up were when they realized they were pregnant. It didn't matter if you're raised in an upper class household if your parents throw you out without a cent. "Okay. I will fund whatever you want to do."

We started a crisis pregnancy center that I ran using their money. It felt good to help frightened teenage girls whose parents had kicked them out, and I secretly hoped that being around so many pregnant women would increase my fertility somehow. I didn't know how, but maybe there would be something in the air.

I filled my days, while Xavier and Asher went away to do their mysterious work, with the logistics of running a large household that needed childcare. We had all-house classes on how to do things like figure out your finances and coordinate with other people. Since it was up to me, I was all for providing subsidized childcare for them even after they had their children and moved out. I could not keep all of them for life, because there were a limited number of bedrooms. What I could do for them was open up a daycare from 6 AM to 10 PM, which meant that they had more flexibility than a normal 9-to-5. There were a lot of mothers who were limited in their job choices by the cost of childcare, and I tried to fix that.

I had to coordinate food deliveries that were almost like food deliveries for a small restaurant. Pregnant women were hungry women. Pickles and ice cream might be cliché, but the joke existed for a reason. Our ice cream was constantly out, even though I increased our order every time.

I bought toys for the kids who would live there. I stocked up on carseats and strollers. It was fun to spend money this way, even more fun than spending money on myself when I went shopping. I was filled with a sense of purpose that guided me and drove me forward.

My days were busy, but my nights were even busier.

I had taken over ordering dinner, putting it on our house's tab. Asher and Xavier kept me up every night until the break of dawn. They were absolutely insatiable in the bedroom. I may have been walking around with dark circles under my eyes, but I was happier than I had ever been. I had a job that helped people. I had two gorgeous werebears making sweet love to me every night.

One day, I found myself in the center's kitchen digging out a bowl of chocolate ice cream. I normally tried to keep it to a single scoop, but I found myself making a gigantic mound of ice cream in my bowl.

"Oh my god," Alison giggled, walking into the kitchen. “Save some for the rest of us!"

I blinked at my ice cream. I thought that I should stop by a pharmacy on the way home.

Pregnancy

I went to our local CVS, which was on the way home. I walked through the aisles, reading the signs, trying to find the pregnancy aisle. Did that even exist?

"Hi! How can I help you?" I saw a gangly, tall teenager with adolescent acne. He seemed nice enough, though.

"I'm looking for pregnancy tests."

I saw his eyes drift towards my stomach.

"Yeah, of course. They're over here."

He brought me to the aisle. The number of pregnancy test was dizzying. I didn't know which one to pick.

"Do you know which one I should get?"

He looked at me in shock. "Um...I've never had to buy one."

That at least made me smile. "Okay." I acted like it was Supermarket Sweep, grabbing one of every distinct kind that I could figure out. He helped me when the stack of pregnancy tests were overflowing. He took me straight to a cash register that was on the side of the store. It had a tiny counter instead of the broad counter up front, but I still didn't have to wait for a line of 10 people in front of me.

"So, did you find everything you needed?"

I looked at him. "Um, you helped me find everything."

"Sorry, I have to ask," he said, a tiny bit of pink touching his cheeks.

"Yeah, I found everything I needed." Or I would, as soon as I got home and peed on a stick. Well, a gazillion sticks.

I put it into the passenger seat of my car. The bags of pregnancy tests weighed enough that I had to buckle them in or the car would be annoying.

I drove home, nervous. The boys were home, and they saw that I had CVS bags in my hands.

"Why did you go to CVS? We could have sent the housekeeper."

"No, we couldn't have." I took a deep breath. "These are pregnancy tests."

The specter of the real reason that I was living in there house came back full force. Yes, we were pretending like I was actually their wife, living with them, sleeping with them, loving them. But I was there for a purpose.

"Do you need help?" Asher said. "You look a little shaken up."

"Nah," I said. "I'm going to go to my bathroom and check out these tests. I'll talk to you when I have a result, one way or another."

I walked upstairs with my bags of pregnancy tests. I drank some tap water. I should have had more water if I wanted enough pee for all of these pee sticks.

I ran out of pee when I got to my fifth one. The instructions said that I had to wait two to three minutes.

Those minutes felt like an absolute eternity. I looked at my phone, watching the seconds tick by more slowly than I had ever seen them go.

"Come on!" I urged my phone.

Xavier was in my doorway.

I was so embarrassed. I was sitting on my toilet with my pants down.

"Go away!"

"No," he told me. "This is my child, too."

The results started showing up on the pregnancy tests. I saw the pink lines and the indicators telling me one thing.

"I'm pregnant," I said, as I looked at test after test that said the same thing.

Xavier gave me a big hug. He kissed me quickly. "I'm so happy. Let's go tell Asher."

"Asher!" he yelled.

"Why are you yelling when we have an intercom system?"

He shrugged. "Because I can."

I heard Asher's heavy footsteps on the stairs. "What is it? What do the tests say?"

He looked at my happy face and Xavier's joy.

"We're having a baby!"

He picked me up, off my feet, and I was a foot off the ground as he kissed me.

"We won't tell anybody," he said. "We'll keep it a secret."

"How long am I going to be pregnant? The last time, I was instantly two or three months along with the baby."

“Were-cubs grow fast. That's why you needed so much food and so much energy. Bears in the wild take about 7 months, while humans take 9. Were-cubs take half that, about 3 months."

"Okay. What does this mean for my work?"

"You can't go out there," Xavier said. "It's too dangerous. What if you got in some kind of accident?"

I rolled my eyes. "I've been dealing with LA traffic my

entire life. I'm not afraid of accidents. And you can't imprison me on house arrest until the baby comes."

"How about this? Let's have a compromise. You telecommute for your job. We'll hire someone to be your on-the-ground coordinator. I have someone in mind."

"Already?" That was very fast.

"Yes." Asher nodded. "I know someone we can bring on. She's the wife of another member of the sleuth."

"Sounds good to me," I replied. "Let's do it."

The transition to bring on another managing director was absolutely seamless. That was great, because this time was just as hard on me as the first time. I had hyperemesis gravidarum. They didn't have to put me on house arrest. I was on hospital arrest. I couldn't keep anything down, not even water, which meant that they had to keep me hydrated with an IV drip. I hated it. I hated the smell of the hospital. The maternity suite that the boys paid for was baller and absolutely pretty, but I hated being bed bound, and I hated not being able to eat anything. I knew better than to resent the little one for what my body did, though. I was glad that I was telecommuting and able to take my mind off of being trapped in this hospital bed in Cedars-Sinai. Kara and I texted every day, and she and I Facetimed at night. She worked odd hours because of her job. Life was okay, though sort of quiet and slow. Inside of this hospital, my life was on pause.

Then, I felt my water break.

Delivery

It felt like someone had popped a water balloon between my legs. The wetness gushed between my legs, and I was soaked. I rang the call button to tell the nurse. She came running, which was good.

"My water just broke," I told her. "I'm having a baby!"

As a seasoned maternity nurse, she kept cool.

"Okay. Let me know when your contractions are coming less than a minute apart. I'll tell the doctor. Do you have anyone you want to contact?"

"I'll call Asher and Xavier myself." I couldn't feel anything, not a single contraction, nothing. "I'm sure they'll be here right away."

They must have basically teleported, because they were in Cedars-Sinai almost before I ended the call.

"How are you feeling?" Asher said. He took my hand and squeezed it.

"I feel okay." I shrugged. "This doesn't feel painful."

Xavier said, "You don't look like those women in the videos that we had to watch for preparation. You look almost normal, although you're ready to pop. I'm going to get the nurse."

Xavier went out to get the nurse. The nurse came into my hospital room, and she checked my vitals.

"You know what sometimes helps? Walking. I would never leave you to do it unsupervised, but the two of them should be able to keep you healthy and safe." She took our menage relationship in stride, just as the entire hospital staff had. Unconventional relationships didn't matter if you had enough money.

"Why don't you walk around the unit? There's a purple stripe that runs all the way around. It makes a square. Just tell me when you can feel the contractions coming less than a minute apart, ok?"

I nodded. She took the IV out of my arm. With the baby about to come out, it didn't matter that I wouldn't be hydrated by it. I hoped that the nausea and all-day sickness would recede once I delivered the baby.

I felt weak, since they only let me up out of my bed for an hour a day. It stunk to be on bedrest.

My werebears stood on either side of me as I swept around the unit, dodging women in wheelchairs, anxious fathers, busy nurses, and extra-busy doctors.

I followed the purple stripe around and around. The men were absolutely patient about it.

On the millionth round, my nurse looked at us and frowned.

"How fast are your contractions coming?"

"I don't feel anything."

"If you don't give birth naturally, we're going to have to induce labor. The risk of infection is too high. Let's hook you up and see what's going on in there."

I followed her back to my suite, and she had me lean back before she checked me.