Page 32 of Feral
“Well, when five people are overcome with hormones, and love each other dearly, they sometimes have sex. Sometimes sex makes—”
“Shut up, Corvin. We were safe.”
“We were careful with Kitten. Obviously, Darius’s dick had other ideas, and was a little overeager in its new-found abilities. And we weren’t exactly Safe Sex Extraordinaire with Darius.”
The whooshing noise in my head got louder and louder.
“The how doesn’t matter. What do we do now?” Corvin asked slowly, like he was scared of the answer.
I pushed up off the ground. I walked to Kitten and picked her up in my arms, striding into the house. “I just need a minute.”
After a squeak of surprise, Kitten snuggled into my chest. A cold sweat coated her body, and I knew she was freaking out too. I took the stairs up to my nest two at a time. I wanted to be in there with her, snuggled away from the world, just for a little while. Kicking the door shut behind me, I laid her down on the pillows. I tore at my tie, ripping open my button down shirt so the buttons flew everywhere. Then I climbed onto the nest behind her, pulled all the blankets up around us and nuzzled my face into the back of her neck.
For a moment, we just breathed. I let the warmth of her body soak into mine, and felt her heartbeat beneath my hand. We’d created something together, all of us, but it wouldn’t have been possible without Kitten. I was hoping we hadn’t destroyed something equally as precious in the process.
“Are you okay?” I whispered against her neck.
She sighed, rolling onto her back so she could look at me. “I don’t know.” She wiggled back toward me. “Are you okay? You’re the one who’s pregnant.”
I turned onto my back as well, and together we stared at the ceiling. I placed my hand over my abs. “I don’t know either. I’m freaking the hell out, if I’m honest.”
Six months ago, this had been the only thing I wanted, but it was a fairytale wish back then. Now it was a stark reality, and I wasn’t sure I was ready.
She slipped her hand on top of mine, lacing our fingers together. “Explain this to me. Are they part mine?”
I nodded. “Yes. Fuck, I thought we’d have more time to explain this. So during the heat, my dick, I don’t know, pulls an Uno Reverse and sucks instead of spits? Dammit, Beckett is the teacher. He’d be better at explaining this.”
She tightened her fingers around mine. “I want to hear it from you.”
I sighed. Birds and the Bees talk it was then. “So I have an extractor, which is like a secondary urethra. Like, I don’t know, a second hole? And during the heat, you ovulate, but your eggs drop lower into your secondary cervix and my extractor kind of sucks your eggs into my womb. From there, they’re inseminated by the Alphas when they knot me. Theoretically, anyway. We didn’t do any of that perfectly, and yet, here we are?”
“So it’s an accident?”
I snorted. “I prefer a miracle, but yeah. Basically.”
“So, they are half me, half one of the Alphas? But not you?” She was frowning. I guess it was kind of a weird evolutionary hiccup. No part of my DNA would be passed onto the cub, or cubs. I was like an impressive incubator.
“Yep. If I want my own biological offspring, it would occur in a more traditional manner. You—uh, I mean the female, notyouyou—would carry it to term. And it wouldn’t result in a litter the way it does with me.” I flushed bright red. “That's Manix reproduction 101. Don’t ask me any questions because I’m really not sure I know the answers.”
“A litter?” she squeaked, and I laughed. She huffed out a breath, laying her head on my chest. I stroked my fingers through her hair as we lay there silently, coming to terms with the fact that everything we’d known, everything we’d planned, was now irrevocably altered. No matter how much I wanted to tell her that this didn’t change anything, that she wasn’t tied to us forever just because we’d accidentally made cubs, it would be a lie.
“You think we can call one Lorso?”
I want to shout yes, wanted to take that small commitment and hold it close. Instead, I squeezed her a little tighter. “I think we can definitely make that happen, Kitten.”
I’d been blessedwith attentive Alphas. Even from the first moment we met, I knew that they were the ones for me. That they would love me and cherish me, protect me if I needed it, even from myself.
But I swore on the Goddess herself, that if they tried to feed me one more time, I was going to stuff this hot bread roll somewhere unpleasant.
“Get that roasted Swiss mushroom ravioli away from me unless you want to lose an eye, Cooper.”
“D, you are eating for—”
“No! Don’t say it. Oh my Goddess, I will explode—and not with cubs—if you try to feed me one more thing. Fuck, I’ve eaten eight meals today. Eight. Yesterday, I didn’t even know I was pregnant. I’m not about to keel over if you haven’t fed me my body weight in food.”
“We just want you and the”—Corvin cleared his throat, and I could hear the emotion he was trying to suppress—“the cubs to be happy and healthy.”
I softened, because it was all coming from the right place. “I know, Alpha. I want that too. But that won’t happen if I’m stuffed like a Christmas turkey.”
