Etti

“Hey, the newlyweds are back!” Marc called, greeting Etti and Grey when they breezed through the doors of the Painted Wolf. “I thought you guys were staying longer?”

Grey balked at the question and Etti couldn’t blame him. The start of Grey and Etti’s marriage had been rocky, to say the least. Their honeymoon was a disaster—no sex and no progress on breaking the hunt’s curse their daughter had inherited. Etti sighed and rubbed her heavy belly in answer to Marc’s questioning look.

She couldn’t believe it’d only been a week since her wedding. She’d completely popped at this stage in her pregnancy and everything agitated her. Etti returned from New Orleans grumpier than ever. The lack of sex and the fact that they’d spent most of their honeymoon trekking through the sweltering heat of Louisiana did nothing to help curb Etti’s level of aggravation.

They were supposed to stay a few days longer, but Cali, Etti’s friend and favorite shifter nurse, recommended they come home with Etti’s due date approaching. Cali hadn’t wanted them to go to New Orleans at all, but the honeymoon had served as an opportunity for Grey and Etti to sniff around for Esme, the so-called witch, who was the key to keeping Etti’s new little family safe from the hunt, a blood-thirsty pack of rogue shifters hell bent on killing her child.

Wes popped his head out of his booth, tattoo needle still in hand. He smirked at Etti. “You look . . .”

“What?” Etti snapped, her scowl daring her best friend to say what he was thinking.

Perhaps Wes’s new shifter instincts were working well for him, because he wisely decided to keep his thoughts to himself and merely said, “I was going to say you look nice.”

“No I don’t. I’m pregnant, swollen, tired and hangry. I’m a walking nightmare.”

Wes laughed. “Grey, I never thought I’d say this but I sorta hope baby Izzi takes after you. You’ve got one moody she-wolf on your hands.”

“Don’t I know it,” Grey mumbled.

Etti turned toward her handsome mate, Greyson West. “What was that?”

His steel grey eyes studied her timidly. Grey scratched the back of his dark brown hair nervously. “Nothing, babe.”

Etti sighed. She didn’t mean to be so snappy, but she was no longer in control—hormones had hijacked her brain.

“Why don’t you relax and put your feet up?” Grey suggested.

“I don’t want to put my feet up unless it’s time to push this baby out of me!”

“Not too much longer, babe,” Grey soothed, massaging Etti’s lower back in a way that made her groan out loud.

Etti was due in a week and had lost all sense of modesty at this point in her pregnancy. Her ankles were the size of her calves, she peed when she sneezed, nothing she owned fit and she refused to wear hideous maternity clothes. They were not befitting of a badass shifter that owned a tattoo parlor.

Etti was excited to be having a baby with her sexy mate, but she was having a hard time adjusting from her old life as a motorcycle riding chick who was used to doing things her own way.

Everyone at Etti’s baby shower had told her pregnancy was the hardest part and things would get easier after she had the baby. But Etti had doubts. The females giving her parenting advice didn’t have a pack of rogue shifters hunting their child.

Etti absently rubbed her belly like she did every time she worried about her daughter.

“Is she kicking?” Grey asked, moving to put a hand on Etti’s belly.

He accidently brushed the underside of her swollen breast, which was easy to do these days since they were so large they looked like they belonged in Hustler. She hissed at the pain Grey’s innocent touch shot through her, pulling away from him.

“Sorry,” he murmured looking dejected.

She reached for his hand and squeezed, hoping to make him understand she didn’t mean to be such a bitch, she just had no idea how much pregnancy would change her body. It was like every cell was working against her. Etti never imagined her boobs could get so big or hurt so bad. And to make matters worse they were so sensitive she snapped at Grey every time he tried to come near her—something that made their honeymoon less than pleasant.

“How did things go?” Wes asked, his tone turning serious, which was very un-Wes-like.

“As expected,” Etti scathed.

“It was mostly dead ends, “ Grey added.

“Well, that’s because you need to talk to your parents like I told you,” Wes retorted, directing his I-told-you-so attitude at Etti.

She scowled. If she wasn’t so pregnant and tired she’d rip Wes a new one. Apparently turning into a shifter hadn’t altered his talent for picking on her like she was his little sister.

Grey seemed to catch Etti’s simmering anger. Shifters had a keen sense of smell, able to scent the moods of others, especially their mates. But Grey had been exceptionally good at reading Etti’s moods the past few days. Perhaps she was just getting worse at hiding them. Or maybe she was finally starting to learn what it was like to have a trusting and open relationship. The concept was new to her thanks to her horrible upbringing.

“Come on, babe,” Grey said, leading Etti toward the stairs to their apartment above her shop. “Why don’t we head up and get settled. It’s been a long day. We can fill Wes in when he’s done working.”

“Cali’s coming over when she’s done at the clinic,” Wes added. “I’ll have her pick up dinner for the four of us.”

“Five of us!” Marc called from his booth. The pale tattoo artist was the only human left at the Painted Wolf, but he didn’t seem to mind hanging out with a bunch of shifters. He’d been pretty good at holding his own too. He even stepped in to protect Etti when Derik, the hunt’s Alpha, showed up at her baby shower.

“There’s six of us,” Etti replied, patting her heavy belly.

“Got it. Dinner for six,” Wes said, flashing a bright smile before disappearing back into his tattoo booth.