Josh stared down at his stomach as he stood in front of the bathroom mirror, naked from head to toe. He stroked his abdomen over and over, hands endlessly switching places, observing the way the flesh just below his rib cage suddenly bulged outward. If he hadn’t known any better, he would have just assumed he was bloated from something he’d eaten and prepared himself for a night of passing gas and sideways glances from an amused Blake.

But he did know better.

A mother always knew. That was what he’d heard time and time again, that a mother became aware of her new role in life long before the changes in her could be detected. Of course, it was a little different for shapeshifters. Until last night, he’d assumed he was just packing on a little extra weight, not that it was literal baby weight. However, that illusion hadn’t been able to survive because at the moment Blake was claiming him, marking him, Josh felt something move inside him. It wasn’t a physical movement but rather an intangible curl of thought which rose up out of nowhere. Yet, it wasn’t even a thought. It was more of a feeling, more of a soft sense of satisfaction and belonging that came from a source which was neither of them.

He pretended to fall asleep and Blake followed his lead, snoring away contentedly. Then Josh went soul-searching.

Though humans always make such matters so much more complicated than they need to be, shapeshifters know for a fact that souls are real. Whether or not a soul is really a little voice that spoke up about morals whenever it wanted to, or if it is a more scientific concept composed of nerves and electrical impulses, that doesn’t matter. It exists. That was all. And Josh had found his soul often gave him an impression of sunlight, transparent and yet solid, warm and yet sometimes cold. He didn’t pay much attention to it, especially recently, but it was there, guiding him as a person.

And as he rummaged around in his soul in the same manner as he’d rummaged around in those clothes racks at the mall, he discovered he’d been aware of little signs here and there. On their own, they didn’t add up to much, but if he combined them they certainly painted a revealing picture.

The weight gain, which was a little more than it should have been, he thought.

He’d been peeing a little more often, not enough to be annoying but enough to feel like he was constantly drinking coffee and needing to let it out again. That was on days during which he hadn’t even had any caffeine at all. And now he wouldn’t be having caffeine for quite awhile, he supposed.

Sometimes for no reason at all, a little nausea overcame him. Not much, and he just put it down to a low-grade cold or something not agreeing with him.

And there were other signs, even smaller than those, which he’d picked up on over the years. His hair was growing just a bit faster. His skin was glowing a little. And then, in his nosing around, he felt that curl of contented thought again and discovered the source: another soul inside his.

He stared at it—as much as one could stare when they were looking inside themselves—and saw it was hardly anything at all yet, barely visible, undetectable to anyone but him.

He was pregnant.

And now, fondling his stomach only a few days after that realization, he thought he’d even gained a little more weight. Soon enough, even an alpha like Blake would realize something was amiss. Alpha wolves were dense, not stupid. A baby bump was a baby bump.

What am I going to do?

They were mates now but he had no idea if Blake wanted a pup. And it damn sure wasn’t a good time to go bringing a child into the world, when their own futures were still so uncertain. They should have waited. And he tried to get Blake to use protection but he never did, probably because a condom made things less fun.

“How fun will it be when you’re changing a diaper every hour?” he murmured, but so softly he wouldn’t have been overheard even if Blake was lingering right outside the bathroom door. He himself was madly in love with the contents of his little baby bump, but what would Blake think? He’d have to bring it up, and soon. Most shapeshifters had shorter, more intense pregnancies than human women. Their half-animal genetic structure meant that gestation could take anywhere from two months to six.

Thoughts swirled around Josh as he stood there in his bare feet on the cold bathroom tiles. The uncertain future opened up wide around him, offering unlimited possibilities, showing him a thousand glimpses of futures that might never be. He could imagine Blake holding their baby, which he hoped was a little girl so he could name her after his mother. He imagined searching for daycares and babysitters, and spending endless nights bent over homework too hard for even grown men. He could see their daughter going into high school on her first day, then stepping out in her gown on the very last. Would she love to bake? Would she have a sweet tooth and mess up the kitchen trying to make cupcakes on her own? She would need to learn to drive, to pick a college and a career, and she would someday have a mate of her own, and children, and grandchildren...

Josh reeled.

All he had to do was give birth and the future would be ripped out of his hands and follow its own course, it seemed.

But what about his own future, his own purpose as an individual?

I gave that up the moment I looked in the well.

Not for the first time, he thought that he finally understood all the warnings given to him by Quincy. In looking into the well, he had robbed himself of the power to wonder about himself only. The moment he saw Blake, he was tied to the alpha for the rest of their lives. Now their daughter would be mixed into that.

He heard a sound from elsewhere in the house but it seemed rather insignificant right now. They would make wonderful parents, the two of them. Dammit, they’d be great parents! No Robinson-type divorce for them. He would learn from the mistakes of his parents, and his own mistakes, and...

“Josh?”

He jumped as the sound came again, rapping sharply through his concentration this time. Blake was knocking on the bathroom door, sounding impatient.

“Sorry,” he called. He had no idea how long he’d just been standing in here but judging by the fact that his hair had been soaked after stepping out of the shower and now it wasn’t, he’d say it’d been awhile. “Do you need in here?”

“No. I’m ready to go. Are you? You’ve been in there awhile. You playing with yourself in there?” Blake said, teasingly.

Josh laughed and hoped it sounded natural, since he’d been working himself up a little emotionally. “I’m not even close.”

Blake swore. Anyone else would have thought the alpha sounded mad but Josh knew he was barely irritated, and that was most likely a result of his nervousness. They were both nervous about the meeting at the park. They would be together no matter what now, as no pack leader worth his weight in wisdom would dare split up a pairing when the two still wished to be together; however, a pack leader was also well within his right to kick anyone out as he saw fit. Josh loved his pack. He was a pack wolf. He didn’t want to have to change even that part of his future. In the coming months, the pack would be one of his most valuable supports.

“Hurry up, then,” Blake said. “I’m ready to go.”

He hurried through getting dressed, though taming his hair away from the wild mess it had dried into certainly took some doing. His shirt was green, which really accentuated the lightness in his eyes. He could only hope the material could hide the soft pudge of his stomach.

Blake was waiting for him by the front door, tapping one foot. He held the Mustang’s keys in one hand, jingling them. He was one giant fidget at the moment. “Finally! I thought I’d lost you.”

“You won’t ever lose me,” Josh murmured. He felt very warm inside as they kissed, their lips caressing the other’s. Words rose up inside him, words which held a very special meaning that he was a little afraid to just come out and say; sometimes things which were thought were more special than those said aloud. What if he said those three words and they just didn’t sound the same when vocalized properly? “Blake, I...”

“I love you, too,” Blake murmured. He wrapped Josh up in his arms. Josh blinked, surprised and happy tears blurring his vision, then hugged the alpha back as tight as he could. They swayed in the doorway together for all the world to see their love and not caring one bit. They were together. They were in love. That was all that mattered.

And Josh almost told him. He almost said we love you, and that was true, because he could feel the little pup spirit inside him knew exactly who her daddy was. Blake would have asked who we was and then the secret would be out there.

But all he said was, “So, are we going or not? For all the shit you gave me, you aren’t going anywhere fast,” and Blake pretended to punch him while letting him go first out the door. It just wasn’t the time for such an announcement. Maybe at the next meeting, after everyone had gotten a chance to meet Blake and see he wasn’t a bad guy at all.

They piled into the car and drove to the park together in companionable silence. Blake had developed a bit of an affinity for country music since they met—it was startlingly similar to metal, in that it often lamented on the stupidest things—and he bounced back and forth between two radio stations for the whole ride.

Portsmouth City Park sat alongside the waterfront, but the main bulk of the meeting never took place in those areas because they tended to be too crowded to really discuss wolf business without being overheard. Once, when he was just in his teens, Josh recalled that one entire meeting had been spied upon by two nerdy high schoolers. They had cameras and video footage and everything. The video had no sound but clearly showed wolf pups racing around underneath picnic tables, and a dominance fight between two alpha brothers who discovered they’d both been sleeping with the same woman.

The nerdy kids had only been discovered after a wayward pup chased them out of the thick-scented holly bushes and up into a tree. Their evidence was destroyed, and then a small group of the gathered wolves had dragged the kids off somewhere. Josh didn’t think they’d been killed, though the fear in their pimple-haloed eyes made it seem as if they might prefer it. More likely, they’d been threatened into silence, or else handed off to the police for being a nuisance.

There had been no meetings for a few months after that, and then they resumed here, in this quieter location along the treeline. A little creek cut past the trees, carving out a small patch of meadow where the only way to approach was from across a bridge over the water or through the trees. Humans were terrible at sneaking through undergrowth, and the pups loved to explore “the wilderness,” as they called it.

It was a beautiful day for a meeting, not too hot and a little breezy. Spring was ebbing slowly towards summer, so the clouds in the sky carried no real threat of rain.

“Where?”

“There.”

“Where, Josh?” Blake snapped.

Josh pointed a little more emphatically in the direction he’d already been gesturing for a few seconds now. Blake finally turned his head to look for it and the tense muscles in his neck creaked as he did. Wincing sympathetically, Josh reached out and placed his hand on the other man’s neck, rubbing in soothing circles. “It’s okay,” he murmured. “Just relax. They aren’t going to bite.”

The Mustang slowed a little, though the engine protested this as such cars weren’t made to go slow. “Are you sure about that? That looks like a pretty tight-knit group of people out there. They won’t welcome someone like me.”

Not very far down the secluded back road through the park stood a lonely pavilion, which looked as if it didn’t see much use. The roof hadn’t been cleared in a long time and there were thick patches of weed bursting up through the concrete foundation. Two long rows of picnic tables still clung to the cracked concrete, though many of their support bolts had come loose throughout the long years. And those tables were teeming with people. Children scampered through the grass, all the way to the tree line, only to be nudged back by the older teens watching them. Some were in human form but most were wolves.

Josh remembered being that young, feeling the wind in his fur and knowing the world was so much larger than he could ever understand. He hoped those pups could look back on these memories fondly someday.

“They’re no different from any other pack,” Josh said quietly. Blake continued to let the Mustang idle since there were no other cars pressing in behind them. No doubt the other wolves noticed that there was a car just sitting there around the bend, though. They were kind of hard to miss. “Some are going to hate you. Some are going to tolerate you. Others are going to try to steal you from me. Let’s not let that last part happen, okay?”

Blake flashed a grin, though it wobbled and didn’t stay. “We’ll see about that,” he growled and started driving again. There were a few other vehicles parked out on the grass, though not as many as there would have been if this was a gathering of humans. He easily found a spot and pulled into it, being sure to leave a respectable amount of distance between his door and the passenger-side door of the other vehicle. He wouldn’t have been so generous if this was any other situation, but Josh could tell he was trying, and trying hard.

He hoped and prayed it would be enough.

Blake turned off the engine and started to take off his seatbelt. His hands trembled a little as he did so, his true uncertainty showing where he couldn’t mask it as aggression. Josh stroked his cheek, then leaned in to kiss him. He didn’t much care if they were being watched right then. Let them watch. Let them see a couple of men that loved each other despite their obvious personality differences.

“Let’s go,” he whispered against Blake’s lips.

Blake said nothing. His eyes were very dark as he turned away to open his door. Climbing out, Josh proceeded to stretch to try and loosen up some of the stiffness which had been making his back ache for the past ten minutes. He didn’t normally have a problem with long car rides and this one hadn’t even been all that long. It must have been because of the baby, the way his body was adapting to account for its rapid growth.

“Let me get the pie,” he called, opening one of the slender rear doors. Blake didn’t respond again and Josh looked at him quizzically, eyebrows raised. The alpha was watching the pack gathering, who were all watching him with very intense expressions. Many of them were leaning in his direction. Josh could feel their emotions through his link to them, could taste their uncertainty, their curiosity. Thoughts slid between them like fish, silver racing streaks which were always just out of reach.

Who?

Who is that?

Why is that?

Josh?

He’s with Josh. Why?

Look! See the mark?

Oh my! Oh my!

Their fish-quick thoughts formed a school of inquiry, turning in on itself endlessly as they awaited answers to all their questions.

“It’s okay,” he whispered again to Blake, not sure if his mate could hear him. He retrieved the pie he’d baked last night for this occasion and though it felt cold still from being in the fridge overnight, it would quickly warm up to a delicious level when exposed to one of the warming plates that were lined up across part of one of the picnic tables. While bringing food wasn’t mandatory, many wolves had in the past. And though a wolf wasn’t above devouring barbeque chicken legs cold, they were even better warm. Slowly, a dish or two at a time, the gathering transformed into a pseudo picnic divided into three parts: interaction, food, and business.

Holding the pie firmly, he moved over to Blake’s side and nudged his ribs with one elbow. The alpha wolf grunted, shook his head, then started walking forward with the ungraceful shuffle of a man who has found himself living in a bad dream. Josh walked with him, smiling at his pack, picking out familiar faces. Ryan was watching him from the front of the pavilion. The Robinsons were in attendance, looking as sour as ever while their many offspring surrounded them. And was that little Suzie, all grown up? The last time he’d seen her, she was hardly more than a handful. Now she was walking and talking and yapping, just about the only person in attendance who didn’t seem to know something was amiss.

“Hi,” Josh said as they came to a stop at the edge of the pavilion. He kept his smile even though his stomach roiled with unease. “Please, don’t stop the party on our account.”

Ryan stood up as a wave of uneasy murmurs went through the gathered wolves. “Welcome, Josh,” he said. “It’s good to have you again. It’s been awhile, hasn’t it?” He spoke very pleasantly, very soothingly, trying to reassure those men and women under his care that nothing here was amiss. Unfortunately, they weren’t really buying it.

Who?

Who?

Who? Who? Who?

Josh’s mate?

So soon after...

The thoughts whipped by him but now instead of harmless little fish, the intangible words were razor-edged knives slashing at him as they whirred past. So soon after...after what? So soon after his parents’ death? Was he supposed to observe some sort of obligatory mourning period the length of which he hadn’t yet achieved? That was wrong. He should be allowed to live his life. So soon after nothing.

A flinch of surprise went through the pack as he thought the last part, only realizing at the last moment how loudly he’d broadcasted it. Then, quite suddenly, there was nothing. A door slammed in his face. The lights went out in the aquarium. The thoughts were gone, completely absent, hidden from him now by the majority which no longer trusted him.

The best thing to do is to ignore the peanut gallery and just have a regular conversation.

Blake shuffled uneasily from foot-to-foot at his side, struggling to keep from bristling. Though he wasn’t part of the pack mind, he was a wolf all the same and could pick up on the fact that they had just dropped a curtain down over their thoughts. That only served to make him warier.

Shifting to hold the pie with one hand, Josh put the other on Blake’s elbow and held onto it firmly. He had no hope of holding the alpha back if he wished to attack, but he thought he might at least create a little drag and slow him down. “It’s been too long, I agree,” he said, smiling at Ryan, then smiling at the rest of the wolves. He saw a few of the very young children also relaxing, which was comforting. All they knew was an adult smiling meant everything was going to be okay. Hopefully their trust would start to pervade the rest of the group.

“And I brought someone with me. I hope that’s okay.” Josh nodded at Blake. “This is my mate, Blake Sanderson.”

Impossibly, he felt a wave of relief pass through the gathered wolves. The curtain lifted in some places, now resembling an uneven fog.

Mate.

Sanderson?

Magnolia Haven Sanderson?

It hadn’t occurred to him that throwing Blake’s last name out there might be a good idea, mainly because he expected people to focus on the Blake part. However, their focus was redirected as they pondered on his lineage, since some of them had clearly heard of his parents.

“Blake, this is my pack.” Josh nodded to the gathered wolves. Their curiosity was overbearing, a physical entity hanging over their heads.

Blake opened his mouth and then shut it again. A cold spear of fear went through Josh as he realized his mate might have forgotten how to speak. That was surely only a result of shyness, but they might think he was on the way to becoming feral. It was a bit of a farfetched conclusion, though he reflected that it wasn’t all that farfetched after all considering what they’d just gone through.

Then, miraculously, a husky voice emerged from deep within a cage of muscle and bone. “I’m sure if you’re all as wonderful as Josh is, I’ll want to mate with all of you.”

Oh, fuck.

After the disastrous attempt at conversing with the Macy’s dressing room employee, Josh suggested they practice learning how to talk to other people without shouting at them. Blake agreed to the idea but somehow they just never found the time to get around to it. It would have been very useful right now.

The entire pack was silent. Heads turned as everyone looked at their neighbor and pondered the implications of what was just said. It was clearly a joke but Blake had said it in a voice that didn’t exactly imply a jest. Mothers were wondering if they should be offended that something like this had been said in front of their pups. Fathers mused over whether they should agree with their wives or not.

The look on Ryan’s face seemed to imply he thought the situation was downright hilarious. His eyes were crinkled up at the corners and the edges of his lips were quivering up and down as he fought a smile.

This moment of contemplation and decisions could have gone on for damn near an eternity if no one broke it. Josh pushed his feet against the ground and wished he could sink into it, never to be seen again. It would be worth it to escape this embarrassment.

Then, from nowhere, one wolf spoke up out of the entire group. From the higher pitch of his voice, he was an omega man. “Well, if he’s offering, I’ll take him up on it.”

Josh looked for the speaker and wasn’t able to locate him, though he did pick up on the direction it came from. There was a great deal more silence, followed by a short, sharp laugh. A woman spoke now. “Well, goddamn! Billy ain’t said a word practically his entire life and now he’s cracking jokes! What a day of surprises this is!”

This generated more laughter, of an easier variety. The pack might not be able to handle a joke from a complete stranger, but they could accept one from one of their own number. Some of the tension seemed to ease.

Josh looked at Ryan, who was smiling outright now. “So, are we allowed to stay?”

“If you’re on your best behavior, I think so.” Ryan looked over his shoulder and seemed to find the nodding of many heads as a good sign. “But no mating with anyone. There are children present.”

More laughter and now it seemed almost entirely normal. Josh smiled and looked over at Blake, who had a helplessly lost look on his face as if he couldn’t quite understand what had just happened. “Blake, go find us somewhere to sit. I have to put this pie with the rest of the food.”

“Sure,” Blake muttered and walked off on his own. Josh watched him for a moment. The people Blake passed shrank back slightly, still wary of him despite the fact that he had done no harm. Josh suspected it would be that way for quite awhile, as some wolves would come to the next meeting that hadn’t been here. News would travel but curiosity needed to be satisfied in person.

Just before he turned away, he noticed the other wolves leaned towards Blake as soon as they had passed him. Nostrils flared occasionally. They were checking him out, getting to know him, getting a feel for him.

I feel bad for letting him wander around on his own out there, but he’s a grown man. He can find a place to sit. Josh chuckled while walking down the line of warming stations, searching for an empty spot. All he has to do is act like he’s going to sit somewhere and they’ll jump out of the way to make room.

He started to set up the pie in an available spot when it happened. He felt eyes at his back, staring very intensely. He turned out, smiling, expecting to see one of the old ladies who always used to ask him about what he brought to add to the picnic. They had always done so ever since his hands became steady enough for him to carry the food over on his own; when he was young, he made up what he didn’t know, supplemented with random words that sounded intelligent. They always praised him, clearly stockpiling his peculiar phrasing for later use to embarrass him.

He wondered how many of those women were still alive and felt ashamed that he didn’t know. Two years was a very long time when you were old.

There was no one behind him. Not an old lady and not anyone else, either. There was the edge of the pavilion, the open stretch of grass, and then the thick line of trees. He was being watched, but who was be being watched by? And there was no mistaking that prickling at the back of his neck, the burn of heat from focused eyes. He wasn’t imagining it and wasn’t really prone to such flights of fantasy anyway, at least not when it came to things that others might find spooky. He didn’t feel distressed by horror movies, didn’t mind basements or crawlspaces, and had never seen an attic that he didn’t consider to be filled with wonderful antique treasures. So he wasn’t exactly the type of person who would imagine he was being watched from the trees.

But he was. By whom, that was a mystery and he didn’t like it a single damn bit.

“You seem a bit tense,” a voice said. Behind him was now the pavilion but he still tensed up even more when turning around to look at the old woman there who was smiling at him. He didn’t recognize her and didn’t recognize most of the other little old women wolves who moved to join her. There were five or six of them, all looking like the epitome of the doting grandmother who spent too much money on her grandkids, but he knew their other forms could still pack quite the powerful bite if necessary.

“I think I have a right to be,” he muttered nervously, fiddling with the pie. There really wasn’t anything else he could do here with it but he was reluctant to go. At least here he didn’t have to be stared at. The old ladies might gossip, but they often didn’t have the energy for outright reactions. The moment he stepped away from the food, he would have to try to navigate the fearsome battleground of skepticism and judgment. To say he wasn’t looking forward to that was an understatement.

“Oh, you certainly do,” one of the ladies said. She still had quite a bit of black scattered through her pale hair, though she looked to be at least 70. A rough 70, if he was being generous. The life of a wolf could age a person, just like living a double life could. Secrecy left its mark just as surely as tooth and claw could leave scars. “No one is saying you don’t. It’s just some people wonder what gives you the right to think you can leave and then come waltzing right back in? Dragging that...large stranger with you.”

“If I trust him, why can’t anyone else?”

Another lady shrugged both shoulders, then grimaced as they popped audibly. Her friend tutted at her for doing something so stupid. “Trust is earned, not given freely. You should know that. You’re smart enough.”

“I guess...”

“Maybe you should go to him before he says anything else that he’ll regret. Don’t you think he looks rather lonely?”

Blake had found a place to sit, all right. It was in the very back of one of the tables, a mile away from everyone else. He looked pathetic, like the kid no one really wants to invite to their party but has to do so anyway because their parent demands it.

“I guess I should,” he muttered.

“We’ll watch over your pie,” one of the ladies called as he walked away. “A very close watch.”

He tried to laugh, but it stuck in his throat.

Conversations died down as he made his way through the crowd, though they didn’t stop entirely this time. The pups seemed not to care at all anymore, racing by his feet and stepping on his toes.

Just before getting to Blake, he realized the sensation of being watched just now wasn’t the first time. He’d forgotten all about it because of how busy things were at the time but he now recalled being at the mall and walking through the rows of buildings, searching for Macy’s. The back of his neck had tingled then, as well. The hairs had stood up. He felt as if someone was staring lasers through him. But he put it down as nothing because they were in a very crowded place and there would of course be a person or two who stared at the gay couple.

But now that he remembered it, it no longer seemed so benign. Twice in such a short time, when he wasn’t normally given to feeling these kinds of things...was it a coincidence?

Disturbed, reflexively wrapping his arms around his stomach to prevent it from an oncoming threat, he crossed the last few feet to his mate and sat down beside him. With all the spare table space in front of them, it was almost like he was watching a movie scene play out: he was present but not involved.

“Hey,” he said, very softly, speaking to Blake.

Blake looked at him and then slid closer so that their knees touched. “Hey,” he said. “How you holding up? Tired of being the outsider yet?”

“As long as I’m your outsider, no way!” He smiled and then leaned against Blake’s side, cuddling up to him. “Isn’t it better to be out here instead of sitting at home all day?”

“No.”

Oh.

“What do you really expect us to get out of this?” Blake said, lowering his voice so it came out as a hiss. “Do you really think you’re going to get us some kind of acceptance? It doesn’t work like that.”

“Well, it’s never going to work like anything if we don’t get started at some point!” Josh stopped, trying to calm himself. These small, moody little outbursts were coming with more frequency as the days passed and his body created more pregnancy hormones. Blake seemed sometimes baffled by him now but he thought if the alpha knew the secret, everything would become much clearer for him. “We’re here. All we have to do is just be here. Everything else can come later and you know it. It doesn’t happen all at once.”

“So why don’t you get out there and start making this happen?” Blake growled.

“Because I know you’d hate it if some scrawny omega runt wandered up to you when you weren’t feeling so sure about them. And then imagine if they start telling you about how they met their mate, and how long they’ve been together, and how many children they want to have...”

It was clear Blake didn’t want to laugh, but he did anyway. “Fine. I get it.”

They sat in silence together, watching the others. The others didn’t like to be watched, which Josh thought was rather hypocritical of them, but there was a difference in that it was easier for them to resume their normal behavior because they had sheer numbers on their side. The pups continued to tussle while the adults spoke of adult things, like taxes and work.

Josh would have been right there with them, listening more than speaking because he was aware he still had a lot to learn about the world, but now he was delegated to the outside. That segregation went even further than having mated with someone no one in the pack knew. He didn’t work. Even back when he’d been selling food off the front lawn, that wasn’t really “working” in the eyes of the other wolves. To them, you had to leave the house, tolerate a daily commute, slave away under a boss with other people who you would normally never come into contact with, before returning home to spend the rest of the night in exhaustion before doing it all over again.

Clearly, a person who didn’t do all that wouldn’t know what it was like to actually work. Besides, he had his inheritance and the insurance money to keep him going for a very long time.

By this point, he was just as much of a stranger to them as Blake was.

Ryan was working the crowd, as he always did at these types of meetings. He greeted the other wolves slowly, immersing them all in a personal conversation, including everyone. He got down on his hands and knees to play with the pups, and he sat down right beside the sullen teenagers until they were forced to engage him in conversation; by the end of it, he would have them laughing. He made sure everyone had something to drink, and fetched bags of chips and packages of crackers for those who needed something to hold them over until the big meal.

He didn’t approach Josh and Blake. The one time he glanced at them, there was a challenge in his eyes. Integrate yourselves, it said. Prove it.

But Josh did nothing. He sat there beside his mate and figured that this meeting, and several ones after this, would be all about letting the others get used to them being there. As he told Blake, pushing it probably wouldn’t help.

He went back to watching the pups whenever he felt himself becoming too tense to tolerate it. They frolicked and leaped across the meadow, inventing games on the fly and abandoning them just as quick. Most of their barking was kept to a minimum, as they had been taught, but the ones who were too little to understand didn’t make much of a racket anyway. Their little yips were swallowed by the trees.

The children switched back and forth between their wolf and human forms so smoothly, with such perfect transitions that a person watching them would think it only natural that some people would be part animal. It was almost like a dance, an ode to being alive, to being free.

Blake noticed, of course.

“Something weird with the kids? You keep staring.”

“No,” Josh murmured. Most of the wolves were the standard gray-brown of their species, but he also spied a little girl with a lighter tone and figured she would grow up to be a silver beauty. One boy, clearly a developing alpha based on the way he seemed to run many of the games, was black as night. Whatever their colors, they were all beautiful. “What do you think?”

“Huh?”

“How many pups do you want?” he clarified.

“Oh.”

And that was all Blake said.

Josh’s heart sank and he had to stop himself from wrapping his arms around his stomach again, knowing sooner or later those little tics were going to get his secret discovered before he wanted it to be. He pushed away the doubts and forced cheer into his mind. “We’re going to have to know this when we get asked about it later on! So, how many?”

Blake hesitated, which wasn’t making Josh feel any better about the possible outcome of those conversation. “Do I have to tell them the truth, or just a number that will make them happy?”

He knows this isn’t about the others. He knows this is about us.

The silver pup shoved away the black one, which he let her do with a dopey grin on his youthful face. Young love, already blossoming. Maybe in ten years or so, they’d be dating steadily. Josh wished he’d had as good of a time as when he was younger, instead of having to deal with all the uncertainty that came with wanting a nontraditional relationship. While that wasn’t a huge issue for wolves, it was still a bit of an issue when parents got involved with alternative desires.

“I think honesty is the best policy in all situations. You don’t want them to come back later on and be able to say they caught you in a lie. That’s never good.”

Blake nodded, almost sagely. He scratched at his beard, then spoke to the concrete between his nice, new shoes—which were already scuffed. “I think zero.”

“Really?” Tears stung his eyes but he held them at bay through sheer will, relying on an emotional strength that he hadn’t known he possessed. “Why is that? I mean, there has to be an explanation or else people will think you’re weird, being mated and all with no pups.”

“Well, I didn’t mate a pup, now did I? I mated a full-grown man. There’s no reason that pups should be implied or expected! We aren’t just animals. We’re humans, too.”

“You wouldn’t change your mind?”

Blake rubbed the back of his neck. No one seemed to be paying any attention to their conversation, but he knew a few of them had to be, and that they would spread the news. The pack would start betting on how long it would take for them to split up. They might even come to look forward to seeing if the two would continue to show up at the monthly meeting together, like they were watching a soap opera.

“Is this really the best place to have this conversation?” Blake asked. “I’d rather not have it at all, if I’m honest. Since honesty is the best policy.”

The tears were going to fall, and Josh didn’t want to cry in front of all these people. He didn’t want this to be how their first pack meeting as mates went. He would have given anything right then to be able to go back in time knowing what he knew now, to make all new choices.

He stood up.

“Where are you going?” Blake stood too, looking very alarmed. His eyes were wide, showing a rim of white around the serious dark.

Could he speak without starting to cry? Right now, it seemed very impossible. He kept his face turned away from Blake, trying to hide, knowing it was a useless endeavor because Blake knew him. Really, it didn’t matter whether they were mated or not in this moment. It didn’t matter if their thoughts were connected or not. They hadn’t taken the time to know each other simply as people, as people did. And that was the problem right now, hurting him because he hadn’t realized this or that in Blake’s personality might point to him not wanting children.

Yet he still didn’t wear a condom. None of it made any sense, and he was angry and upset all at once, at everything, and the tears burned so hot that he could feel the liquid beginning to slowly spill from between his eyelashes. “Nothing’s wrong,” he said, and somehow his voice was rock-solid.

“I...that wasn’t what I asked? Josh.”

“I think I’m going to go for a walk.” He looked around. Across the bridge and down the road just seemed awkward, but neither did he just want to stroll along the waterside because that somehow struck him as being very juvenile, too perfectly dramatic. And what if someone wanted to join him? He wouldn’t be able to cry in peace. That left only the trees. Josh pointed past the pups. “I feel like pretending I’m in the forest for a little bit. Come get me when it’s time to eat.”

“Wait.” Blake grabbed at his shoulder. His touch should have been soothing, would have been soothing only an hour or so ago, but now it just seemed to burn. And the burn was not pleasant but instead painful, searing his heart and threatening to blacken it. Blake lowered his face so he was looking right into Josh’s eyes, trapping him. “Is there something you aren’t telling me? Something I should know?”

“I need to go for a walk.” Looking into the eyes of the man he loved made it harder to hold onto his last shred of control.

“I’ll go with you.”

“No!” he said. “No, I need you to stay here and then come get me when it’s time to eat, okay? I’ll be starved by then.”

“Sounds like you’re starving right now,” someone else said. Josh couldn’t see them, didn’t dare turn his head to try to locate them because he felt certain that would cause the tears to spill. “You look hangry. Hey, Ryan! Your interloper is hangry!”

Shut up!

Josh envisioned himself turning around and raking his claws across the face of the speaker, tearing at his mouth to silence him. The violence of it startled and abhorred him, confusing him as to how he could even think of such a thing. He really needed to get out of here!

Knowing Blake wouldn’t let go, he pulled away anyway. As he had expected, Blake’s grip tightened...but then it released, and he was allowed to stumble forward. His stumble became an unsteady walk, which turned into the confident stride of a wolf as he transformed. Shuddering, he receded into the animal and let it take charge until he could get far enough away to express himself without being overheard.

He loped across the grass, ears up, tail curled over his back, blades of new grass tearing beneath the motion of his sharp claws. Pups sprang apart from their tussling as he went by, their soft pelts prickling as if they sensed something disturbing coming from him.

Only once he finally disappeared behind the first layer of trees did he realize that his pregnancy was much more obvious as a wolf. His stomach was a swollen thing beneath curly cream fluff, and his sides were slightly distended. He looked like he had either packed on quite a bit of weight, was severely bloated...or pregnant.

Did the female wolves know? What about the other omega males who had been pregnant, as few as were present tonight? Did they know the meaning of his changes? Could they feel the second little soul moving within him or detect motherhood in his scent?

Did the alpha fathers know, having watched this same process before?

Did the pups know, having seen this behavior in their own mothers just before receiving a new brother or sister?

Shit, everyone knew. Of course they did. Except Blake, because the ones actually involved were the last to know what was going on.

Wolves couldn’t cry, but his vision blurred, obscuring the path ahead of him so he had to stop. Wandering around blind in a crowded place like this was a good way to get hurt.

Josh flopped down where he stood, since the ground beneath his feet was probably trustworthy enough. Here in the untamed undergrowth beneath the canopy of boughs overhead, the ground was nowhere near as soft as the meadow. Branches protruded above the soil, and the surface was littered with twigs and fallen nuts and dried leaves. Clumps of ferns, weeds, and bushes formed a maze around the tree trunks, hiding who-knew-what.

Misery swamped over him like a wave of sticky tar, clinging thickly to his fur and threatening to drag him down through the ground like he’d wanted earlier. He pressed his swollen belly to the earth and then shoved his snout into a patch of moss, eyes shut tight. Inside himself, he wept. On the outside, he looked like a wolf who was very bad at playing hide-and-seek.

The trees had gone silent when he entered, but now the ambient sounds of twittering birds and humming insects resumed, croaking and chirping and cawing to one another in their own searches for mates. Listening to the melding of cries, really focusing on it, seemed to help chase away the echoes of the other wolves’ thoughts until he was finally left with only his own.

Not like that’s any real comfort.

Something moved through a patch of ferns. He heard the individual leaves shaking as they brushed over each other, then rattling as they fell back into place as whatever disturbed them had proceeded onward. Pricking up his ears, he waited for more sounds. Whatever moved just then sounded larger than a mouse, or even a rabbit. A deer?

No other sound came, though. Disappointed without quite knowing why, he sat up and wriggled a little to try and dislodge bits of undergrowth from his pelt. When that didn’t help much, he twisted his head back around over his shoulder and started to lick away the remaining scraps of greenery. His tongue strayed closer to his flanks, and he slowed in his licking to feel the warm heat coming from within.

The scent of the forest was calming, almost suffocating in its intensity. Smells crisscrossed in every direction, blown this way and that by the wind until entire new trails were formed dozens of feet away from their source. If he really let his mind wander, he could almost imagine the forest was a living thing, breathing as he did, with a heartbeat all its own. And what was he but a parasite? A nuisance? He was something bothersome that didn’t quite belong but which had nevertheless integrated itself anyway, only to leave when he so desired.

From behind him came the heavy rustling again. And he felt it, the fur on the back of his neck standing up as the fierce burn of a stare registered. He was being watched. Being stalked.

He whirled around with his fangs bared, head low to protect his unborn child, but as he faced the stranger, another attack came from behind. He hit the forest floor hard, trying to twist as he fell to land on his side. Thorns stabbed through his fur, ripping his skin. Then, something dark and massive descended from the sky, and though he felt no pain for the moment, he was very aware of the impact. Then, the darkness spread and he was no more.