Juliet

I stopped dead and held my breath. I felt like I’d walked into some magical kingdom. The entryway opened to a great room that took up the entire first floor of the house. The ceilings were high and the house comfortably furnished with oversized everything—big brown couches and plaid chairs, massive dining room table, extra large coffee table fronting the ginormous stone fireplace. And a few things that screamed bachelor—newspapers and an empty coffee mug on the table, dishes in the sink, a few flannel shirts tossed over the back of one of the chairs.

I absorbed all those details as my eyes skimmed over the room. They weren’t what held my attention, though. What grabbed me was the floor to ceiling windows that made up the entire back half of the house.

The home had been built into the forest that surrounded it. From the front outside it looked like a boring old house. From inside, it was pure magic. The forest had continued to grow around the house what looked to be long after the house was built. On three sides the forest grew thick—green trees, lush plants, a carpet of pine needles.

Light barely penetrated the canopy of branches so I couldn’t see too deeply into the forest. But I could feel it. It was palpable, like my beating heart or the blood thrumming through my veins.

I stepped forward, one step and then another, until I touched the cool glass. That something deep inside of me stirred. I could sense her in a way I hadn’t sensed her before. She lifted her head and inhaled as if she could pull the lush forest right into her lungs.

I inhaled along with her. Disappointment welled when the glass barrier and the scents of the home—wood fire and bacon and a scent that belonged purely to Mason—kept me from pulling the forest into me.

“Juliet?”

I whipped around at the sound of my name, almost surprised to find I wasn’t alone. Mason stood a few feet away.

“You okay?”

I nodded and turned back to the glass, placing a palm against it, longing to brush my fingertips over the wispy fronds of plants and to feel the softness of the pine needles under my feet.

“I’m fine.” I kept my voice quiet. Anything louder felt disrespectful, like screaming in church. “I just didn’t expect this. It’s…beautiful.”

The word was inadequate, but it was the best I can do.

Mason moved until he stood beside me at the window. “Juliet, are you a shifter?”

His voice sounded perplexed, like he was trying to figure something out but couldn’t quite get the last piece of the puzzle to fit.

I turned my head to look at him. “I think so.”

His eyebrows pulled together. “You think so?”

I nodded and turned to stare out the window, wishing I could be out there, running through the forest. Or really, anywhere that wasn’t here, about to deliver some life-changing news to a man I barely knew.

I pulled in a shuddering breath and turned to face him. He stared down at me, concern and confusion clear in his expression.

“My doctor told me she thinks I could be changing. Or shifting. I’m not sure the right way to say it.” I shook my head. “Whatever the correct terminology is…I was born human, but in the last few months I’ve noticed changes. And they all seem to stem from when I met you.”

He held his hands out in front of him. “Beautiful, I swear, I have nothing to do with your changes.” He dropped his hands and stepped towards me, his face relaxing, leaving only the concern there. “It takes more than one night to change a human into a shifter. And it only happens between shifters and true mates. There are several steps involved.”

I bit down hard on my lower lip and held his stare.

“Well, unless a woman gets pregnant by her mate. That can bring on the shift faster.” He grinned like he was sharing a joke with me.

I just continued to stare, holding his eyes and not saying a word. His grin slowly disappeared as understanding dawned.

His gaze darted to my belly. “Are you…do you think you’re pregnant?”

I nodded slowly.

“But how did you…we used condoms. Are you sure?”

“I saw a doctor. I didn’t believe her at first either. Especially since I hadn’t been with anyone since the night you and I were together. Finding out five months later that I’m carrying your baby came as a shock to me, believe me.”

“Five months?” His eyes dipped to the curve of my stomach. The slightly rounded middle was just me, no baby bump to give proof to my words. I hadn’t started showing yet.

I could almost see the thoughts tumbling through his head, going round and round like clothes in the dryer. His gaze moved over the room, but I don’t think he saw anything.

Then his brown eyes shot to me with laser focus. “Delayed implantation. Is that what she thinks happened?”

I nodded. “That’s what she said. I swear, I haven’t been with anyone else. You were the only one since my last boyfriend. And she did an ultrasound that showed I was about two months along. Three now.” I shrugged and folded my hands protectively over my stomach. “I would have tried to contact you to let you know no matter what. But when she said my baby was most definitely a shifter and there was a good chance of me…transitioning, too…I didn’t know what to do. I don’t know any shifters in New Orleans. There’s not much information about shifter and human reproduction on the internet.” My voice trailed off and I hugged my arms around my middle, protecting my baby and myself before I stated in a voice so small I almost didn’t recognize it as my own, “I didn’t know what else to do.”

Most of the time I spoke, I kept my gaze in the vicinity of Mason’s neck. When I finished my explanation, I called on all my courage and finally managed to raise my eyes to meet his.

And the emotion in his dark eyes stole my breath. His look was so fierce and a molten amber color glowed around the edges. He reached out and gripped the back of a chair. Following the movement of his hand, I watched as his knuckles turned white and the upholstery bunched in his fist.

I returned my gaze to his face and waited for him to say something. Anything. A lump formed in my throat and I could feel the hot prickle of tears stinging behind my eyes. I clenched my jaw, determined not to let them fall, not to give away even one more hint of the vulnerability I felt right this moment.

“I have to get to my meeting.”

I blinked. Of all the things I expected to hear when I made my little announcement, that he had a meeting to attend was not high on my list. Hell, it didn’t even make my list, especially in the clipped monotone he delivered it in.

I searched his face, but in the moment I’d looked away, he’d managed to shove all signs of emotion behind a blank face. This was the face I remembered from the first night I met him. All tough, emotionless soldier.

That night I’d reveled in being able to bring out a smile or coax a chuckle from him. I could only imagine what he’d been through that left him so hard to reach.

It was obvious when he picked me up at the police station that he’d stopped hiding behind the blank-faced soldier. His easy smile and the way he’d moved right into me, his emotions plain to see, made it clear he’d at least started recovering from whatever he’d dealt with during his deployment.

And now it was me, my words, my news, that brought the blank-faced soldier back. A fist grabbed my stomach and squeezed. I swallowed hard and pulled in a shaking, shuddery breath.

“Do you want to drop me at a hotel on your way to your meeting? Maybe I should get out of your way while you, um…process all this. Believe me, I know it’s a lot to take in all at once.”

“No!”

I jumped in my spot, the fierceness of the single world startling me.

“I mean, I don’t want you to go,” he said, his voice quieter now. “I guess I do need a chance for the news to sink in.”

He paused and shook his head, lifting a hand to rake it through his unruly dark hair. He looked down at his feet for several long beats. I did my best to stand there quietly and let him try to absorb what I’d told him.

Finally, he raised his head and looked at me.

I gasped when I saw the amber tinting his dark eyes once more, making them glow in a way that I found both fearsome and fascinating. His smile returned. Not the wide, welcoming grin he’d given me when he first spotted me at the station. This one was small, just a twitch of the corners of his lips, more rueful than amused.

“It’s a lot to take in,” I offered softly.

He stepped closer to me, his eyes searching mine. “It is a lot to take in. I guess it was a lot harder for you to take in. Did you even know I was a shifter that night?”

I shook my head, staring into his eyes. “I don’t know if I’ve ever even met a shifter before you. I guess maybe I have, but down south, shifters don’t live as openly as it seems you do here.”

He nodded and closed a little more of the distance between us. “I can only imagine what you went through when you found out you were pregnant.”

A short laugh escaped me. “Yeah, that was an interesting day. But I’ve had a month to get used to the idea.”

I bit my lip and fought against making myself even more vulnerable to him by sharing the rest. But the gentle way he looked at me, coupled with the primal urge driving me from the inside, left me with no choice. “I have to admit, the thought of turning into a bear scares me out of my mind. I couldn’t find a whole lot of information about what was happening to me. Being pregnant is terrifying all by itself. Being pregnant with a little bear shifter and figuring out I was turning into one too, has been a lot to try to wrap my head around.”

I hugged my arms more tightly around myself and whispered something I hated to admit to anyone, “I’m scared, Mason.”

In an instant he closed the distance between us. He tugged my arms open and replaced them with his own, pulling me to him in a fierce hug. He rocked me gently in his arms and pressed his mouth to the top of my head. “It’s going to be okay. I promise. We’ll figure this out, and I’ll make sure you have no reason to be afraid.”

A warmth stole over me, starting as a tiny flicker in my belly and radiating out until my whole body was consumed by it. I melted into him, reveling in the way my soft curves fit so perfectly against the hard planes of his body. For one tiny moment I allowed myself to do the one thing I never allowed myself to do.

I placed all my trust and all my hopes right in the hands of Mason Hunter. And prayed he wouldn’t disappoint me the way every other person in my life, with the exception of Kendra, had done.