Sophia scraped the bottom of the cardboard pint container with her spoon, managing to find one last taste of hazelnut gelato.

It was the third carton she’d eaten since morning, and it was only early afternoon. Or was it the tenth carton? It wasn’t unusual for her to consume large quantities of calories when she was preparing for winter, but she usually tried to choose more healthy items. Her personal chef would prepare four-course gourmet meals several times a day until she couldn’t keep her eyes open another second, and a caring servant or family member would see to it she was flown home to Montana for at least a month of around-the-clock napping.

No four-course gourmet meals this time. She’d sent her chef home for the year, giving her a huge Christmas bonus—weeks early—so that she could wallow in private.

And wallow she was doing.

With a huge yawn, she threw the carton across her cavernous living room, aiming for the sink in the center island of the open floor plan kitchen. It struck the modern chandelier over the dining table, knocking several glass globes to the floor. The noise as they shattered was like raindrops on ice: plink, plink, plink.

She rolled onto her side and told herself to get up and clean the mess before she stepped on it and got hurt.

But although she imagined doing so, several times, she just couldn’t actually get off the sofa and do it.

This was more than hibernation fatigue. This was more than winter rest.

This was… depression?

Yes, but… Even that didn’t seem to quite explain the absolute, total exhaustion wracking her body. And the compulsion to eat gallons of sweetened, iced dairy products. She’d always liked ice cream, of course, but had never eaten so much of it. Vaguely she remembered women talking about eating large quantities of sweets after a breakup, but she’d never had a breakup, not anything that mattered.

Her empathy grew for those long-forgotten women and their (she hoped) long-forgotten boyfriends. Death would be more cheerful than this. Certainly more healthy.

Her phone, discarded on the glass coffee table beside her, rattled with an incoming call. In spite of her exhaustion, her heart began to pound.

Could it be… him?

She snatched it up and put it to her ear. “Hello?”

“Sophia, where are you?” Derry asked. “Lilah and Gavin thought you’d be here for their party.”

“Be where?” she snapped, heartbroken it was only her brother. “What party?”

“The ranch. Lilah and Gavin’s anniversary.” Derry’s tone grew concerned. “You really don’t remember?”

Was it already November? She yawned and let the phone drop a few inches, too tired to hold it to her ear. “I’ll make it up to them,” she said weakly. “Tell them, will you?”

“Are you sick? I’ll call Roger and be there as soon as—”

“No! No. I’m fine. It’s just the usual. Hibernating. Tired.”

“Then you should be here,” he said.

“I can’t be there.” Every memory of every moment she’d spent with Zach rushed through her mind. His bedroom. The woods. Her house. She would never be able to go back. “I’m resting here this year.”

“Give the phone to Betsy,” he said. “I’ll talk to her about making you that soup—”

“I sent her home.”

“When?”

“Last week? Before that? I don’t know. I paid for her tour of— I can’t remember, somewhere she wanted to go. Patagonia? Thailand? She seemed to know what she wanted. I gave her my credit card.”

Derry was quiet for a long moment. “I’m coming to Boston. You need help.”

She began to cry. “I’m fine. I’m just hungry and tired and hungry and tired and I want to”—she hiccuped, sobbing harder—“cry all the time.”

“Exactly,” Derry said. “You need help.”

“Don’t leave Gavin and Lilah. Stay for the party.”

“They barely know I’m here. Between each other and the babies, they’re lost in their own world.” He cleared his throat. “Speaking of babies…”

“How are they? They must be so cute.” For the first time in weeks, she felt the stirring of a faint enthusiasm for life. “I should spend more time with them.” But that would mean visiting the ranch and her memories, which she absolutely couldn’t do, so she began to cry again.

“They’re fine,” he said. “What I’m getting at is, how is… ah… your own Baby Fever?”

“Oh. That.” She flung an arm over her eyes, blocking the sunlight. “It passed. I got over it. Guess it wasn’t important. So much for undeniable shifter instincts, huh?”

He was quiet for so long she thought he’d hung up. With a sigh, she lifted her finger to end the call.

But he said, “Sophia. Jess and I will be there tonight.”

“No, I told you—”

“You aren’t drinking alcohol, are you? You usually go through bottles of wine in the weeks leading up to your rest.”

“Not a drop. I can’t stand the stuff. It’s the funniest thing. I never throw up, but lately I feel sick every morning.”

Derry snorted. “For a trained nurse, you’re kind of slow, you know that?”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ll let you think about it after I hang up,” he said. “See you soon, dearest.”

Before the phone went quiet, she sat up, spine straight, and gaped.

No. It couldn’t be.

It was over. Zach hadn’t heard the Beat. She’d left, and he’d let her go.

“A baby?”

Maybe… just maybe…

Cradling her stomach, she collapsed onto the sofa and stared at the broken chandelier until she drifted into a restless sleep.

* * *

Answering the doorbell in his underwear, smelling like a frat boy after a three-day party, wasn’t the best way to impress the new delivery guy from the Greek restaurant up the street, but Zach didn’t care. Much.

And a big, fat tip always made up for the rest.

For longer than was decent, he’d been holed up in his tiny little studio, a sinus infection and sore throat rendering him useless. No amount of binge-watching on Netflix made a difference.

Besides, all those superhero shows and movies he used to love? Now he couldn’t watch them without comparing their powers.

To his own.

The souvlaki and spanakopita took the edge off his hunger as he shoved old take-out containers off his desk and made room for new, propping his feet up on the corner of his bed, turning on the first episode of Jessica Jones. She had superstrength, but the villain had mind-control powers.

“Hmmm,” he said aloud, grabbing a sticky piece of baklava, “can I control minds?”

Laughing as he chewed through the first delicious bite of dessert, he found himself looking around at the squalor.

“Shit,” he said as the credits to the show began. “I can’t even control my garbage.” A thousand white puffs of used tissue littered every surface, the floor, the end of his bed, like water lilies on a tiny lake of dysfunction.

He was pathetic.

Sick. He was sick.

Of all the powers that damn shifter serum had given him, you would think that being impervious to everyday viruses would be one of them, but no. Ears clogged, nose dripping like a fire hose, sinuses pounding, Zach had spent the past week with a bad case of what his mother used to call the “mansick.”

What should he label this? Wolfsick?

He’d come home after shifting in front of Sam, prowling the streets of Boston and Cambridge for hours, finally finding some freedom along the banks of the Charles, terrifying joggers and barely getting a raised eyebrow from street people. Memory was a funny beast, giving him pictures and shadows to string together when he tried to recall his time as a wolf.

He had glimpses. That would have to be enough.

His doorbell rang, the quick, perfunctory sound of a package being delivered. Knowing if he left it too long there was a chance it would be nipped, Zach grudgingly threw on a T-shirt he found on the floor, shoved his feet into flip-flops, grabbed his keys, and slogged his way to the main door of his building.

Three packages with his name on them.

Ah, the joys of two-day free shipping.

Bored out of his mind, he’d found himself in a strangely delirious state lately, thinking about children. Babies, to be exact. He blamed the birth of Gavin and Lilah’s twins. Holding those babies felt like being given a ticket to admission into a whole new world.

Returning to his apartment, he set the packages down and located a knife to cut through the tape. Making quick work of it, he found himself five minutes later with his purchases lined up on his bed, the boxes flattened and ready for recycling.

A baby rattle in the shape of DNA.

A set of cloth stacking cubes that flattened to become the periodic table of the elements.

A baby snowsuit that looked like a little bear.

And a stuffed animal that was— Wait a minute.

A stuffed animal version of E. coli?

Frowning, he looked over the items, swearing he’d bought two of each for the twins, wondering where in hell the E. coli had come from. Meant to be a gift to the new parents, he’d one-clicked, thinking he would, well…

He wasn’t quite sure.

Zach didn’t think about children in general. They just weren’t part of his life. He had no kids of his own. No siblings. No cousins. When he saw them playing in parks or eating in restaurants, he thought of them like any other being. Part of the tapestry of life, they were small versions of humans who had personalities and ideas but who simply hadn’t had enough experience yet to be independent.

They just… were.

And now he couldn’t stop thinking about them.

“Where’d I put the packing slip?” he muttered, finding himself talking aloud more and more. His phone buzzed as he rifled through the boxes. He ignored it. Likely, Sam was trying to reach him again. Something about tests. He was hunkered down and had no desire to interact with anyone.

Except Sophia.

He stared at the bear snowsuit.

Where had that come from? He’d ordered little wolf suits.

And the E.coli? He picked up the small, oval, brown thing with little dangling pieces, chuckling to himself. A stuffed microbe was a great way to introduce his baby to the world of biology, but—

Hold on.

His baby?

Dropping the toy like a hot potato, he buried his fingers in his hair, staring hard at the items on his bed.

What was happening to him?

“I need to watch a show,” he said, quickly plopping down in his desk chair, grabbing another spanakopita. He wiggled the computer mouse, and the screen with the Jessica Jones credits suddenly changed, instead going to a landing page of suggested movies.

“What the…?”

Look Who’s Talking?

Boss Baby.

Baby Boom.

Knocked Up.

Breaking Dawn.

“Fuck that!” he growled, jumping to his feet, storming off into his tiny bathroom. The shower was a triangle, built into a corner, and by the time he was stripped naked and under the still-cold water, he was ready to punch something.

Himself.

The water warmed up, the steam making him cough. As he took in a deep breath, one of the first he’d had in days, he worked his way through his standard cleaning ritual. Hair first, body second, the soap like a lover’s touch, too frothy and lush to stop him from closing his eyes and letting himself remember Sophia’s lips, the sweet spot between her breasts, how her calves felt around his ribs, the way her pussy tasted against his tongue.

He groaned, shoving his face in the spray, letting sensation drive him to oblivion for a few blessed minutes.

Or seconds.

It wasn’t much time before images of Sophia filled him again, this time a montage behind his eyelids, one filled with her in moments of defiance, of strength, of power. He loved every inch of her when she stood up to her brothers, to him, to convention.

Shutting the water off with a flick of the wrist, he toweled off furiously, rushing into jeans, a cotton turtleneck and wool sweater, and socks and shoes. Being fully clothed, with freshly washed hair and skin that wasn’t covered in body odor was a change.

He sneezed.

Too bad showers couldn’t cure viruses.

Opening his front door, he patted himself down to make sure he had what he needed. Keys. Wallet. Phone. He was ready.

More than ready.

Wolfsick? Mansick? No.

He was lovesick.

And there was only one cure for that.

Time to go take his medicine.