Parker had made me an appointment with the Marks’ family doctor, the same doctor who delivered Jason and Rudy’s baby, Liam. I was a little antsy, but Parker reassured me his family has seen this doctor their entire lives. He delivered all the Marks brothers, too.

I couldn’t help but be nervous. In our pack, childbirth and newborn babies were handled by the healer—a woman whose knowledge stretched back to generations of healers, all trained in the same way. Childbirth was natural, and our pack treated it as such. I didn’t know what they did here in the city. Hospitals and drugs?

I was fidgety. I was hardly able to sleep last night and now I was tired and cranky and pregnant and not really wanting to go see this family doctor. But it was what Parker wanted me to do to make sure the baby was okay. I asked him why he didn’t think I’d be able to tell if something was wrong with the baby but he just kissed me and said ‘please’ in his sexy voice and I gave in. I was such a sucker sometimes. So, now I was getting ready to go see a doctor I didn’t want to see.

“Would you like to eat before we go?” Parker asked, his head stuck inside the refrigerator.

“No, I’m fine. In fact, the thought of food makes me a little queasy right now.” I made a face and moved out of the kitchen.

“Oh, we definitely need to tell the doctor about that.” Parker moved over to me and rested his hand on my belly. I was obviously pregnant now, my stomach stretched and bulging. Rudy brought me some of his old maternity clothes and I’d started to wear them.

“It’s fine. Normal.” I pushed his hand away, ignoring the hurt look on his face. “Come on, let’s get this done.”

Parker didn’t say much on the way to the doctor. We took his car, riding silently along the city streets, the car guiding itself along quietly. I stared out one window and he out the other. When we finally arrived at the medical complex, I could feel the chasm opened between us. And it was all my fault.

“I’m sorry,” I said before we stepped out of the car. “I’m trying. It’s all so new.” The excuse sounded pitiful even to my ears, but it was the truth. It was new. All of it.

“Okay,” Parker said. “But next time, talk to me. Tell me how you’re feeling. Don’t push me away. We’re mated, right? Isn’t that what we’re here for, to support each other?”

“I know.” He was right. I was no longer just Shiloh, alone. After so many years living isolated from my pack while I was learning to be a seer, and then practicing as a seer, I was accustomed to independence of a sort. I had to learn to share with Parker.

Parker didn’t say anything else as he took my hand and led me inside. We took moving stairs that went up swiftly and finally we were in the office. An efficient lady behind a glass wall took our names, tapped on a computer, and hit a button that opened a door. A young man waited on the other side and led us down a cold, white hallway and into a colder, white room. There was a machine hulking in the corner, wires and tubes and plugs sticking out every which way. The young man gave me a crinkly plastic robe and told me to hop up onto the table when I was ready. Then he left.

I changed into the robe and climbed on top of the table. The smells of bleach and alcohol burned in my nose. Everything was chemical and metal and clinical in this room. There was nothing reassuring about any of it. Not even Parker, sitting beside me on a rolling metal stool and patting my leg. I took a deep breath, held it, tried to center myself.

It wasn’t working well.

Finally, there was a soft knock on the door and the doctor poked his head around.

“Morning, morning,” he said cheerfully. “Another Marks on the way, I see.” He flipped through a chart in his hand and then reached over to shake Parker’s hand. “We’ll take good care of you here. I’ve delivered every Marks baby for the past thirty years.”

At least he was experienced. I smiled wanly at him and waited for his instructions.

There was another knock on the door and the young man came back in. He said I was going to have an ultrasound and then my check-up. Parker looked excited at the prospect of an ultrasound.

I laid back and pulled my robe open when I was told. The technician, as Parker called him, squirted something cold and slimy onto my belly and then pressed some sort of nozzle against my stomach. I squirmed a little and he told me to hold still. It was a little uncomfortable and a lot intrusive, at least to me. Parker was excited, though, when the technician pointed at a black and white video screen and told us that this gray mass here was a leg and that gray blob there was our baby’s head. I just nodded and smiled and hoped it’d be over soon.

After the ultrasound, the doctor came back and checked me over. He pricked my finger and dropped a drip of my blood into a machine he was holding in his hand. Then he told me to get dressed and he’d be right back.

I felt strange, out of sorts, in this sterile medical environment. I would rather have been lying in the quilt-covered bed in our pack healer’s cabin. At least it would be warm there, not this blue cold that permeated the office we were in now. Even the doctor’s hands were cold.

Finally, I’d dressed, and the doctor came back inside.

“Everything looks wonderful. You’re very healthy, but just a little anemic. I’ve got some iron pills for you and some extra folic acid. Just add these to your daily pre-natal vitamins and you’ll be right as rain.” He smiled at us and handed Parker a bag that clacked with bottles of pills.

“Thanks, Doc,” Parker said, and shook the doctor’s hand vigorously. “We’ll be seeing you again soon, I’m sure.”

“Give us a call when it’s baby time,” the doctor said, and then he stepped out of the door, leaving us alone in the cold, white room.

We were on our way back to Parker’s apartment near the university. He was talking about how well the appointment went, how glad he was we finally got to see the baby.

“It was amazing,” Parker gushed, “seeing that little nose and those tiny toes. I can’t wait to show my mom the print from the ultrasound. Where is it? Do you want to look at it?”

“I already know what our baby looks like,” I said lightly.

“Do you now?” Parker looked at me from the corner of his eye but didn’t say anything more.

“Of course. Since I got pregnant, I’ve had visions of the child.”

“Do you know what we’re having?” His question caught me off guard. He wasn’t dismissing me out of hand, not pushing off any mention of my psychic abilities. Somehow, I still expected it, even from Parker. I knew he and his family mostly indulged what they considered my “quirk” but Parker seemed to be really accepting of my abilities now.

“I… don’t know. Not yet.”

“Well, let me know when you do.” He smiled and reached over to squeeze my hand.

* * *

Inside the apartment, I looked around and sighed. I was becoming more accustomed to Stell and living in the apartment, but I couldn’t help wishing for open spaces and a wide sky above me. I looked around for my shoes, intent on heading up to the roof garden.

“You going up to the roof?” Parker asked when he saw me slipping my shoes on my feet.

“Yes.”

“Mind if I join you?”

“Not at all.” I smiled at him. I’d love to have him join me in some nature worship.

We took the elevator up to the roof, the doors dinging open and depositing us onto the garden. I’d worked with the plants a bit up here, moved around the containers, and shoved my hands into the soil, trying to put some of my spirit into the trees and flowers. Now they bloomed. They were greener and more lush than when I first found them up here.

“Wow,” Parker breathed. “You’ve been busy up here. You’re amazing with plants. You’re just… amazing all together.” He pulled me to him and pressed a kiss onto my lips. “But you’re not happy here, are you? Not completely.”

Sighing, I stepped away from Parker and walked around the roof, touching the waxy leaves of a magnolia tree growing in a huge container. “I’m… not unhappy. But I don’t belong here, not really. And I don’t think you do, either.”

“Can you see yourself raising our child here? In my apartment? In in the city?”

“I don’t think I can, Parker.”

“You… aren’t going to leave, are you?”

Pain laced his voice and coursed through his heart. For us to be separated would be like losing a limb. It would be like ripping half of your heart out of your chest. I didn’t want to leave Parker. But I didn’t want to stay in the city either.

“I want to raise my baby surrounded by nature, with respect for the natural world,” I said. “Your parents wanted the same thing, right? Why else would they have moved you boys out to the edges of the city? Given you a place to run and to shift? To be more yourself? That’s all I want for my child.”

“Okay, I understand that. And you’re right. It was great growing up like that, running and hunting in the woods with my brothers. But I don’t want you to leave, okay? Not yet. We’ll figure this out. We can spend every weekend at my parents’ until we do, okay? And maybe… can you… look?”

“Are you asking what I think you’re asking?” I raised one eyebrow at him.

“Maybe. If you think I’m asking you to use your ability, to have a vision, show us what to do about this? Then yes, that’s what I’m asking.” He grinned at me, a little sheepish.

“That’s not how it works, but for you, I’ll try.”

I walked to the corner of the roof and cleared a space for myself in the middle of several fragrant, blooming bushes. I lowered myself carefully to the ground, cradling my belly as I sat. Parker smiled at me and backed away, leaving me room to meditate and let the visions come.

I let my eyes drift closed and breathed deep, pulling the scent of the flower blooms deep into my lungs. This high above Stell, the world was quiet. There was no sound of people, no hum of the electric trams. The quiet helped me slide deeper into myself.

I tried to call up the pictures, the ones that zipped across my closed eyelids like a slideshow when I was visioning. There was nothing but grey blankness. It was like fuzz on a video screen. I tried to still myself further but it was no use.

I opened my eyes and looked at Parker across the roof. He hurried over to hear what I’d seen, his face eager.

“I’m sorry, Parker. There was nothing. It doesn’t really work that way.” I gave him a regretful smile.

“No, it’s okay.” He reached down to help me off the ground. “I was just hoping you’d get something.”

I brushed at my pants as I stood, flicking off tiny leaves clinging to my legs. “You can’t force visions. When I first began to have them, I couldn’t control anything at all. They would hit me in the most inopportune places, like in the school bathroom or in the middle of a wedding. That’s when the seer took me for training.”

“Well, I won’t ask again. I just thought this time…” His voice trailed off.

“It will happen when it happens. And we will figure out how best to raise our child. Now, do you think you could feed a pregnant guy? I’m starving.”

Parker laughed, and I felt the relief pouring off him. I didn’t tell him that visions or no, one thing I did know was I wouldn’t raise my child in the city.