Markus didn’t really need to imagine what it would be like to live with Destiny because that was exactly what happened. When it became clear, after three nights of sex and tense relaxation, that they probably wouldn’t be able to return to their packs for a while yet, they entered phase two of the waiting period.

Continuing to spend nights at hotels would be much too expensive in the long run. No landlord would ever dare rent them an apartment for just a single month. Not only was that an absurd and potentially suspicious situation, it also would create more work for whoever they were renting from. Then there was the uncertainty surrounding this whole situation. They just didn’t know how much time they would need to take.

That left a third option, which was to rent a room at the local YMCA.

Up until Destiny mentioned this option, Markus hadn’t even known it was something that could be done. He hadn’t been in the YMCA since he was a young kid. It was almost like a rite of passage for youngsters. When you lived in a beach town, you were probably at the beach long before you were capable of remembering it. However, that was always in the close company of parents who wouldn’t let you get more than a couple feet away from them at a time.

That was what lessons at the YMCA were for. A couple weeks splashing around with other kids in a pool under the guidance of a young blonde instructor, and suddenly Markus had been given newfound freedom to just wander off across the beach. He had “learned how to swim” and so he didn’t need to have someone constantly watching him. Never mind that he had already known how to swim to some degree, and that he hadn’t actually learned much of anything during those lessons. And never mind that the ocean could be so unpredictable full-grown adults who were aquatic experts were known to drown on occasion. Clearly, he was more capable because he had splashed around in a warm swimming pool for a couple hours.

“You know,” he sad aloud to Destiny at one point, “the only real memories I have of this place is the locker room.”

Destiny glanced idly over at him, peering over the top of the newspaper that he was reading. “You were a pervert even back then, huh?”

Sexuality hadn’t really come into it at that point. He had had a vague understanding of sex, something that boys typically develop earlier on than girls, but he hadn’t quite equated attraction with admiring the lean bodies and sun-kissed skin of his peers.

Before he could say anything, Destiny put his newspaper down and reached over to ruffle his hair. “I’m only kidding.”

Most of Markus’ hair naturally fell back into place because it was curly and there was really no wrong way for it to be. However, the sparse tufts still growing in along the back of his head stuck straight up for the rest of the day and no amount of fighting it did anything.

The more time he spent at the community center, the more memories came filtering back. It seemed like all the instructors were young blonde women with the exact same voice and body shape, like they had been cloned specifically for this purpose. Now he recalled being confused by this at a young age, often ending up in a different group from the one he’d started with because he didn’t know who his instructor was. So, hell, maybe it was his fault he hadn’t learned everything and those other kids were all experts in comparison.

Who knew? If there was anything he had learned recently, it was that pretty much anything was possible.

So, time went on. They stayed at the YMCA, having struck an agreement with management to pay on a weekly basis every single Thursday. If they missed a payment, they would be booted out the next day. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.

Cain brought them some of their clothes and whatever else they needed from their homes. He was their double agent, often bringing information with him on these supply runs.

In the meantime, they swam. They exercised in the gyms together, challenging each other to rigged contests. Destiny would have them see who could lift the most weight, and then Markus would retaliate with a test of endurance using the treadmills. It was all in good fun, and many of the other gym-goers would get in on the games.

They had sex nightly, often two or three times per day. They experimented with chocolate syrup once, and were both sick as dogs the next day from ingesting way more sugar than either of them was accustomed to. The sex was interesting, though not any more fun than it already was.

That happened about three weeks after they first went into hiding. Really, those three weeks were the best days Markus had ever had in his entire life. It was just himself and the one he loved, no responsibilities and no worries. They didn’t need to put on a charade, didn’t have to maintain a façade because neither of them gave a fuck about what these strangers might have thought of them.

It was a perfect way to live.

Then it was three weeks and one day since they went into hiding. Markus woke up with sunlight filtering in through the window and nausea roiling bitterly in his stomach. When he opened his eyes, the world seemed to be rotating around him at a much faster rate than it should have.

Groaning, he shut his eyes again tightly. Destiny lay at his side, limp and relaxed in a dreamless sleep; Markus tried to focus on his mate to ground himself, to give himself a solid point in the spiraling world. Maybe if he held on tightly to this one thing, he could bring the spinning to a halt—like gripping the wheel hard on one of those teacup amusement park rides. The kind that kids were always throwing up on.

It didn’t work. Destiny just seemed to be rotating with everything else, just as much a part of the dizziness as everything else.

Markus rode out the sick feeling for another few minutes before giving up and heading to the bathroom. Even then, once he got there, he only sat on the edge of the tub and continued the battle. He set his hands down on either side of himself. The shock of cold from the porcelain surface actually helped more than trying to focus on anything in particular.

Shifters didn’t often get sick, and Markus was no exception. He had the combined immune system of human and wolf to help him along. In fact, he could remember his few bouts of childhood illness with even less clarity than he could recall his YMCA swimming lessons. All the same, he thought that this was different from the way that he used to feel whenever he did get the sniffles or anything. That had been a sort of low-grade nagging that sapped at his will to do anything. This was an active churning, an ongoing sourness in the pit of his stomach. It was more than his will taking a hit: it was his actual ability.

Is this what humans have to deal with all the time?

Markus slid across the edge of the tub, since the warmth of his body heat was starting to affect the coldness of the surface. He leaned his cheek on the wall, and that felt even better. Closing his eyes, he relaxed and let the wall hold him up.

This was no ordinary sickness. He was pretty sure of that. It even felt different from yesterday, when he and Destiny had been so miserable from all the chocolate syrup in their systems. He couldn’t really explain why it felt different, just that it did. It didn’t feel like there was anything in his body that needed to come out. Rather, his body was rebelling against itself for whatever reason.

If he was honest with himself, he had actually been feeling a little off for awhile now. A sort of weirdness in his body, a sense as if he was a little unwieldy. A bit ungraceful. Bumping into things. Tripping over his own feet. Nothing major. He had been tired lately, to the point where he almost lost one of the treadmill challenges to Destiny. All the regulars in the gym had been shocked; Destiny had pranced around the rest of the day like he won a marathon.

There was some sort of truth underneath all these facts, a conclusion that could be drawn very easily. Rather than face that, Markus just stayed leaning against the cool wall.

At some point, he must have dozed off because there was a knock at the bathroom door. He jerked away from the wall, startled, flashing back to living in the little house with Brock. A member of LF would open the door now immediately after having knocked, bringing some sort of issue to their leader to be solved.

The door didn’t open. He blinked, chasing away the mental image of his home. The stark, white walls of the bathroom flooded back in and he was able to orient himself.

“Markus?”

Markus removed his head from the wall. His cheek parted from the surface with a soft sucking sound, and he lifted a hand to rub at it, feeling the distinctive crustiness of dried drool. He must have been dozing pretty good.

“Yeah?” he managed to reply.

“You busy in there?”

“Just chilling.” He laughed at his own joke, dropping one hand down to stroke the lip of the tub again.

Destiny also laughed, though his chuckle had a confused quality to it. “Well, I need to come in. You mind?”

“Nope. Go ahead. I won’t look, if you’re shy.”

Destiny opened the door, peeking around inside before fully entering. “It’s nothing you haven’t seen before. You might even be about to discover a new fetish.”

Markus smiled, closing his eyes while Destiny brought out his cock and urinated into the toilet. “I don’t think so. I’m not feeling very adventurous after the chocolate syrup fiasco.”

“Good. Me neither.” Destiny finished, flushed, and went over to wash his hands.

Markus was very aware of the fact he was being watched by way of the mirror, Destiny’s reflected gaze peering back at him. The alpha finished washing his hands, turned around, and dropped down to crouch in front of him. His hands dangled between his knees as he peered up into Markus’ face with his mismatched eyes.

Just looking at those eyes made Markus feel a little better. “Hi,” he said.

“Hi to you, too,” Destiny said. He touched his lips gently to Markus’, then nuzzled their noses together. Strands of sleep-mussed hair fell across his eyes, which was a decidedly sexy look that had never failed to get Markus going. Even now, miserable as he was, a little tingle woke up inside him. “You don’t look very good.”

“We’ve only been mates for less than a month. You’re already getting tired of me?”

This time, Destiny didn’t laugh at the attempt at a joke. He narrowed his eyes, his features going rough with distaste. “Never. Don’t even kid around about something like that.” He softened a little, which Markus was almost sorry to see happen. He found that he liked it better these days when Destiny was dominant and arrogant, since those moments were being tempered by a willingness to listen. “I was so long without you. I’m never going to get tired. You belong to me.”

Markus thought of the bite mark on his neck, which announced to the shifting world that he had been claimed, as surely as if he wore a collar. It was a good thing to be owned, to have somewhere he knew he belonged. He also thought of the scratch marks he inflicted on his mate’s back. “You belong to me, too.”

“Damn right,” Destiny growled. “Now, let’s try this again. You don’t look very good.”

“I’m sure I don’t.” Markus gave a wan smile. Destiny had turned on the light in the bathroom when he came in, which was now reflecting off all the bright surfaces and practically digging into his eyes. His head started aching. “I feel pretty sick. Definitely no school for me today.”

He closed his eyes as Destiny reached for him, feeling his forehead with the back of his hand. “You don’t feel like you have a fever. Could it still be all the chocolate?”

“Probably,” Markus sighed. “Although you look fine.”

“Never been better. Maybe it’s because you’re smaller. Or you ate more. How much did you eat?”

“Hell if I know.” He was pretty sure that they would continue to find smears and dribbles of hardened chocolate for weeks to come. Or, at least, for as long as they stayed here. Then the new tenant after them would be the one to keep finding unpleasant surprises. “Way too much.”

“Well, you’re supposed to let it make you feel erotic. You aren’t supposed to just keep licking it off me and putting more on.” Destiny’s eyes twinkled with amusement. He stroked his hand around from Markus’ forehead, to his chin, and pulled their lips together for another kiss. His tongue flicked out, licking his lower lip.

Licking and licking, long past the point of sensuality.

Laughing, Markus pushed him away. “I get the point. Maybe you’re right. I did it wrong. And I’m not exactly sure I want to do it again to find out. Maybe you should just give me a day to lounge around in bed.”

Destiny nodded, then stood up. It was easy to forget how massive he was, how incredibly tall he was, until you were sitting down beside him and practically only coming up to his knees. He reached down, sliding his arms around Markus.

Markus relaxed against him, letting those capable arms do what they would. His cheek rested gently on Destiny’s chest while the alpha carried him over to the bed, where they did indeed spend the rest of the day lounging.

When they went to sleep that night, he found himself feeling a little uncertain. Most of his nausea seemed to have faded, the room having long since stopped doing that weird spinning thing whenever he moved, but the experience had left him feeling oddly drained. The small tingles that he received just by being around Destiny never advanced beyond the point of being small tingles, true arousal kept at bay.

This would be the first night together they hadn’t had sex.

What was Destiny going to think of him?

Worry gnawed at his spine like fangs, chasing him through the short minutes that it took for the alpha to finish getting ready for bed.

Destiny stood in the doorway of their bedroom, his body in silhouette. His breath was a low, rumbling growl. He seemed to be something else in the dark, something that hulked and stalked, like a fairytale monster.

Huff and puff and blow you, Markus thought, nonsensically. He hadn’t been able to make himself relax so that he could lie down, so he sat on the edge of the bed.

Approaching, Destiny leaned down so that they stared into each other’s eyes. Markus looked at his dark reflection, his pallid and thin face, his insignificant form. Worry continued to bite at him, this time from inside his stomach.

Destiny kissed him. There was passion behind the kiss, and there was also a quantity of patience and love that far outpaced the lustful edge. Markus relaxed into the kiss and let Destiny hold him as they drifted off to sleep together with their legs tangled up.

Before he fell asleep, he found himself realizing that he loved Destiny all the more for not forcing him. For taking care of him for the entire day. He resolved to be back to his old self tomorrow.

Hs body had other plans. The same thing happened again, nausea and dizziness and weariness that dampened his desires for anything. The symptoms faded away towards the later half of the day. Destiny took care of him with more of that extreme love, hovering in an annoying and endearing sort of way. They didn’t have sex again, and this time Markus found it harder to fall asleep. He kept worrying, kept doubting. He wasn’t being what Destiny needed him to be; so, he swore once more that he would be fine in the morning.

And the same thing happened yet again, even worse than before. He actually vomited this time, and it was his retching sounds that woke Destiny instead of the call of nature.

Markus hadn’t been eating much more than soup and Jell-O for the past couple of days, even though he strongly disliked most soups and had come to despise the sickly-sweet taste of the gelatin after what he now thought of as the Chocolate Syrup Incident. As a result of his liquidy diet, there wasn’t much for him to throw up except for bile. The taste of it made him wrinkle his nose, the back of his throat raw and stinging. His eyes stung, too.

Soft but heavy footsteps approached down the hallway, followed by a knock on the bathroom door. Destiny did not wait for permission to come, pushing the door open.

Markus felt a warm touch on his lower back, his mate rubbing his hand up and down.

“I don’t think we can kid ourselves about this much longer.”

Markus waited to see if he would heave again. When he didn’t, he turned his head a little and looked at Destiny. The alpha sat on the edge of the tub, one hand on his knee and the other on Markus’ back. His eyebrows had drawn together, his lips pressed together so hard that they had turned thin and white.

One thing that Markus had been noticing about his mate was that Destiny had become much less stoic. He emoted more, expressed himself in more certain terms that left no confusion as to his intentions. He gestured around more when speaking, let his feelings dictate the sound of his voice instead of restricting himself.

Right now, it was easy to tell that Destiny was feeling so many things all at once he didn’t quite know what to do.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Markus said. He knew he was lying. There was a suspicion lingering in the back of his mind that had been there since the beginning when he realized this illness felt like no other he’d ever experienced. He hadn’t wanted to face it, hadn’t wanted to admit it, or even think about it. Now it seemed like he could ignore it no longer.

He really wanted to ignore it.

He wanted this to be like his worries that Destiny would ask for sex when he wasn’t feeling it, completely unfounded. One more day was all he needed. Tomorrow, he would feel better. Hell, he could even completely beat this odd bug that he picked up somewhere by then.

And looking at Destiny, he knew that he couldn’t. He just didn’t want to be the first one to give voice to reality. He needed his alpha to do it for him, to provide for him the strength that he lacked for himself.

“Muffin, we’ve been having unprotected sex.”

He nodded. Unfortunately, hearing the words didn’t actually make it any easier. A lump formed in his throats, a blockage composed of fear rather than tears.

“We had unprotected sex back on the beach. And that was a while ago now.” Destiny lifted one of his hands and dropped it back down, an aimless gesture that seemed to halt halfway through because he didn’t know where it was going. “I think you might be pregnant.”

Markus whispered, “I think I am, too.” Trembles ran down his spine; wrapping his arms around himself, he leaned forward a little. He instantly felt a strong, gentle hand wrap around the back of his head. A thumb wandered, sliding beneath his hair to caress against a tense knot of muscle on his neck. “Dusty, what are we going to do?”

The thumb moved, pressing against a particularly painful place where tension and stress had gathered. Relief came, and Markus sighed. Then, the hand moved from his neck to his shoulder. Wrapping an arm around him, Destiny pulled him in close and pressed a kiss to the top of his head. He spoke with his lips still buried in Markus’ hair, letting him feel the motion of his mouth and the warmth of his breath.

“I’ll tell you what we’re going to do,” Destiny said.

Relaxing against him, Markus listened and let himself absorb the comfort that Destiny was giving to him.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that you’re pregnant, but we have to confirm it. We’ll get you a test, and you’re going to take it. When we know for sure, we’re going to get you to a doctor so they can tell us everything we need to do. I’m not an expert, but I think there’s going to be a lot.”

Dusty, admitting that he’s not an expert on something? That hardly ever happens.

Smiling a little at his own thoughts, Markus cuddled a little closer to his mate. He found that he wanted to feel warmth now instead of cold.

Although Destiny had almost certainly overheard his thoughts, he continued speaking as though he hadn’t. “And then, you and I are going to buy a house. Not some apartment. We’re going to get a house, we’re going to live together, and we’re going to have this baby. We’re going to raise it to be a fine member of society that wants nothing to do with motorcycles, and then we’re going to unleash them upon the world. Then you and I are going to sit back and laugh, and live out our golden years arguing and farting until we die in bed. The end.”

“That seems a little morbid.”

“Is it?” Destiny actually sounded surprised. His lips curved against the top of Markus’ head, moving into the shape of a sheepish smile. “I was actually looking forward to it. Do you not want to grow old with me?”

“Of course I do!” Markus wrapped his hands around Destiny’s shoulders, holding on tighter. “I want to be with you forever to make up for all the time that we missed out on.”

“Well, you would only need to be with me for about five years to do that.” Markus tightened his grip a little more, past the realm of need and into the territory of painful. Destiny winced. “Okay. I get the point. I won’t tease you anymore about that. Sorry, muffin. Really, tell me what’s on your mind.”

Markus didn’t even really know what was on his mind. There was just a sort of feeling deep inside him that was bothering him, an emotional variety of nausea. He let his cheek loll against Destiny’s chest, trying to grab hold of the words that kept slipping out of his grasp like he was trying to hold onto baby eels.

“It scares me, a little. That the rest of our lives are going to be defined by something that we didn’t even plan for. And we only just got back together, we’re already mates, and now there’s a baby inside me. Isn’t it all going too fast?”

“I think it’s always going to be like that,” Destiny replied. His voice was very quiet, very contemplative. “Don’t you remember going to sleep one night as a little kid and waking up already in high school? Then you blink and you’ve graduated. Another blink, and you’re suddenly the leader of an entire pack where everyone is depending on you and you have very little time to yourself.”

“I thought you were talking about me,” Markus said.

“That means you understand. Don’t you?”

He did. Each year that he was alive seemed to glide by faster than the previous one. Things felt so long when he was going through the day, but when he looked back he was always shocked to realize that a month had gone by, or a whole fucking year. Where was the time going? Would it only keep speeding up, faster and faster with every year until suddenly he was on his deathbed wondering where all the time had gone?

His trepidation suddenly took a hard turn into the realm of fear. He could hardly breathe. It felt like air was getting lodged in his lungs whenever he tried.

“That all just means that we need to take our time and slow down when everything is going too fast,” Destiny murmured. His hands swept soothingly up and down the length of Markus’ spine, easing tension away with each rub. “We might live to be 80, or even 100, or more. That’s a really long time. So much time. Anything could happen. We could do anything, be anything. Whatever you want, baby.”

Baby was the operative word, wasn’t it?

“We’ll still have the kid to think about.”

“Yeah, we’ll be parents. But we’ll love that little fucker, won’t we? It came from me and you. It can do anything with its life, too. We’ll be able to watch it become its own person, discovering itself. Won’t that be something, Markus? Don’t you want to do that with me?”

Markus hesitated, his thoughts whirling around inside his mind. He couldn’t catch onto them, couldn’t form a coherent sentence.

Slow down when everything is going too fast.

And that was what he did, pulling in a deep breath and letting it out again. He closed his eyes and pushed all his thoughts away, focusing only on what was going on around him. The coldness of the edge of the bathtub beneath his bare ass, the lines of the surface embedding themselves across his cheeks. His chest, rising and falling with his breath. Destiny’s body doing the same. His heartbeat. Destiny’s heartbeat. Strong arms around him, fingers gliding over his skin. The scents of alpha, hand soap, and foamy toothpaste. The way the stubble on his chin felt when it rasped over Destiny’s broad shoulder.

How their thoughts touched, like fur brushing against fur.

His tiredness, the fading echoes of nausea. The dizziness, which still wavered around the edges of his vision. The sensation that he had ignored for much too long, that he was suddenly more than himself.

Gradually, he felt his thoughts start to slow down until they had finally come to a standstill.

Destiny was right. This pup growing inside him, no more than a miniscule blob of cells at the moment, was created from their love. It would emerge out into the world, small and blurry-eyed and oh-so-new. A blank slate. A universe’s worth of potential. As it grew, it would not only discover itself as a human but also as a wolf. Alpha, omega, or beta, finding its own place, discovering what it could do. The ABCs, counting to ten, building skills on top of those, and honing the ones that mattered most to it. Growing, learning, developing, someday to have a family of its own that it would watch do the same things that it had.

Markus let out a soft sigh, then nodded against Destiny’s chest. “Okay.”

“Okay what?”

“Let’s have this little fucker.”

Destiny laughed and kissed him, then took him to bed where they made love so sweetly and slowly that the clock on the nightstand turned over from one hour to the next. Pleasure came in little waves, a sustained force that eventually rose to a crescendo.

Replete, Markus lay on top of Destiny’s chest and allowed himself to fall asleep to a play of gentle images of the family they would be in a few months.

The night was peaceful.

The morning was chaos.