“You’re late. I was worried!” I said as Max opened the door and came into our apartment. “Is everything okay? I was about to ring the clinic and…”

I saw the expression on his face and stopped. His eyebrows were furrowed, and his eyes had a glint of madness in them. I’d never seen him like that before.

He took a few steps towards me.

“Who the hell are you, Lewis?” he barked.

“You know who I…”

He slammed his fist down on the kitchen worktop.

“Don’t bullshit me!” he snapped. “I want to know, who are you?”

I felt my heart beating wildly in my chest, my mind racing to try and figure out what he knew and how.

“Just calm down…” I said, backing away from him. I felt the energy building up inside me, my wolf’s natural reaction when I felt threatened or backed into a corner. I needed the pills I’d been given, or I’d turn and rip Max apart.

“I can’t calm down,” he said, angrily. “Not until you tell me what you mean by your kind. Who are you? Who are you really?”

“Okay, listen. Just relax and I’ll explain. Just have a drink, sit down and…” I felt the wolf again and stopped mid speech. I had to stop the energy before it went too far.

He sat down, still tense, and glared at me.

“Begin,” he instructed. “I devoted everything to being with you, Lewis. I stayed in Grayson when the whole town wanted me out. Now I need answers.”

I closed my eyes and sighed. I knew this day would eventually come, but I didn’t ever imagine explaining things to him in this way. I’d always thought we’d be lying on the rooftop looking at the stars and sipping champagne cuddled up in a blanket.

I had it planned in my mind for so long, but being shouted into it made me panic.

“Um, well, I…”

“Just say it!” he demanded, his arms folded.

I looked at his face, heartbroken, as I knew that once I told him, that would be it for us and I didn’t want my last memory of us together to be filled with anger.

“Max, calm down, okay? I’ll explain, and I promise I’ll tell you everything, but you have to listen to me. What I’m about to say doesn’t change anything between us, okay?”

He glared at me.

“Okay?”

“Okay! Okay fine, I understand, but I have to hear it. No more lies and no bullshitting me, Lewis. There’s weird shit going on here, and I’m scared and afraid, but I need to hear it from you first.

I sat down on the arm of the lounge chair and took a deep breath, grateful that I felt the energy disappearing as his temper calmed.

“I’m not entirely human, Max,” I whispered, my voice wavering.

“You’re not what?”

“Human. I’m not one hundred percent like you. I’m…”

“What are you then?”

“I’m a…” I thought the words though before I said them, and it sounded ridiculous. “Do you promise that this conversation stays between us? It’s important.”

“You have my word, damnit. Now what are you? You’re not human?”

“I’m partly human, but the rest of me…. I’m… We’re… We’re all wolves, Max. The community is part wolf and we have been for centuries… longer than we even know.

He looked at me stunned, his mouth open with a blank expression on his handsome face.

“Say something,” I begged.

“Wolf Man?” he muttered under his breath. “I thought they were all extinct or a myth?”

“Believed to be extinct,” I pointed out. “If they knew where we were, they’d haul us in for testing. Pretending to be extinct is the only way we can survive.” I got up and walked towards him.

“No!” he snapped, holding his hand out to stop me. “You don’t get to lie to me and then walk into my arms. It doesn’t work like that!”

“Max, please?” I walked towards him despite his rejection and tried to pull him to me, but he fought me, and we battled like that for a few moments before he managed to push me away.

“Don’t do this!” I begged, giving him his space. “My everything depends on you, Max. I depend on you.”

“Then you should have thought about that before you kept the biggest part of you from me.”

“But does it matter that much?” I asked, out of options to fight him. “I need you to understand that telling you puts all of my family’s lives at risk. They’d be hunted and prodded and probed, and then their bodies would be dumped as though we don’t matter to anyone.”

“You’re wrong!” he pointed. “You matter to me. You always have!”

“Then don’t let this get between us. I couldn’t tell you, okay? Just believe me when I say that.”

“So, all those times… Was that you?”

“What do you mean?”

“The wolf. The one that was there when I was being attacked, and the one that pulled me from the fire. Was it you?”

“Max…”

“Answer me!” he shouted. “Now is the time to stop lying to me. I’m here for you, damnit. I need to know.”

I hung my head, ashamed.

“Yes. It was me. I made those guys run away, but I was only trying to protect you.”

“But you lied to me. Even the fire? You made out like you didn’t have a clue what happened, but you were there. You found me, and all this time… Fuck!” he gasped leaning onto the worktop holding his stomach.

“What?” I asked, rushing to his side and placing my arms around him. He shrugged me off.

“Maybe I should go back to the clinic!” he said making his way to a chair and sitting down.

I followed him, not sure what was happening.

“Are you ill?” I asked. “Is it the stomach problem?”

He wrapped his arms around his waist and took several deep breaths.

“What’s the doctor’s number? What did they say it was?”

Max closed his eyes for a minute and took another deep breath before opening them again. He looked up at me and shook his head.

“I’m pregnant, Lewis,” he said bluntly.

“You’re what?”

“I’m freaking’ pregnant. I’m having a baby. All the symptoms, the sickness, the stomach issues, it’s because I’m pregnant and…”

“And what, Max?” I asked, trying to keep my tone steady.

“And I’m eight months… which means the baby… It’s not yours…”

Fuck!

I stumbled backwards from him, allowing the words to sink in. Max was pregnant. My Max, and the baby wasn’t mine. All I’d thought about in the couple of months that he’d been back in my life was how one day I would have loved to create life with him. There was nothing I’d wanted more than to see him have my child, and the pang of jealousy I felt at the realization that someone else had got there first hit me hard.

“Not mine?” I repeated the words, disbelief still flooding through me, and then I thought back to the time we’d had sex and all the times after that. “I thought you were taking the hormone injections…”

“I was… am! I have been, but something obviously went wrong. I didn’t even have sex eight months ago, but this whole thing is messed up. The doctor has a theory and needs us to come back tomorrow for more tests. Look, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know any of this. I’ve been thinking of a way to tell you ever since the doctor said it. I just… I just don’t really understand how it could have happened. I only got sick recently and…”

“It’s okay.” I walked over to him and kissed the top of his head. “Honestly, it’s okay. I understand. At least we know what’s been causing the sickness, and I guess that’s all that matters right now.”

He nodded slowly, and I could tell he was just as crestfallen as I was. A baby was a good thing in most situations, but this one had taken us both by surprise.

I reached down and put a hand over his stomach and he leaned into me slightly.

“It’s going to be okay. I’ll bring this child up as if it was my own. I’m not going anywhere.”

Max kissed my arm.

“I’m sorry I came in mad at you, I just… I just feel so out of depth right now. So out of my comfort zone.”

“That’s why I’m here. I’ll never let anything happen to you. Whatever life has to throw at us now, we’ll get through it together. Why don’t you let me run you a bath for the stomach pain? All this stress won’t help you or the baby.”

He nodded his agreement.

“You’re right. I think once I meet with the doctor tomorrow and he does the tests on me, you, and the fetus, then I’ll probably get a better idea of what’s happening…”

“Tests?” I asked, stepping away from him. “Why’d they want to test me?”

He shrugged and shook his head.

“I don’t know, maybe they just want to make sure it’s not yours or… I have no idea, but you getting tested will help him uncover his theory.”

I zoned out of the rest of his sentence as my mind ran on overdrive, piecing every part of the puzzle together.

When Max had come to Grayson, he hadn’t been ill. There wasn’t a hint of sickness in him, and two months ago he would have been six and half months pregnant. We’d had sex and my hands had been all over his body. I would have felt it. I would have felt something.

I heard the sound of his voice calling my name, but I couldn’t focus on it. Two months. We’d been having sex for two months and that was sixty days. The women in our pack had a gestation of only sixty days. It was a wolf thing that we’d tried so hard to keep hidden in town. It was the sole reason why we had a private pregnancy clinic up in the mountains.

What if the Doctor had figured it out? What if he’d realized that something wasn’t right with the baby? What if getting me to come was a trap? Would they cart me off to a secret facility and make Max give birth to the baby in secure clinic room in the middle of nowhere?

The image of me and our baby being hooked up to machines prodded and examined by scientists and government officials stuck in my mind. They’d find the rest of my family, and God only knows what would happen to them.

“What are you doing?” he asked, slightly bewildered as I backed away and rummaged around on the sofa for my cell.

“I need to call someone in Grayson, I’m taking you back!”

He pulled himself up and glared at me.

“What the hell are you talking about? I’m not going back there!”

I went over to him and helped him back to the chair, crouching by his side.

“Listen,” I said, holding his face in my hands. “This baby? It’s special. I know it’s a shock and not what we were expecting, but this is the best news I’ve had in a long time, Max. I swear. It might be hard to get your head around, but this baby is mine. It’s part of me. It’s part wolf.”

“What?”

“My kind… We’re only pregnant for sixty days. That’s two months, and you’ve only been ill for that long. Think about it, and I bet the doctor knows that. He’s onto it and I can’t have him getting his grubby hands on our child when it’s born.”

“But he knows my case, he’s doing tests on me in the morning….”

“No!” I thought about the doctors in that fancy clinic discovering the baby’s DNA wasn’t quite normal and I panicked. Max would be all over the internet, and people would be looking for answers. I couldn’t let that happen. I couldn’t let the world discover that my kind, my community, wasn’t extinct after all.

He allowed me to kiss the side of his face and tilt his chin up to look at me.

“If you go there tomorrow, you’ll become an experiment. Do you really think they’ll deliver this baby and then let you walk out the door?”

I could see I’d stuck a chord as his eyebrows furrowed and he clutched his stomach.

“Okay. Fine. I don’t understand any of this shit,” he said, “but just do it. I’ll go to Grayson.”

“You will?”

He nodded.

“You’re right. This is actually happening, and this baby of ours… I have to protect it. We have to.”

I walked into the bedroom of the small flat we’d rented together.

“What are you doing?” he asked, following me.

“You’re in pain, Max, and the way I see it, the sooner we get back to Grayson, the better. I’m going to pack a few things and then we can get out of here as soon as possible.”

I pulled a half-packed suitcase out from under the bed. My thinking had been to keep a few clothes in there after we’d moved from the hotel just in case we had to leave in an emergency.

I emptied the top drawer into it. Packing had never been my forte.

Max sat down on the bed beside the case and rested a hand on mine.

“I’m fine now. The pain seems to have gone. It could have just been the shock of everything. Besides, do we really want to head back there blindly? Didn’t Evan message and say things were still pretty bad? Let’s just put the feelers out over there in Grayson first before we head out.”

“We don’t have time. What do you think those doctors would do if you don’t turn up tomorrow? They’ll be over here in a flash. Our baby is a hot commodity to them.”

“What about Faye?” he asked, watching for my reaction. He knew the topic was controversial, and we avoided it at all costs.

I stopped and sat down on the bed.

“What about her?”

“Didn’t she almost have me killed? You were set to marry her. Is she… Is she also a wolf?”

I nodded.

“Our marriage wasn’t what you’re thinking it would be. It wasn’t love or passion or anything like that. It was purely to keep our kind alive. Keep the bloodline going.”

“And how do you feel about that now?”

“Nothing. There are more than enough of us to keep the wolf line, and honestly, I hadn’t figured out how I was going to bond to someone I felt empty about.”

“Bond?”

“I have to claim my mate. Bite them. Seal them to me. Hell, the minute I knew about it, I wanted it to be you. I can’t even describe how much restraint I’ve had to use to keep from doing it.”

Max looked at me seriously and held his arm out.

“Do it. Bond to me. Bite me.”

I laughed, took his outstretched hand and kissed it.

“It doesn’t work like that. It’s deeper than that and it’s here.”

I used my finger to graze the back of his neck.

He shuddered under my touch.

“Will it hurt?”

I nodded.

“Do it,” he whispered again.

“If I do it, it’s forever. You’ll be mine, and I’ll be tied to you. I don’t know exactly how it works with a human, but I don’t want you to feel trapped with me. I want you to be sure you want this as much as I need it.”

He nodded.

“When I was here in New York without you,” he answered, “all I could do was think about you. I had this deep need and desire for you, and it never left. It never went away. I don’t ever want to be without you again… I want that. I want to be bonded to you for the rest of my life.”

I reached out and put my hand on his stomach.

“I’ll never leave you both. I’m here forever, Max.”

I pushed the suitcase backwards on the bed and pulled his pregnant ass towards me, kissing him hungrily.

The smell of him was intoxicating, and I growled with anticipation. There was nothing sexier to me than talking to my mate about bonding with him. The thought made me stiffen in my pants.

I pulled away as I felt the wolf stirring.

“What?” Max mumbled.

“When I get too excited, I can feel the animal come forward.”

“Let it. I want to see it.”

Oh hell. We looked at each other in silence for a moment.

The better part of me screamed to get up and walk away, put some distance between us and have a mental—or physical—cold shower, but I couldn’t. Not when he was looking at me like that.

Against my better judgment, I pushed him back down on the bed, my mouth finding his eagerly as I devoured him.

One of my hands ran down the length of his chest and grabbed at the zipper on his pants, struggling, but determined to undo it with one hand.

He half sat up, our lips still connected, and took hold of it himself before pushing the material along with his underpants down his legs.

I eased off him as he kicked them away, our kiss breaking momentarily, just enough for my eyes to catch his hard cock against the roundness of his belly.

I brought my lips down to his stomach, touching them against his smooth skin.

He inhaled sharply at the intimacy of my action, and I felt a strong connection to him and the baby already without being bonded.

“I love you,” I said looking up at him. “I love you, Max.”

He didn’t answer, and he didn’t have to. I knew he did. I knew how he felt, and his closed eyes, open mouth and furrowed brow told me everything I needed to know as I covered his cock with my mouth.

He groaned as I took all of him in, and I felt his hands grab at my hair, pulling me back. I deep throated him again, my pregnant Omega squirming and moaning as I brought him close to the edge.

I withdrew slightly, closing my lips around his throbbing shaft, tasting the saltiness from his head and sucking on it before I swirled my tongue around his tip.

His legs shook with pleasure, and his hips came up to meet my mouth.

“I want… you… inside me…” he said, teeth clenched, and his head pushed back deep into the duvet.

I pulled away, my mouth still desperate to be around his cock but even more so inside of him.

“You want me?” I said standing up and undressing.

He nodded quickly, pulling his shirt off over his head.

He watched me until I was naked, his eyes settling hungrily on my erection, and I saw him swallow hard as I climbed back onto the bed.

“Sure you feel up to this?” I asked. “I mean, with you being…”

“Yes!” he interrupted. “Yes. Yes!”

I didn’t need telling another time. I pulled his legs so he was lying down in front of me spread open, and he gasped as my lips found his rim and my tongue darted out to taste the wetness that was already there.

Damnit, wet Omegas were going to be my undoing.

He bucked his hips against my face, desperate to have my cock instead of my tongue, but I was enjoying the taste of him far too much.

“Please…” he groaned when I inserted a finger. I felt his muscles clench around it and his hands gripped the bed on either side.

I couldn’t deny that the thought of being inside him was driving me wild.

I sat up, my eyes clouded with lust to see my Omega spread out in front of me.

“Show me the goddamned wolf…” he breathed at me, and his words were the driving force for me seeing red, but not for anger. Red for passion.

I took hold of my cock and put it against his hole.

“You sure?” I growled, almost at the point of being unable to stop myself.

His shimmied his ass against my tip, teasing me whilst biting his lip.

“Show me it.”

I groaned at how excited his words were making me.

“Careful what you wish for. If I go that far, I might not be able to stop… I’ll want to bond to you and…”

“Fuck me!” he demanded.

I did as I was told and pushed my way in, the feral side of my being almost coming into play.

I held onto his hips as I pounded into him, powered by lust, desire, fire… everything. I picked up my pace. There was no slowing down now. His ass felt good on my dick, so good that I felt my knot swelling with every thrust until I couldn’t withdraw anymore.

I bucked my hips against him, still deep and still powerful.

He opened his eyes at the change in rhythm.

“What’s that?” he asked, looking between our bodies. His innocent question turned me on even more and sent a jolt through my body.

“My knot,” I grunted, still thrusting into him.

“Knot?” He threw his head back and groaned. “As in…? Fuck that’s hot!”

He locked his hips around my waist, and I felt his fingers press into the skin on my thighs as his shaft bounced and danced between us with every jerk.

The head of my cock poked and pressed into his ass sending us both closer to the edge. I felt his muscles tighten around me and I moaned gripping onto his hips as I felt him shudder beneath me.

“Oh God!” he cried, and he half sat up as beads of cum shot out from his member, onto his chest and stomach. The image was so damn hot that I nearly blew my load until I felt it. I felt the wolf, and I was torn between blind pleasure and pulling back. I tried to slow my pace, giving him measured thrusts as my mind raced.

Below me, Max ran an exasperated had up over my stomach.

“Everything… okay?” he asked, still breathless and riding the last threads of his orgasm.

I nodded shakily.

He collapsed back against the bed and used his hand to pump the last of the pleasure from his cock. I felt him shudder again and his ass clenched around my member and knot.

I gasped as it sent shockwaves through my body, erupting from my stomach.

It was the ignition, the catalyst to the fire that was burning deep within.

I felt the tension build up as I thrust into him, I couldn’t stop myself, I couldn’t stop the energy, and I came hard, crying out into the quiet room.

The growl erupted from deep within as my body trembled my orgasm against him.

I could see Max looking at me in awe as I filled him up and the overwhelming love that I had for him gripped me from the inside out.

Bond.

I closed my eyes, engulfed in the last of my intense pleasure, hoping that not seeing his beautiful face and the swell of his stomach would slow the wolf and the burning desire to bite him, but his voice brought me back from my dizzying heights.

“Lewis…”

I looked down at him, his head twisted to reveal a little glimpse of the back of his neck.

“Do it!” He hissed urgently. “Take me! I’m yours!”

The strength I had to fight back and resist hurting him dissolved with his demand, and I growled, feeling all the energy, power, love, lust, and desire I had for him erupt into a force I couldn’t control.

I bared my teeth, bent down, and sunk them into his skin. His body stiffened, and he gripped hold of me tightly, taking the pain in silence.

I pulled back, my eyes wild with panic and pleasure, and I clung to him, holding his body in mine. Even despite the knot, I felt myself overwhelmingly connected to him, and I suddenly realized what my kind meant when they said that finding your correct mate was monumental.

Nobody had done that in so long. No one had had the chance. Years of wolf shifters being wiped out had meant that we spent the rest of our lives mating due to convenience rather than the power love. I knew one of my cousins had found his true mate once, and we’d sat for hours while he told us how it felt. I’d longed for the feeling ever since, knowing that the only person who even came close to stirring something in me was the one man I’d had to watch leave town and never hear from again. Yet, now, here he was beneath me.

God, I loved him.

“How… How do you feel?” I asked, my voice hoarse and shaky.

“I…” His grip on me tightened, and I pressed my lips to his shoulder in a soft kiss.

I felt my throbbing knot inside him reduce slightly as my emotions turned to concern.

“Your neck?” I asked, lifting myself slightly to look at him.

He managed a hazy smile.

“It’s fine. I… I feel…”

I kissed his lips stopping his words mid-sentence.

“I think it’s bleeding a little. As soon as I can get up, I’ll get something to put on it and…”

He bucked his hips up playfully against me.

“So, about this knot of yours…”

I laughed and buried my head into my Omega’s shoulder.

“How the hell do you even know about that?”

He stretched and reached a hand back to press against his bite wound.

“An old friend had a dildo with one. Apparently, it’s a thing amongst gay men. Lucky my guy has a real one.”

I laughed again, nudging it inside him.

“I’m so glad you came back, Max,” I whispered, still propping myself up over him. “You have no idea how good it felt to see you walk in through that door.”

“I should have come back sooner,” he said, looking up at me. “I knew how I felt about you. I knew no one else compared, and I should have come back ages ago. It wasn’t your fault. I should have known you wouldn’t have ignored my letters.”

I shifted on top of him and used my free hand to rest against his stomach.

“I know this was big shock to you—me too—but it’s the best thing that could have ever happened. We’re going to bring this baby up to know nothing but love.”

“How can we protect a child that the government would do anything to get their hands on?”

I swallowed, looking at the seriousness in his eyes before I moved so that we were lying side by side with his leg draped over my hip, my knot still deeply connected to him.

I stroked the side of his face, and he sighed at my touch.

“There is a hell of a lot of things I’m not good at, but the one thing I’m sure of? I’ll never let anything happen to either of you. I promise.”

“I know.” He pouted his lips out towards me and I kissed them, running my hand over his hair and down along his back.

He closed his eyes, and I listened to his breathing shallow and deepen. Being content with him had been all I’d ever wanted, and now that we’d bonded for life, everything suddenly felt perfect and I knew I could face whatever the world had to throw at us.

We fell asleep, our bodies together, and I’d never felt such love and adoration in my life. My Omega and my child.

I woke up an hour later on my back, looking up at the ceiling of our small flat. It took me a moment to register why I’d woken up. The damn suitcase was pressed against my back.

I moved it further away and turned to Max who stirred peacefully. I almost didn’t want to wake him.

“How long have we been asleep?” he asked dozily, pushing himself up.

“Not long.”

I caught sight of the pinkish stain on the pillow and remembered the bite mark from our bond. Everything came back to me, and it sent a jolt of excitement and panic through my stomach.

The man… the human next to me was now my Mate and the most important thing was to get him back to Grayson before the clinic realized he was a no-show the next day.

I climbed over him as he watched me, intrigue across his handsome face.

“What happened to the knot?” he asked when I came back from the bathroom.

I pressed the wet flannel to the back of his neck and he winced slightly.

“Thankfully it went while we were asleep, and I must have slipped out of you. I’ve heard of men being attached for a hell of a long time. How does that feel?”

“Better,” he answered replacing my hand with his. “I can’t deny that the bite alongside the knot was the hottest thing that’s ever happened to me.”

“Do you feel… different in anyway?”

He thought for a moment.

“I feel attached to you. Like I’m desperate to be around you, connected to you. I don’t know. Why? How should I feel?”

I stood up, pulling the clothes back on that I’d discarded on the floor during our earlier liaison.

“My kind normally bond with others the same. I know how it’s supposed to be wolf to wolf. But wolf to human? I have no idea.”

Without responding, he watched me pull the suitcase towards me and continue to pack it.

We stayed in silence for a few minutes with the sun streaming through the window until he spoke again.

“I just need to know, you’re sure that the minute we walk into Grayson, the baby and I won’t be captured?”

I nodded.

“Honestly. Once we’re nearly there, I’ll get Samuel to meet us. We’ll hide out at Evan’s place until the baby decides to come, and my uncle can help with the birth. Trust me, by tomorrow evening, this flat will be a hub of activity. I want to get as far away from this place as possible. I’ll protect you both. I swear.”

He nodded, accepting my answer, and I knew it weighed heavily on his mind. We’d managed to get out with our lives, and it seemed ludicrous to go back.

“Lewis!”

I realized I’d been daydreaming at the pair of underwear I had in my hand, and I snapped my attention back to Max.

His eyes were wide, and he was hunched over the edge of the bed clutching his stomach.

I dropped the clothing and moved to his side in an instant.

“What’s wrong? What happened?”

“I… argh!”

I put my hand onto his back, panic gripping my insides.

“What the fuck do I do?” I asked. “Is the baby coming?”

He looked at me, his eyebrow furrowed in pain.

“Take me back to the clinic…” he said quickly. “They’ll know what to do…”

I stepped back from him. The clinic. If I took him there and they did further tests and delivered the baby, we’d never see it again, or worse, I’d never see either of them again. It wasn’t wildly out of the realm of possibility that they’d fake their deaths to get me out of the picture.

“We can’t,” I said crouching down beside him. “Do you trust me?”

He nodded quickly.

“Do what you have to do to save our baby.”

That was the yes I needed to pick up the phone on the bedside table and dial the only number I knew that could help him.

It rang and rang, and I got up, pacing the room impatiently. Come on, come on… Pick up.

I looked down at Max watching me, still bent in pain.

I heard the call connect and my heart stopped.

“Uncle, it’s me! It’s me! Can you hear me?”

“Lewis?”

“Yes! Yes, it’s me. I need your help! Get your team and a room or something…”

“Are you okay?” he asked, concerned. “What’s happened?”

“It’s not for me… It’s for Max…”

He paused, and a brief silence descended between us. I could tell from his hesitation that he knew the only reason I’d need to take Max back to Grayson.

“Bring him to me!” he declared firmly with authority, and then the line went dead.