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My stomach gave a sudden growl, and I felt my cheeks heat as I chuckled when I heard Wolf do that familiar grunt of amusement.

“Is my little one growing big and strong inside my tiny human, telling us he’s hungry?”

“He?” I looked over my shoulder. “Could be a girl.” I turned to face him fully and pressed my cheek against his furry chest, just inhaling the wild scent of him.

“Girl. Boy. Makes no difference. Eventually, we’ll have a slew of them.”

I snorted. “Wishful thinking, buddy.” But secretly, that sounded like heaven.

I inhaled again. He always had the smell of night air clinging to him. With the temperatures dropping as fall approached, we were keeping more inside. But that sure as hell wasn’t a hardship. It allowed me to snuggle against him even more and let his warmth act like a natural heater.

He kept his palm on my belly, stroking the rounded mound. I was just about to doze off when I felt a fluttering in my abdomen. His expression told me he hadn't felt it.

When I glanced down the length of my body, I held my breath as I watched his paw move slow circles around my bump. And then I felt it again, this time harder.

A soft sound of surprise left me, and Wolf jerked back. I started laughing at the strange look on his face. He shifted back slightly so he could really look at my stomach.

“Did you feel it?” Although he didn’t have to answer for me to know that he did. His body language spoke volumes.

I reached out and gripped his wrist, bringing his paw back to my belly. His palm was just so large that it nearly encompassed the entire width. And as we both lay there in silence, waiting for it to happen again, I felt that love I had for Wolf growing even more.

I didn’t know when it happened, but it had definitely snuck up on me. It was this feeling that was now so embedded in me it would only grow. With time, it would get bigger and stronger. It would become impenetrable.

“Mine,” he rumbled out, and moved down the fur so that he could drag his tongue over my baby bump.

There was another nudge and then he was resting his cheek against me, murmuring soft words that I couldn’t hear, ones I knew were just for our little one.

As I lay on our pallet and ran my fingers over his head and around his ears, I knew there was no better happily ever after that I could get than with my big bad wolf.

The End.