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Fen tilted his head. “Well, she’s a healer.”

“Of sorts.”

“John said that. What’s going on?” Fen paid way too close attention.

Oh, goddess help him, he was going to puke. “She’s a midwife, okay? Like a midwife.”

“Midwife.” Fen stopped.

Stared at him.

And just kept staring at him.

“Okay. Did you not want to do this? We don’t have to do this. You could just not do this. I’m sure that there’s a way not to do this. We can just go home and close the door and go to bed for the winter. Do wolves hibernate? I wouldn’t mind hibernating.”

Fen just kept staring. Okay, that was creepy.

Like seriously one hundred percent all the way fucking creepy. “Look, if you don’t want to have a baby… I mean, I don’t even know if I’m pregnant, but—and I didn’t even, I didn’t know that that was a thing for me. I’m—I didn’t know, and I have enough to deal with without you being mad. You’re not allowed to be mad at me.” He was going to throw this glass of water right at Fen and hit his mate right in his staring face, possibly break his nose.

Also, why did he still have a glass of water?

Fen tilted his head. “No wonder you can’t keep your wolf put together.”

“What? What did you just say to me?”

“I just meant?—”

“That wasn’t very nice.” He was trying really hard to learn how to do this. He had never done this before. No one had even told him that he was supposed to know how to do this. And now this person who had probably gotten him pregnant—well, Fen had definitely got him pregnant, assuming he was pregnant, which he might not even be pregnant, but it was totally Fen’s fault, along with this whole werewolf thing. He was pretty sure that was Fen’s fault too. “That really wasn’t very nice.”

“Rory.” Fen grabbed him, turning him to face him. “That’s not what I meant! I just said the first thing that popped into my head. I only mean that not only did you just start to shift, now you have all these hormones.”

“But you don’t look happy.” He wanted to shake Fen. Hard.

“Well, you look like you want to run.” Fen’s smile lit up the whole day. “You’re pregnant!”

“Maybe? John sure thinks so.”

“Love. I—Wow.” Fen howled, grabbing him and swinging him around, which made everyone stare at them.

Well, that was better than not happy, he guessed.

It’s okay then?

Oh, mate. More than. This is a miracle. We have a home. I contribute to the pack. There’s going to be a baby now. This is a miracle. More than I ever dared pray for.

I sure hope so.

With his luck, it was just some sort of weird psychic hiccup or something; he didn’t know. If he was honest, he didn’t know a lot about anything right now except that he wanted to just puke a lot and cry all the time.

They got to the healers’ building, and there was the midwife, standing there, smiling at him. “Thought you’d be coming by soon, dear one.”

“How did you know? What could I possibly have done? I swear I haven’t done anything weird or pregnant.”

“Be at ease, Rory. It’s my job to know. I promise you, it’s all right. It’s normal to be worried. You have your alpha here. He’ll protect you, care for you. All of us will care for you as you have cared for us for so long.”

He began to sob at her words, the mixture of worry and fear and joy so intertwined inside of him he couldn’t separate the strands.

Fen held him, vocalizing gently, the sounds soothing him down to his core. “All will be well, mate. All will be well.”