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Legitimately stopped breathing, absolutely freezing in place.

I’d had my IUD taken out when I got to Wildwood. The clan had forced us to have them put in, and I’d hated knowing that. Taking it out felt like freeing myself, as silly as that was.

But I also hadn’t planned on having sex.

So I hadn’t started any other method of birth control.

…Which was now looking like a very bad call.

Very.

Bad.

Call.

I immediately called Tori, but she didn’t answer.

So I called Love.

“Hello?” Madd’s voice was gravelly when he answered for her.

“I need to talk to Love,” I squeaked.

There was a pause, and my friend answered. “Are you okay?”

“I don’t know.”

“Where are you? I’ll kill Bauther,” Love growled.

“No, it’s not—he didn’t—we had sex. It was good. Great. Incredible. But I’m home now, and I just realized we didn’t use protection. I got my IUD out, and we didn’t use condoms. I didn’t think about it.”

There was a moment of silence.

A long moment of silence.

“Shit,” Love finally said.

“I know.” I squeezed my eyes shut. “We’re not mates, Love. A baby would complicate things.”

“It takes some people a long time to get pregnant. You have to line it up right in your cycle to even make it a possibility, don’t you?” Love asked.

Madd’s voice was muffled, but I heard him clear enough when he said, “Fated shifter couples are extremely fertile. The women joke about their fertility making up for how few of them there are. If a female shifter has unprotected sex with her mate, it’s safe to assume there will be a baby.”

My shoulders relaxed, and a relieved breath escaped me. “We’re not mates, so I should be fine, right?”

Love was silent.

Madd was too.

“Hello?”

“Sienna,” Love said, her voice tentative. “I need you to go to your blood stash and look for a bag of Bauther’s. I’m sure he donated when we first moved here.”

“Why do I need to do that?” There was fear in my voice.

I knew why.

I did.