Page 3 of Alpha Talk (Hemlock Wolf Pack: Life in the Happily Ever After #7)

Cody

We knew most of our friends celebrated the news of pregnancy by practicing to get pregnant next time but we sat on the floor between the sofa and the coffee table with our pizza, sodas, chips, and chocolate bars planning for the future. I ate more than Micah did, which was rare. The last time I did that I was chest feeding the twins. He beamed at me as I chomped into a slice of pizza, taking half of it in a single bite.

“The doctor says I should be fine,” I said after I swallowed, more to remind myself than him. “I was last time after everything was said and done.”

“And the likelihood of it being twins again is slim,” Micah reminded me, pushing a lock of hair behind my ear.

“I know you’re going to hate it, but I’m cutting my hair before our pup is born. No one is playing chimpanzees in the trees with my hair,” I chuckled.

“I’ll miss your hair, but I’ll still have you,” he said and kissed my temple.

“And I don’t want to shut down Alpha Talk and Dark Soul yet,” I reminded him.

“I know. We keep life as normal as possible. We were both stuck inside too much last time around. We’ve already reinforced the porch swing to be a sort of bed if you have to lay up again.”

“You make me sound fat,” I laughed.

“No, I’m just paranoid something will happen to you and the baby. I said it back then and I’ll say it now, I wouldn’t survive in a world where you didn’t exist, Cody. I can live without a lot of things and without a lot of people, but you’re not one of them. You’re still my world.”

I set aside my pizza crust and kissed him. We still had a lot of details to plan out but we had time for a kiss or two. Besides, his wolf was still on edge from whatever Coil did to him. I held his face in my hands, toying with his five o’clock shadow with my thumbs.

“That goes both ways. So, if Coil gets to be too much let me know. I have decades of rage stored up and can rain down out on him,” I laughed.

“I think I sorted him out. It’s so strange that I had a Creon flashback today. That hasn’t happened in years. We’ve even had them all over for dinner. I mean, your best friend is shagging him.”

I laughed and playfully hit Micah on the shoulder. Silas wasn’t just shagging Creon. He was part of his and Kodiak’s thruple. Creon was also cursed when he kidnapped Micah. My mate was brave and noble and tried to save Creon and his intended victim only to lose his hand to Meadow Berry poison in the process. Somehow despite all that he still came back to me.

“I always will,” he whispered, picking up my thoughts over our mating link.

We stayed up late into the night rehashing our pup plans. I’d take things slow when I needed to and follow the healer’s orders. It would be Clyde of course. He was the one here who set Micah’s wolf off the least. It’d be a lie to say that we didn’t struggle with trusting others over the years. Sometimes it seemed like we were the only people in the world who we could really trust. We didn’t search ourselves on the internet or social media very often but every once in a while some photo montage of us would pop into our lives labeling us ‘couple goals.’

It always made us laugh. Maybe we were the sort of mates other shifters aspired to be but we didn’t set out to be that. Micah was already famous when we met but had purposely slunk away from the public as the years rolled by. I wouldn’t have minded if his fame dwindled. He’d just be more mine then but any time we went too far from home someone recognized him. While we were ‘couple goals’ sometimes Micah was labeled the playboy turned asshole of the Grim Howlers. He wouldn’t always stop for autographs or photos. He usually said no to interviews these days too unless it was about Alpha Talk or one of the charities he worked with.

That wasn’t to say that every few years he didn’t meet back up with Xander and Jonah to write and release a couple of songs. In the two years following the death of Lotus Cromwell-Moonscale the band released three albums because where else could any of us put that pain?

***

Despite all the conversing we did the night before, Micah wanted to change our plans the next day. We were meant to lead a joint group of alpha and omega mates at Alpha Talk but he wanted to see if Clyde could squeeze us in. I was sure that I was pregnant. I was more than positive because I ate enough bacon and eggs for three wolves while Micah laid out what he wanted the new plan to be.

“Nope. Nope. Nope,” I shook my head. “We’re not canceling that group. There’s no other time this week that fits for everyone who signed up for it.”

“I’ve already talked to Silas. He and Kodiak can lead it. Creon will even go.”

I sighed. Kodiak led plenty of Alpha Talk groups and I couldn’t totally toss out the idea without implying that Silas’s relationships weren’t as healthy as ours. If they couldn’t lead the group that meant I thought they weren’t as connected as we were.

“You know that’s sort of mean, right?” I arched a brow at him.

“I didn’t think of it that way. There’s him, Tim, Linus, and Ewan that you trust. Okay, Zoey, Lee, and Blake too but the others either aren’t here or aren’t trained to lead the groups. I know Silas is the person you trust the most besides me. I just…”

“I know,” I nodded. “I … It’s my hormones, I think. I trust you. I know you didn’t mean it like that. I just… Once we go to get the ultrasound this all becomes real.”

“You want it to be real, right?” Micah asked, turning our chairs to face each other. “You still want this, right? It’s not too late to change your mind. It’s not---”

“I do want our baby. This baby,” I pointed at my stomach and met his gaze. “I’m still afraid. I’m afraid that my nervous system is going to revolt again. I’m afraid that there is something wrong with me on the cellular level. Maybe I didn’t get enough to eat as a pup. Maybe I was just abused too much or something. Maybe I’m more hypervigilant than I think and that’s why my body has such a hard time doing what it’s supposed to do.”

“We can lead the group if you want,” Micah said.

“That’s all you have to say?” I asked, crossing my arms.

“There is nothing else I can say. If you want to do this, we’ll find a way to get through it. I’m not saying it’ll be easy. It might not be, mate,” he tapped my fingertips until I uncrossed my arms and he could hold both of my hands in his. We took a deep breath together as our fingers interlocked. Decades of practice had synced us up in some ways that would never come undone.

“It might be harder than last time. I don’t think it will be,” he continued. “I believe everything you said when we had this conversation that first time. You are healthier now. We know what to expect. You’re better fed now than you’ve ever been before. I like to think you feel safe too.”

“Alone with you is the only time I ever feel completely safe,” I whispered.

“I know. I know and I understand how that is,” Micah whispered. “Today I was sizing up Coil to see if I could win a fight with him if somehow my prosthetic stopped working. I get it.”

“I hate that you get it. Sometimes I think you caught my hypervigilance. I’m not downplaying what happened to you but…”

“So what if I did?” he shrugged. “What if that’s where it comes from? What if I’m that in tune with your emotions? On a logical level, we know how to keep ourselves safe and we know we have friends and family who have our backs.”

“They tore down the house when Creon kidnapped you. We couldn’t get the omegas to rebel for their own sakes, but they did it for you,” I whispered. “Kidnapping a Grim Howler was just too far into fascism for them.”

“I think it was more than that. I think so many of them were robbed of their chance to meet their true-mates that they couldn’t stand the idea of one of their own meeting his and then having them torn away at Brone’s whims. You can fight a lot of things. You can spin a lot of stories in your favor but true-mates are something that’s older than the oldest known atoms on Earthside. You can’t fight with that. You can’t spin splitting them up in a way that makes you look good.”

“I’m not jealous. I wasn’t even mad at them back then. I was just glad something was too much,” I sighed and Micah squeezed my hands. “I think a lot was too much. They figured the world couldn’t ignore me being kidnapped.”

I leaned back in the padded kitchen chair and let my eyes drift closed for a long moment. Micah grew up privileged in ways I couldn’t imagine. Even someone like me with Silas as my best friend who had as many perks as any omega could in those old, dark days couldn’t imagine it. Micah grew a lot over the years in understanding how those of us who lived under such tyranny viewed the world.

The whole first year after our girls were born, I hoarded large pallets of canned food and dried meats and fruits. I hoarded blankets, buying more than they could ever use. I hoarded everything I thought they might need some day in case those days came back. In case even money couldn’t fill our stomachs again.

“We can---”

“Let’s go to the healer,” I said before he finished his sentence. “I know we can lead the support group. Let Silas do it. It’ll be good for him and his empty den.” I manage a smile for Micah. I was too raw from memories of my first pregnancy to dive into anyone else’s trauma today. Under different circumstances, I wouldn’t even leave the house. I’d drag Micah into the bedroom and keep him there all day: romping or not.

“We could do that and go to the healer tomorrow,” Micah grinned at me. “I’m sure Clyde will squeeze us in whenever is good for us.”

“I know he will,” I nodded. “He’s a good guy.”

“Hell, I’ll call Barry and remind him of when he cut off my hand and say he needs to come out here,” Micah laughed.

“Don’t,” I whispered. “Xenos is pregnant again too. About to have his baby. Don’t do that to them. We live with it every day. Don’t drag them back into the past too. It’s ours.”

“Our curse and blessing,” Micah said, squeezing my hands again.

I moved onto his lap, straddling him. His chair was larger than average and custom made just for this reason. Almost every seat in the house was wide and sturdy enough to hold us in this fashion. My knees fit with extra room on either side of him without biting into the edges of the chair.

“We’re okay,” I whispered. “We’re safe.”

“And sound,” Micah whispered back and pressed his lips to mine. “We can do this. We’ve raised enough kids. A few months of the hard part and then we have our pup. Harder for you than me, I know,” he added the last part before I could say anything. “I’ll be here, though. Whenever you need to stop working, I’ll stop too. Or I’ll stop first and go to work with you.”

We sat there with our foreheads pressed together, blocking out the world for a long time. There was something about his scent that still smelled like home. Wherever he was, I wanted to be. We didn’t move until our hearts slowed down and synced up and whatever mechanism of the true-mate magic that allowed our nervous systems to co-regulate did its job.