Page 38

Kylie

Feeling my lycan beneath the surface at any given time of day had become my new favorite experience, second only to feeling my pup hiccuping inside my stomach.

A weight I had been carrying for over a year had been lifted, knowing I could feel my lycan as if she were an extension of me.

Charlotte and Nathaniel had encouraged me to shift into my furry form every day since I connected with her.

They wanted me to become comfortable with accessing her power to shift when I needed her.

It took some getting used to, but with practice, I could shift as quickly as others.

It was a relief.

Since that day, the pregnancy had gone smoother, with my connection to my lycan helping to alleviate the side effects.

It wasn’t as though they had disappeared completely.

There were still days when I couldn’t last an entire day without needing a long break.

It remained a hit or miss whether I could muster the energy to clean throughout the cabin.

No one had an answer as to why it wasn’t normal yet.

I should be able to function without assistance because my lycan was integrated into every part of me.

We should be one with each other, allowing me to use all of her abilities.

Her strength still wasn’t there one hundred percent of the time like it was for everyone else.

It sucked, but at least I had days when I could get through the whole day without collapsing or throwing up.

“When is your due date?” Nathaniel asked as I lay out on the couch.

It was a day when the energy was low, but at least I didn’t feel the need to hurl the entire contents of my stomach. I had been told to take it easy since we were nearing the end of the pregnancy.

“I don’t know. We never could get a grasp on when it would be.”

Sometimes, because of the power we carried, certain things didn’t work on us.

Lycans couldn’t rely on technology to tell us much about the pregnancy.

That made things especially frustrating for someone like me—someone who needed answers.

My anxiety about the pregnancy hadn’t gone away, and without a strong enough connection to my lycan to help prevent complications, I still couldn’t feel excited about the delivery.

Yet I didn’t know if I wanted this to end just yet, either.

Like most females, even though the pregnancy had been miserable—enough to make me wish I wasn’t pregnant at times—the thought of it coming to an end made me feel a bit sad. Soon, I wouldn’t feel the baby moving inside me anymore. Instead, I’d be holding them in my arms.

“When was your last fertile period?”

I bit my lip. So much had happened since then. I wasn’t sure when that was, given everything I went through to get to this point.

“I’m not sure. Shortly before I got here.”

It was difficult to bring up the memories of Maximus.

Any time I did, my chest would burn from the severed bond, and tears threatened to spill down my face.

It was easier to forget he ever existed, despite the fact that he was the father of my pup.

There were times I thought about traveling back to him so he would know he had a pup out there, but it hurt to even think about it.

How could I face the man who thought I wasn’t good enough to remain bonded with because I wasn’t as strong as other prospects?

Any time Maximus crossed my mind, I could picture his handsome face like the first time I met him.

The way his strong jaw clenched, his blue eyes glowing from knowing I had been locked in a cage, and his sandy-blond hair perfectly set on his head made me think it was a halo.

The few times he smiled big enough to create dimples in his cheeks still made me swoon.

Since I needed to know the last time I had been with Maximus, it brought up memories of being in his arms. How I wished for the way he made me feel safe.

It didn’t matter how the day had been; it was always better when he held me.

The way he would take his time committing every inch of my body to memory with his lips and touch made me wiggle on the couch.

Pain exploded in my chest at the thought of his face and the times I had spent with him.

I rubbed the spot with the palm of my hand, but then another ripple of pain started lower in my abdomen, wrapping around to my back.

I sucked air through my teeth as I winced from the pain until it subsided.

Charlotte looked at me with concern and came to my side.

“Are you okay, sweetie?” she asked as she put a hand over my stomach.

The baby wiggled inside me but didn’t kick like I thought they would. If I remembered correctly, the baby had been in position for the last two weeks. It really could be any day now that I would go into labor, but without knowing the due date, we didn’t have the date pinpointed.

Another ripple of pain rolled through me, staying low in my body and wrapping all the way into my back.

I looked up at Charlotte with widened eyes.

Was this labor? Lycans were just as unpredictable as humans when it came to childbirth.

It could take hours before I would be dilated enough to push, but it would still be a good idea to get to the clinic if I thought the baby would be coming soon.

There weren’t many pups born within the pack for me to know what it would look like.

“I had two really weird pains. They start in my lower stomach and then go into my back.”

Charlotte looked at Nathaniel, and he immediately sprang to his feet and ran to the bedroom.

There was a bag full of things for me and the baby that they insisted on having before we could get to the clinic.

I didn’t like this. When I reached out to my lycan, I could faintly feel her there.

Today wasn’t a day when it felt like she was connected to me strongly enough for me to make it through.

“Let’s go, Kylie. I think we need to get you to the clinic.”

This couldn’t be it, right? I couldn’t be going into labor right now. Had nine months really passed since I ran from the pack? That didn’t seem right. I could be wrong since I couldn’t recall if I had even gone into heat when I was with Max.

It is time, my lycan said to me weakly.

No, that can’t be right. I can’t be having the baby already.

Everything will be fine.

My lycan was doing her best to keep me calm, but my heart rate skyrocketed anyway. She didn’t sound strong enough to help me through this. If she wasn’t strong enough, anything could go wrong.

Charlotte tugged on my arm to help me off the couch, but I wanted to curl up on the couch and wish for this not to happen. Soon, Charlotte put her arms under both of mine and hoisted me to my feet.

I felt my legs become coated in something wet as the room spun. What was happening to me?

“Kylie! We need to go. The baby is coming! Nathaniel! We need to get her to the clinic right now.”

It was as if the world fell away as everything around me became a blur.

I wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but another wave of pain came.

This time, it was longer, and I screamed as I tried to breathe through my nose.

No one told me it would be like this. Was I bleeding, and was that what I felt on my leg?

Bergamot filled my nose as I felt the warmth of arms under my legs and back.

Soon enough, I was pressed against Nathaniel’s chest, and a burst of wind rushed over my skin.

It was icy, but it felt amazing against the heat burning through me from the inside out.

I couldn’t tell where we were or if I was even awake as my head rolled back.

The blue sky appeared to be moving in a circular motion as I stared upward.

Another wave of pain rolled through me, and I couldn’t hold back the scream as every muscle in my body tightened.

“It’s just contractions, Kylie! Breathe through them. It’s okay,” I heard Charlotte call out to me.

Contractions? Yeah, that sounded right. I was pregnant, and the baby was coming.

That’s what was happening right now. I could do this, right?

Absent-mindedly, I reached out for my lycan again, and I could feel the small amount of energy I had from her.

It did nothing to push away the pain, but my vision cleared a little just in time for Nathaniel to run through the clinic’s doors.

Everything happened so fast. There were people surrounding me, none of them smelling familiar and sending my lycan on edge.

A growl rose in my throat, but then bergamot and honeysuckle wrapped around me.

Charlotte and Nathaniel were here somewhere, so I knew I was safe.

They wouldn’t let anything bad happen to me.

“Do you know your name?” I heard someone ask. A bright light clicked on in my face, shining directly into my eyes.

My name? No, that wasn’t important right now. I needed to stay awake, though. That was important.

Yet I could see the dark tendrils of shadows creeping in at the sides of my vision.

They felt so comforting, taunting me to close my eyes and slip into them.

Sleep sounded amazing right now. Every part of my body felt heavy, like I wouldn’t be able to lift it even if I wanted to.

My eyelids felt heavier with every second that passed.

Something about drifting off to sleep felt so tantalizing that I almost gave in.

Until the pain hit me.

My eyes snapped open as I screamed through the pain again. It seemed like the only response I could muster because everything else felt like too much.

“Breathe through it, Kylie. You are doing great!”

Breathe. Right. I could do that. In through my nose, out through my mouth.

I could feel things poking me and movement happening all around me, but I couldn’t focus enough to know what they were doing.

Breathing was what I needed to concentrate on.

The needles I felt made me growl, and I could sense things moving inside me.

A coldness swept over me, and then I could hear beeping and activity surrounding me.

Where was I? No. That’s not important. Breathing was important. In through my nose, out through my mouth. Yeah. That’s what I should be doing.

Within a minute or so, my vision slowly cleared, and I could see I was in a small room. An IV was hooked up, and Charlotte and Nathaniel were on either side of me. There were others in the room, too, but they were hooking things up and looking at charts in their hands, not paying me any mind.

“Where am I?”

“The clinic,” Nathaniel told me. “The baby is coming, remember?”

I looked down at my swollen belly and smiled. “Yeah, that’s right.”

“Kylie, you don’t sound okay,” Charlotte said, glancing over at someone in the room.

Was I okay? I wasn’t sure. The pain wasn’t as bad as it was before. There was a button in my right hand, and I was tempted to push it. Nathaniel moved it away and gave me a soft smile.

“You don’t need that yet. You just had a dose.”

“Dose of what?” I asked, still unsure of what was even happening, as my mind felt like it was just swirling around.

It felt like I was floating on a raft in the middle of the water. My body still felt too heavy to move, but there was a calmness sweeping through me that made me not care about what was going on.

“Pain medication. The doctors said it would work since your lycan seems to be dormant right now. We don’t know what happened.”

Mentally, I reached for my lycan, and I could sense she was asleep. That wasn’t good. If I was having the baby, I needed her to be awake. What if things went wrong? I could die if she wasn’t strong enough to heal me.

“No, no meds. It’s making her go to sleep.”

“Shhh…” Charlotte tried to calm me, but how could I relax? “It’s okay. The doctor will help you through this. Nothing will happen.”

That was a lie. She couldn’t promise that.

Lycans needed their animal to help them through this.

They needed the strength and healing from them just to survive.

Lycan pups were not small. I might not have been around many pregnant females, but I had heard of pups being eight pounds or more at birth. With our healing, it didn’t matter.

But if my lycan was dormant, then I wouldn’t survive this.

Those thoughts made my breathing quicken, like I couldn’t catch my breath.

My chest felt constricted, and my vision became blurry once again.

This wasn’t going to end well. I couldn’t do this without my lycan.

When I reached out to her again, it felt like she wasn’t even there.

The medications must be suppressing her instead of calming her enough to help me through this.

This wasn’t good. I needed to get off these medications. They weren’t helping me; they were killing me.

“No! No! Get me off this!” I screamed wildly, trying to grab my IV to rip it out. Nathaniel held onto my hands and told me not to do that, but I refused to listen. This wasn’t helping me at all. “It’s making my lycan too tired! She’s asleep! I need to stop this to wake her up!”

Pain erupted inside me as I continued to disconnect myself while Nathaniel tried to bat my hands away.

My chest continued to constrict, making it hard to breathe.

The black dots in my vision urged me to stop, but I couldn’t.

If I stopped trying to remove this pain medication, it would cause more damage than not.

I didn’t want to die today. I wanted to live.

I wanted to hold my baby and see them grow up.

I will live.

But the more I tried to pull the IV out, the more I felt myself slipping into the darkness I was struggling so hard to avoid. If I let myself fall in there, I wouldn’t get back out. Even thinking that now, I could feel the truth in it. I didn’t want to succumb to that well of darkness.

I wanted to live.

Yet the darkness consumed me, swallowing me whole. My body felt too heavy to keep upright, and the softness of the bed and pillows pressed against my back. The world fell away. The only thing I could see was black. But the same thought repeated in my head.

I will live.