Page 15 of Wrong Number, Right Grizzly (Dial M For Mates #7)

NIX

"We're not watching another documentary about otters, are we?” Ronan flopped onto the couch with a bag of popcorn. "I love you, and otters are the cutest things ever, but I know how much they eat and how their moms look after them.” He rolled his eyes as I flicked through the channels.

“Surprise. We’re not watching otters.”

He grabbed the remote, but I snatched it back. He made a face, but I wanted him to know more about wild grizzlies.

"Let me guess.” He shoved a mouthful of popcorn in his mouth. “Pigs? Monkeys? Cockroaches? Or is it an adorable sea creature that’s going to make me feel guilty about eating fish?"

“Nope.” I popped that P hard and paused, wanting my announcement to be as dramatic as possible. “Grizzlies.” I had one saved for my beast because he enjoyed watching his wild cousins and critiquing how they ate and lumbered about. “I thought you might enjoy it.”

Ronan munched his snack. “I suppose I might learn something, though there are great reviews for this series about a serial killer who?—”

"Nope." I clicked play before he could finish his sentence. "You got to pick last weekend. It's my turn."

"Fine, but I might not stay awake.” He side-eyed me and gave a huge dramatic yawn, but I wasn’t falling for it. “But tomorrow night, we’ll find out if the serial killer was ever caught. Otherwise, I’m going to revolt.”

I’d have to look it up online, and if it was still unsolved, it’d get a thumbs down from me.

The documentary opened with shots of the wilderness.

There were the usual forests, low clouds, and rivers that usually featured in documentaries about any types of bear.

My beast sat up and peered at the screen through my gaze.

He complained he didn’t have a snack but quickly shushed as a grizzly appeared in the rivers catching salmon.

The narrator’s soothing voiceover was interrupted by my mate saying the grizzlies had a better life that we did. “Salmon, berries, fresh water. What else could a guy want?”

“A mate, maybe.”

“I guess, but wait, I bet we’ll witness some spicy scenes before the hour is done.”

Ronan crunching popcorn formed a backdrop to the narrator talking about the habits of my wild kin.

“Is that the same one? That bear appears smaller than the other one.”

I shushed him and told him to listen and he’d find out. From behind the grizzly appeared two small cubs. They were so cute, but I always worried something would happen to them by the end of the program.

I judged the little ones were about six months old before the narrator filled us in. They played with one another before trying to copy their mom’s fishing techniques. They failed, but they would learn. They had to if they wanted to eat. But their little squeaks were adorable.

"Look at them. They want to be like their mom.”

“Okay, you’re right. They're pretty cute," Ronan admitted.

The mother led her cubs to berry bushes, but the cubs got distracted and wrestled with each other instead of paying attention to their mom.

“Just like the bond between a human parent and their child, the relationship between a mother bear and her cubs is unbreakable,” I told my mate, just prior to the narrator saying the same thing.

The mother bear nudged one of her babies away from a plant, and the narrator said it was poisonous. He added, "She’ll teach them everything they need to survive, including how to avoid predators."

“She’s such a good mom.” I nudged my mate, expecting him to make a joke about bears pooping in the woods. But he was silent and staring at the screen with wide eyes. Tears were trickling over his cheeks. Oh my gods, he was so fed up with my choice of program, he was crying.

“Ronan, I’m sorry. We can switch to your serial killer.” It was weird that bear cubs had him weeping but he lapped up every detail about true crime.

My mate wiped his face with the back of his hand. “No, it’s okay. I don’t understand why I’m crying, but the cubs are so little and their mom adores them.”

I swiveled to face the TV and gasped as one cub fell in the river and was swept downstream. Ronan screamed and stood, putting his face close to the screen. But the mama bear rescued the cub, gripping him in her jaws. The cub shook off the water and resumed the game with his sibling.

Ronan sobbed. “She saved him and he doesn’t care because he doesn’t understand what happened and how dangerous it was.”

Perhaps it was time for bed because my mate must be tired. He’d never gotten emotional over the otters. I hit pause. “We can finish this tomorrow. Or never.”

“I am exhausted, but those babies are so little and what if an animal attacks them?”

I brought him back to the couch, and he sobbed on my shoulder. Maybe it wasn’t exhaustion and he was coming down with the flu.

“I don’t understand what’s happening. Last week I cried at a diaper advertisement when the baby kicked their legs and gurgled at their dad.”

Though my grizzly was peeved I’d paused the documentary, he took an interest in what Ronan had said.

His scent is different. I didn’t pick up on it before.

Now that he mentioned it, my mate’s scent had been stronger lately. I thought perhaps after mating, the omega’s scent changed as the relationship progressed. Maybe we both smelled different as we grew closer and our scents wove together.

But he’d been crying about bear cubs and human babies. Oh wow. I should have grasped how significant that was. I asked him how long he’d been feeling tired or crying over baby-related videos.

“A few weeks.” He waved his hand. “It’s to do with work and us going back and forth. I’ll adjust and it’ll be fine.”

How did I put this to him? We were so new and we hadn’t discussed having a family other than, yes, we both wanted kids.

“Sometimes when omegas are overly tired and emotional, there’s another reason other than exhaustion or a new relationship.”

That got his attention, and I waited. I could almost see his thoughts churning through his head. His eyes lit up, and he grabbed my shoulders. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

I wasn’t a mind reader, but I hoped he didn’t think he had a terminal disease.

“Not sure, but you might be pregnant.”

“I couldn’t finish my coffee at work yesterday, and last week I almost threw up in a hardware store because of the smell of paint.”

Paint is gross , my grizzly agreed.

“Is it possible?” Ronan got up and paced the floor.

Did I have to explain biology to him?

Our mate is carrying a cub .

“Can we do a test?” my mate asked. “Will a shifter-human pregnancy show up as positive on one designed for humans?”

“Pretty sure they do.”

My mate had the front door open and was holding his keys and wallet, while I was still on the sofa. “What happened to that shifter speed you’re always talking about?”

Ronan drove, saying I was too slow. Yikes, he careened around corners and almost ran a red light until I told him the baby wouldn’t care if we found out in five minutes or fifteen.

“Our little one would prefer not to be involved in a car accident.”

“Gods, there are so many. Which one do we choose?”

We were in the pregnancy test pharmacy aisle and both of us were picking up and reading the instructions on the boxes. Each brand claimed they were the fastest and most accurate on the market.

“Okay, I’ll count to three and we each grab a different box.”

My mate nodded. “Let’s do this.”

When we reached the cashier, we were giggling at how we’d had to have three goes because we kept getting the same ones. And finally, Ronan picked up two different ones and stalked to the cashier.

“Do I watch you pee?” We were both in my bathroom and reading the long list of instructions we’d pulled from the boxes.

But Ronan said he’d do the deed in private and we’d be together, counting down the minutes. My beast didn’t understand the need for a test when he’d confirmed the pregnancy.

Our mate is human. He doesn’t rely on smells to give him life updates.

“These are the longest three minutes in the history of the world.” I was convinced someone had altered time and was pulling a big cosmic joke on us.

Ronan was calm and sat on the edge of the bath while I paced. He told me time wouldn’t go faster because I was begging it to.

When the timer dinged on my phone, we shared a glance. Our lives might be different going forward, no matter the test result.

“Ready?” he asked. “One, two, three.” He held up the test. Two clear pink lines.

“We’re pregnant.”