Chapter 330

Olivia

For days on end, I had been waking up with this nauseous, flip-flopping feeling in my stomach.

It was like riding a roller coaster on an empty stomach, but without the thrill. I found myself rushing to the bathroom every morning for four days straight, thinking maybe I had been hexed by the witch after all.

But it wasn’t black stuff coming up anymore, and the amulet had been silent for days. It was all really weird.

“Girl, you’ve been hugging the toilet bowl more than your man lately,” Angela said, stirring her coffee as we sat in my kitchen. She was in her nurse’s scrubs, visiting on her lunch break.

The twins were blissfully napping in the next room, giving us a rare moment of quiet. Nathan was away at the Council building on Alpha duties, and had been mostly oblivious to my nausea spells because I had decided to keep it to myself for the time being, hoping that it would pass.

I laughed, trying to shake off my friend’s accurate but also unsettling observation. “Don’t even joke. Nathan’s got enough to worry about as it is.”

“Does he know?” Angela asked.

I blanched slightly. “He knows… Some of it,” I replied. “He knows about the first couple days, but he got so worried that I decided to keep it to myself. It’s really not too bad. Just a bug or something, maybe.”

Angela looked at me, her eyes narrowing in that way that made me feel like she was peering into my soul. “A bug, huh? Are you sure you’re not just pregnant again?”

I burst into laughter. “Pregnant? Are you kidding? I just finished nursing the twins. And trust me, I’ve been diligent about taking my birth control. There’s no way.”

Angela’s eyes locked onto mine, unflinching. “Well, have you two been… You know…”

Her voice trailed off, but I knew what she was referring to. I blushed and nodded. “Yes, of course we have. Aside from the dry spell when he was too mad at me. But we’ve ‘made up’, if you know what I mean.”

It was then that Angela leveled me with one of her signature, all-knowing gazes. “Olivia, nothing is bulletproof. Not in our world.”

I paused, her words sinking in. The idea was preposterous, and yet the way she said it made me question everything. “You really think I could be… pregnant? Now? In the middle of all this madness?”

She shrugged, taking a sip of her coffee. “I don’t know, I’m not a fortune teller. But the symptoms sound pretty familiar, don’t they? Maybe it’s not such a bad thing, either.”

“A bad thing? Angela, adding another kid to the mix would be a disaster.”

She set her coffee mug down, leaning in. “Or it could be a blessing. A fully biological child for you and Nathan. It could bring you two even closer. And besides, you’ve said yourself that you wouldn’t mind having another at some point.”

“Yeah,” I said, swallowing. “But it’s just not good timing.”

Angela shrugged. “When is it ever good timing?”

Her words swirled around my head, mingling with thoughts of baby bottles, sleepless nights, and yet another mouth to feed on top of everything else that was going on.

I knew that I wouldn’t mind; Elliot and Aurora were growing like wildflowers, getting bigger and bigger by the day. By the time I would make it through a whole second pregnancy, they’d practically be out of diapers. And at that point, I was certain that I would miss the early stages of infancy, and would love to have another.

But there was something else, too. A memory of what the witch had said about a ‘gift’. My hand instinctively touched the amulet around my neck. Could this be what she was talking about? I’d assumed she meant something more... sinister. But she had said that it would be joyous, too.

And yet, something about it made me uneasy. If this was somehow caused by the witch, it was just another way for her to get leverage over me. To control me. To control us.

“Are you okay?” Angela’s voice cut through my thoughts. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost or something.”

I forced a smile. “I’m fine. Just a lot to think about, you know?”

Angela stood up, grabbing her purse. “Well, you don’t have to decide anything now. But maybe take a test before you freak out too much. You’ve been through weirder stuff, Olivia. No matter what, you’ll handle it.”

“I guess you’re right,” I said, walking her to the door. “Thanks, Angela. You always know how to make my life even more complicated.”

She chuckled. “That’s what friends are for.”

After Angela left, I sat down, staring at the wall as if it held answers.

Was it even possible? Could I be pregnant? A knot tightened in my stomach, and it wasn’t from morning sickness this time. What would this mean for Nathan and me? For our family? For the ongoing battle with supernatural forces that seemed intent on tearing us apart?

A kid now would be complicated, sure. But Angela was also right; it could be a blessing. Another reason to fight, to stay alive, to beat whatever odds were stacked against us.

But before I got ahead of myself, I needed to know for sure. I decided that tomorrow, the first thing I’d do was get a pregnancy test.

…

I had an uneasy feeling as I walked into the pharmacy the next morning.

This was a huge deal; my life could drastically change depending on the results of a little plastic stick.

Taking a deep breath, I grabbed a box that promised quick and accurate results. Might as well rip off the band-aid, I thought as I walked to the cashier.

The cashier, a cheerful young woman, scanned the box and looked up at me with twinkling eyes. “Ooh, are the Alpha and the Luna expecting another cub?”

I found myself smiling, touched by her excitement. “Maybe. We’ll see.”

Her grin widened as she handed me the bag. “Well, I hope it’s good news. We can always use more blessings around here.”

If only she knew, I thought, stifling a wry chuckle over the fact that everyone here was blissfully ignorant to the truth.

I thanked her and left, thinking how things had changed. There was a time when we were barely accepted, when us our relationship were questioned and scrutinized. It was heartwarming to see how much had changed, how our community had embraced us, and how the simple possibility of another baby could bring such joy.

When I got home, the house was quiet; Nathan was still at work and the twins were with Clint for the afternoon.

I took a deep, shaky breath and headed to the bathroom. Opening the box, I followed the instructions carefully. After what felt like an eternity but was actually just a couple of minutes, I looked down at the stick.

Positive.

My heart pounded in my chest. This had to be a fluke, right? I hastily opened another test and took it. Positive again.

Feeling a mix of disbelief and a creeping sense of reality, I took two more tests. Both were positive. There it was, four tests screaming the same life-altering fact at me.

I was pregnant.

I was still staring at the tests lined up on the bathroom counter when the front door opened. Nathan’s voice echoed through the house as he called out, “Liv, you home?”

I swallowed hard, my mouth suddenly dry. “Come upstairs,” I managed to say, my voice barely above a whisper.

Footsteps thudded on the stairs, growing louder as he approached. Then Nathan appeared at the bathroom door, his eyes meeting mine. “Hey, you okay? You sounded—”

His words trailed off as his gaze shifted to the pregnancy tests on the counter. He looked back up at me, his eyes wide, almost mirroring my own feelings of shock, disbelief, and wonder.

“We’re having another baby?”