Chapter 43

Rachel POV

Bella & Rachel's Apartment

Bruises ringed my upper arms. I touched them gently with my fingertips as I stared at my naked body in the bathroom mirror. Everything felt surreal as I tried to take in the changes in my body.

Despite growing up with a terrible father, I was never beaten. The bruises under my eyes used to be common when I was a teen as Patrick's antics often kept me awake nights, worried someone would come to our home to collect on debts he owed. I wasn't used to seeing literal bruises on my body though.

My arms didn't hurt so much as there was a deep soreness sunken into my muscles alongside Nathan's fingerprints.

I dropped my hands from my arms to give my breasts a speculative look. They were definitely fuller and my nipples were pebbled, flushed, too sensitive. I hadn't been so aware of my breasts since the first time I was taken aside by a teacher at school who noticed it was past time for me to be wearing a bra.

How could I still feel flushed just thinking about Tyler kissing me?

Nathan left his prints on my body yet it was Tyler's hands I dreamed of on my flesh.

Bringing my hands in front of me, I framed the hard bump at the base of my belly where my baby was growing. My skin was the same tanned shade as ever, but it looked shinier somehow, more golden, as if pregnancy lit me up from inside.

And I was definitely pregnant now.

Unmistakably.

"I'm going to have a baby."

I thought I would feel different if I said it out loud. Hearing the words in my own voice was supposed to startle me into accepting my reality yet all it did was make things feel even more dreamlike.

I had wanted a child for so long.

Turning on the shower, I tried to refocus my attention on the strangeness of my day. Tyler should have scared me, grabbing me out of my apartment the way he did. The man literally carried me off like some caveman.

Nathan had acted desperate to see me when I had only been gone for a blink of time. He'd bruised me in his frenzy to make sure I was okay---was there an award for irony he should be given? It felt as if there should be.

I let the water run hotter than I normally preferred. I stepped into the spray with the intention of giving my body a chance to recover under the hot stream. The shower flowed over me as steady and endless as a river; the heat relaxed my body if not my mind.

I soaped and scrubbed every inch of my body with the body wash Bella loved best. I liked the idea of smelling different for a little while at least. Borrowing Bella's scent if I couldn't borrow her life with all the ways it was infinitely easier than mine.

Sugar and honey saturated the air as their notes floated on the steam around me; I could imagine myself as a baker, a professional pastry chef, someone for whom food was life the way music was life for me.

If I were Bella, my mate would be the clever Jack Jackson whose name was the only ridiculous thing about him. He would love me wholly, completely, madly. I traced my fingers up to my throat where the nick of a scar masqueraded as a mating mark for me rather than the proud bite Bella sported.

My body came alive as my fingertips tripped over the sensitive spot. Wolves were physically different than humans in more than a few ways. I could rub the mating spot on my throat and achieve the same sexual thrill humans described in their romance novels when they talked of stroking between their thighs.

Heat from the water warmed my skin, but my blood warmed from the actions of my fingers.

I kept thinking of Tyler's mouth on mine. He had been so hard, hot, and heavy beneath my hand. I knew I could have straddled him in the backseat of the sedan and taken us both over the edge in minutes. Adam would have kept driving with his gaze fixed firmly ahead. He was a good Beta that way.

Taking the handheld showerhead free of its silver holster, I twisted the setting to a forceful jet which blasted at me with the kind of unrelenting fury Tyler always seemed to have when he came to my bed.

No one would blame me for giving in to temptation when I was alone, right? I was a flesh-and-blood woman. I was healthy. I was young. Sex was natural and my body was ready for attention it hadn't been given in months.

I leaned against the cool tile of the shower wall, gripping the safety bar with my free hand as I focused the nozzle between my legs.

I could still taste Tyler's lips on mine if I tried. The bathroom smelled of sweet secrets and I knew Bella spent nearly every day sharing her mate's bed while I slept alone.

Jack had a good body, but it wasn't Jack I wanted. I wanted Tyler. I wanted my fated mate back between my legs, pushing and pumping against me, inside me, thrilling me over and over until my body burst with a bright explosion brought on by our bodies fitting together as our Blessed Goddess intended.

No man burst into the bathroom to satisfy me, but the showerhead did the job just fine. I shuddered through my orgasm, only managing to avoid crying out because I bit my lips almost bloody to stifle my cries.

The scent of my sex mingled with the sweet smells of Bella's body wash; I took care to clean up thoroughly, spraying down the shower stall before hanging the showerhead back in its place.

I didn't need to flaunt my weakness. I still had a desire to keep some things secret only for myself though I had to admit a part of me wanted to call Tyler right then to hear his voice as I was coming down from my orgasmic high.

I took care with my body as I dried off. I borrowed some of Bella's body lotion to try to seal in the heat of the water along with the sleek feel of my skin while it was still damp from the shower. I only dressed in my pajamas because I couldn't leave the bathroom naked with the apartment full of people.

Jack was outside with Bella. I could hear my brother, Ethan, too. I listened carefully to see if Nathan had dared to return, but his voice was absent and I knew he'd give me space to try to adjust to his desperate desire to mate me.

All the people outside the door loved me. They were gathered together specifically to support me. I knew I was safe in this apartment with these people who were my family in all the ways which mattered.

I still didn't want to leave the secrecy of the bathroom where I had briefly known pleasure. I sat on the closed lid of the toilet, rubbing more lotion into my skin as I tried to incorporate the voices of my makeshift pack back into my reality.

Everyone needed me to hold it together. My pajama top had sleeves to the elbows which would hide the bruises on my arms; the scent of the lotion would cover up the smell of my spent arousal if the body wash didn't do the job on its own. I brushed my hair until it hung straight in a silken sheet down my back.

Ethan laughed loudly enough to startle me out of my thoughts. I finished pampering myself. I knew I could only reasonably stall so long before Bella came looking for me. She was the kind to worry and I was in need of someone to worry for me given my current situation.

"I'm going to have a baby."

I said the words again -out loud one more time- and I felt the hard bump of my belly where the child grew inside me.

Nathan wanted to claim this child for himself. He wanted to do a blood exchange to make me and my child belong to him while Tyler wanted me to "come back" to him, too.

Both these Alpha males thinking I belonged to them as if I were something to be owned rather than loved.

My child would not be a bargaining chip in the Alpha House wars. I didn't care if I carried a girl or a boy: my baby would not be treated like a poker chip to be bet from hand to hand.

I stood up to pull my hair back into a ponytail at the nape of my neck. I approved my appearance in the mirror before opening the door to the bathroom to rejoin all the people here for me.

"We need to make a plan to go before the Alpha Council. I can't have Tyler and Nathan both doing it for me. They'll lobby for themselves, not for me or my baby. I need to speak for myself for a change."

I was going to have a baby and I was going to protect my baby no matter what my body or brain wanted.