Leader of the Pack (69 page)

The one time she had walked into the great room while Terrick was trying to turn the fact that they had jumped mating protocol into an issue, she had heard several of the others telling him to can it. Aislinn even talked to Sarah about canceling the whole ceremony thing. Sarah said it was more a matter of pack unity than whether or not it needed to be done. To some extent, it was their penance for having gone about things on their own.

Rhona stood there intrigued by the wheels turning behind Aislinn’s blue eyes. “This is a good thing,” she said, as if she was trying to convince Aislinn.

Aislinn snapped into the moment. “I know. Cullen’s going to be thrilled.”
He put so much effort into to it after all
, she thought with some annoyance. Then suddenly another thought occurred to her. “How many,” she asked, already wincing.

Rhona smiled again. She had Aislinn lean back, and she pressed on her still relatively flat stomach. Then she pulled out a strange looking box with a speaker and a cord leading to a probe. Rhona squirted some cold clear gel Aislinn’s stomach and pressed the probe around. After a moment of searching she stopped on one heartbeat, before moving to another spot on the other side of Aislinn’s stomach. “As far as I can tell only two.”

At first Aislinn was relieved. Everyone kept calling pregnancies around here liters and that implied something like six puppies. Two sounded great compared to the alternative. Then the statement sunk in. “What do you mean ‘as far as you can tell’?”

“Well it’s an imperfect science. There might be more than two. Currently it looks like there are only the two. I’m only hearing two heartbeats.”

Aislinn felt a kind of pleased feeling come over her all of a sudden. “Those were heartbeats?”

Rhona nodded, her eyes sparkling. This was really the best part of her job. She loved delivering babies. “Do you want to hear it again?”

“Yeah,” Aislinn answered in awe.

Rhona ran the instrument over her stomach again. Aislinn felt her own heart flutter a bit when Rhona found the heartbeats again. “There’s one,” she said, pausing for a minute, so Aislinn could listen. She moved the probe around Aislinn’s stomach. “There’s the other one.”

A small smile played on Aislinn’s lips. “I suppose we should really get through the mating ceremony then,” she said, with a guilty look.

Rhona laughed. “Yeah, that might be good.” She shook her head. “If you come back tomorrow I might have the ultrasound fixed. Sorry, it’s on the fritz at the moment. I’m getting it looked at sometime this afternoon.”

“It’s only been a month. What are you going to look at?”

Rhona turned to Aislinn, only just realizing that Aislinn might not be familiar with how lycan pregnancies go. “Um, well they’ll be born in about half the time of a normal human pregnancy. So if you take nine months and turn that into four and a half, then you’re looking at being closer to three months along human-wise right now.”

Aislinn was staring a bit wide-eyed. “Is there anything else I need to know about this?”

“Not that I can think of right now. Make sure to start eating more. I know you’ve been feeling sick, but I don’t want you losing any more weight. If you have any more questions I’ll be happy to answer them.”

Still in shock, Aislinn nodded at the first comment and then shook her head at the second, as it only vaguely made sense to her.

“Alright then. You’re all done for now. Go get some lunch.” Rhona smiled at her. Aislinn wasn’t the first woman to leave the infirmary stunned, after having been told she was pregnant. Rhona was pretty sure, based on the smile she got when Aislinn heard the heartbeats, that she would come around relatively quickly. Then she started chuckling to herself as she imagined Cullen a father.

* * * *

Aislinn was stepping out of the elevator on the thirteenth floor as Cullen was stepping in. They both gave each other a long suffering look. Neither knew what the other’s problem was, but they were both relatively unhappy at the moment. Aislinn was annoyed with that because if she hadn’t been so concerned about what was happening to her, she would have known what was bothering Cullen.

“Lunch,” he asked.

“Yeah,” she said, forcing a smile. “I was going to suggest the same thing.”

Cullen backed her into the elevator and hit the button for the lobby and the Taigh-O
è
sda. Aislinn sighed heavily. She had recently been thinking that she was eating too much rich food since she had access to the town’s best steak house on a nightly basis. Now, she figured that it didn’t matter. At least not for another three months. She suddenly put her hand on her stomach as she thought about that.
I’m going to be a mother in three months?
She was careful to keep that thought to herself.

Cullen stared at her and wondered opening what was going through her mind that made her look so distressed. “Aislinn?”

She snapped her head up and dropped her hand from her stomach. “Yeah?”

He stared into her eyes. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” she said, unconvincingly.

“Okay. I don’t believe you. But okay.” He was annoyed. “Well, I’m upset because Cadifor wants you to take Jenna out to the circle and let her talk to Brennus. See how easy that was?”

“What,” she scowled, as if she didn’t know what he was getting at.

“Me telling you what the problem was. But you could have found that out from me without me saying it out loud,” he said, sarcasm leaking though his voice.

“Cullen,” she said, emphatically. “I’m okay. I am. I just need to think about this a minute. Then I’ll tell you. I just need to think first.”

Cullen looked deep into her eyes. She could feel him probing her head for reassurance. “Alright,” he said with genuine concern.

She put her hands on either side of his face and pulled him down for a kiss. “I love you.”

Cullen melted a little. He couldn’t be upset with her when she said that. They walked through the lobby and into the restaurant, hand in hand. A pretty omega held the door open for Cullen and Aislinn, as they walked in. Cullen and Aislinn took their usual booth without waiting for the hostess and were immediately given menus that they didn’t look at. They placed their orders and sat there staring at each other in silence, waiting for the other to start the conversation.

Finally, Aislinn cleared her throat. She knew he would be thrilled about it. She didn’t know why she was having such a hard time saying it. “So when do I deal with Jenna?”

“We’re meeting Cadifor tomorrow noon. I wanted to deal with it before the mating ceremony. You still want to have the mating ceremony right?” He guessed at what was upsetting her. “If it’s bothering you that much--”

“No, Cullen.” She wasn’t going to be able to keep it to herself. She wasn’t going to be able to think. He could feel her upset and her blocking, and he wasn’t going to let it go. “The ceremony’s fine. I wouldn’t do that to you after all the setup and time. Besides I’m getting used to the idea.” She took a deep breath. He was staring at her with more and more concern. The waitress came back, smiling sweetly at them. Everyone seemed to be smiling sweetly at them. It was driving her nuts.
Maybe it’s the hormones.
Aislinn watched the girl retreat from the table to go check on their order. “Cullen I’m pregnant,” she blurted out, as soon as the girl disappeared into the kitchen.

A goofy grin started in the corners of his mouth. “You’re pregnant? That’s what’s got you worked up?”

Aislinn didn’t say anything, but she dropped the block she’d erected in her head. Cullen felt uncertainty flood his mind. Most of her fear came from understanding human pregnancy and human babies, but the idea of having lycan babies, a litter of lycan babies, was terrifying her. Although she had gotten used to the fact that she had a learning curve in the pack environment, she didn’t feel like a baby was something a learning curve was allowable with.

Cullen stood up and moved around the table to her side of the booth. Aislinn could feel his happiness through their bond, and it was helping a little. He put his arm around her and pulled her into his arms, kissing her forehead and holding her. “You will be an incredible mother,” he said though his smile. He didn’t know what else to say. He couldn’t believe she was pregnant. Already.

Aislinn started to wonder if he was going to get up out of the booth and start dancing. It was hard to be scared and uncertain with that much happiness pouring into her mind from outside. She rolled her eyes at him, when she looked up and saw the goofball grin on his face had gotten impossibly wider. His eyes were shining, and he was nearly laughing. “I’m glad you’re so happy,” she said trying to keep herself from smiling and then finally giving in.

Cullen suddenly frowned. “I don’t want you around Jenna.”

“It’ll be fine,” Aislinn said. “See? Now you’re going to get more overprotective than you already are.”

Cullen growled.

“Don’t do that,” she snapped. “I can still do what I’m supposed to do for now. No one can even tell yet. Though in a week or so, it’ll be pretty obvious,” she said, mostly to herself. “If there was anyone left who doubted that we’d already mated, they’ll all have those concerns put to rest now.”

Her sarcasm bit into him, but he wasn’t giving on this. “Jenna’s dangerous. If she decides she’s no longer cooperative for any reason while you’re alone with her then you’re dead.”

“Cullen, I don’t see that as being as likely as you do. Brennus appears to be able to control her fairly well.”

“I don’t care. We’ll get the rest of the caoch that’s missing some other way.” Cullen pulled out his cell phone and started paging through the numbers for Cadifor’s name so that he could call and cancel.

Aislinn grabbed the phone out of his hand. His eyes flashed dangerously at her. “You wouldn’t dare,” she smiled sarcastically.

The waitress appeared with their food and was instantly frightened by the deadly staring match that was taking place. “Aislinn,” Cullen growled. “Give it back.”

“Or what?” Aislinn looked over at the concerned waitress. “It’s okay. Just leave the food,” she said sweetly to the girl.

The plates were dumped hurriedly on the table, and the pretty waitress instantly disappeared. Aislinn watched her go. “Now see what you did? You scared her.”

Cullen looked like he might explode.

She sighed. “Please stop it. What do you mean ‘missing caoch’?”

“We’re not going to do this. It isn’t a debate. I won’t have you in that kind of danger regardless of the situation. Now give me my phone back before this table ends up on the other side of the restaurant.”

“Liam would kill you,” Aislinn answered. But she put the phone down in front of him. She really didn’t want to make him this angry. She knew she wouldn’t get anywhere with the situation if he was so pissed he wouldn’t listen to reason. “Cullen. I need you to try and understand that this is stupidly scary for me. I know you don’t really get why. But it is. It’s important that you let me do what would be normal so that I can pretend in my head that this isn’t as big a deal as it is. Please.”

Cullen took the phone and stared at her indecisively. He growled some more. He could feel how upset she was and how much she needed things to stay normal, but his instincts told him to protect her. Putting her in a situation where he couldn’t get to her if he needed to and with someone as dangerous as Jenna was just stupid. “Aislinn,” he started.

“Please, Cullen.”

She heard a crunch and a strangled beep as the cell phone in his hand crunched. Cullen looked down at the phone. He was upset enough that he’d actually crushed the damn phone in his hand. He put it back down on the table to prevent himself from throwing it across the room. “Alright, how about a compromise? We’ll go and see what kind of mood Jenna’s in. You let me talk with her first and get a feel for how dangerous she is at the moment and then I’ll decide if I want to let you be this stupid.”

Aislinn glared at him. “I want to know why it’s so different now that I’m pregnant. When I took her to Brennus a month ago it was just as dangerous as it is now. I still would have ended up dead. If I weren’t pregnant now and took her to see Brennus I’d still be in danger. It’s not like this makes me incapable of something I was previously able to do. In essence the situation really hasn’t changed in any way other than an extra couple of lives are involved. And no one will know that other than you and me.”

Cullen fumed some more. He couldn’t argue with that. “I told you. Let me talk to Jenna first.”

“Fine. I’ll compromise. But don’t think I won’t argue with you if you decide in a way I don’t agree with tomorrow.”

“Fine,” he said back, just as snottily.

The two of them sat there eating in silence. Aislinn hated that he was so angry. She sighed. “Cullen?”

“What now?”

She looked into his eyes and gave him a half-hearted smile. “I’m pregnant,” she said again trying to sound happy.

Cullen couldn’t help the pleasure that her saying that gave him. He smiled back, knowing she was trying to help.

* * * *

Cullen recruited a number of betas to go with them. Keith, Sarah, Drake, Mack, and Makeda all sat and chatted in the great room of the cabin, as they waited for Cadifor to show up. There were omegas rushing around with decorations and trays, getting everything ready for the mating ceremony the next day.