Love Bites (Bitten Book 4) (32 page)

However, that didn’t mean that others didn’t find the idea seductive.

I jumped when my attention returned to the cell and I saw Gerard was standing at the bars, staring down at me. Calder growled softly from his position behind me, but I shook my head and rose to my feet.

I walked to the cell, close enough for my grandfather to reach out and touch me if he liked.

“What is Cornelius’ next step?” I asked.

Gerard merely smiled that smug little smile and shook his head. “I’ve shared more than enough, sweetheart. I think I’m gonna take a little nap now.”

I smiled back, but knew it didn’t reach my eyes. “That’s fine, Gramps. You don’t have to talk to me. I’m sure Conner and Lex will be in here to talk to you—” I paused and gave Brittany a pointed look “and Brittany. And I know they won’t be as polite. I might even drop in to listen, since I’m sure I’ll find it extremely informative.”

Oh, I’d gotten under his placid mask with that little statement. I saw the fury and loathing flood his eyes just before he snarled and his hand shot out between the bars. I was expecting it. Hoping for it, actually. I dodged his hand and grabbed his wrist, then I shoved his arm back against the bars until it snapped.

He howled in pain and stumbled back from the bars, clutching his arm. I stared at him, my face expressionless. His lips peeled back from his teeth as he stared at me, panting.

“Now we’re even,” I stated calmly before I turned and walked out the door with a nod to the guard still sitting in the corner.

Outside, Calder silently fell in step beside me and I glanced over at him.

“Thanks for standing back and letting me do that,” I said.

He grinned but it was vicious. “It wasn’t that hard to do, especially when you broke that fucker’s arm.” Calder paused. “Besides, I’ll get a chance to chat with him tomorrow. Conner and Lex are moving him and Brittany tonight. I’m pretty sure that Brittany doesn’t know shit, but we need to be certain. As for your grandfather, I doubt anyone will be inclined to take it easy on him.”

I shuddered. “Fine with me. He’s the King Douche of Doucheville as far as I’m concerned. I don’t know him and I don’t want to.”

Calder put an arm around my waist as we walked toward the house. I only flinched a little this time because the pain was already improving.

My feet felt as though they weighed a thousand pounds each as we walked up the steps and through the front door.

“Shower and bed,” Calder stated. “Everything else can wait until the morning.”

I let him carry me upstairs and undress me while the water warmed up. Then he put a plastic bag over my arm and taped it down to keep my bandages from getting wet. He washed my hair and my body, then his own, while I leaned against the tiled shower wall and tried not to fall asleep on my feet.

It wasn’t until he’d dried me off, dressed me in my usual night time outfit of a t-shirt and shorts, and put me in bed that it hit me.

“It’s over,” I whispered as he rolled into me, cuddling me. “And we survived.”

He pressed a kiss to the mark on my neck. “That’s true. For tonight.”

With that ominous statement, we held each other close as we drifted off to sleep.

Ricki

T
he next day,
I woke up to an empty bed. I vaguely remembered Calder getting up a little after dawn and telling me to go back to sleep. A glance at the clock showed it was almost noon. I’d slept for nearly twelve hours.

Moving carefully, I sat up, surprised that all my aches and pains from the night before had disappeared. Damn, this super fast healing was great. I wanted to look at my arm, but I didn’t think Kerry would want me to take off the bandage. I decided to text her to see what I needed to do.

When I picked up my phone, I saw I had a ton of missed text messages, all from my friends. Donna, Ivie, and Shannon’s messages were all nearly identical, telling me how much they loved me and they were glad everything turned out okay. Kerry’s was a command to call her when I woke up and she and Finn would drive over and she would check my arm.

After I went to the bathroom, washed my hands and face, and brushed my teeth, I made my way downstairs, phone in hand. I needed a cup of coffee before I did anything else. When I saw Pepper waiting patiently by her food bowl, I amended that to feeding the cat and making coffee before anything else.

Once those two things were accomplished, I called Kerry, feeling lighter than I had in weeks. Maybe ever.

“Hey, Ricki.” Kerry’s greeting sounded a little guarded.

“Hey, I just woke up and saw your message.”

There was a long pause. “So you just woke up?” she asked.

“Yeah, I slept a lot better than I thought I would. I feel a lot better, including my arm.”

“That’s….great,” she responded lamely.

I frowned at her tone. “What’s wrong, Kerry?”

“Oh, nothing, I’m just distracted.”

“Do you need to go? We can talk about my arm later,” I offered.

“No, no, no, it’s fine. I have time now. What did you want to know?”

I was beginning to get suspicious, but I needed to know what to do about my arm before I started any heavy duty digging for information. “Can I take the bandage off or do you want me to wait for you?”

Again there was a long pause. “Why don’t you wait for me, okay?” she finally answered. “I’ll be over in five minutes.”

It was my turn to pause. “What? Where are you?”

“I’m at Lachlan’s.”

Oh, my radar was pinging loudly now. Something was definitely up. “Why are you at Lachlan’s?”

She didn’t answer.

I suddenly realized why she was pausing so often. Calder was there and he was trying to keep her from telling me something.

“Put Calder on the phone,” I demanded.

“Huh?’

“Never mind,” I snapped. “I’ll be there momentarily.”

I hung up the phone and stomped upstairs to throw on some clothes and grab a pair of shoes. I hadn’t even gotten a pair of jeans out of the dresser when the front door slammed.

“Ricki!”

I forgot all about my clothes. I ran out of the room and thundered down the stairs. “What in the hell is going on, Calder?” I yelled.

I took one look at the dark circles beneath his eyes and the worry lines on his face and forced myself to stop, take a deep breath, and calm down. He didn’t look good. I came down the rest of the stairs at a slower pace and put a hand on his bicep when I was close enough to touch him.

“Hon, what’s wrong?”

“Brittany and Gerard are dead.”

I blinked in shock at his words. “What? How?”

His lips drew into a tight, angry line. “We aren’t sure. The guard swears that they were fine before he took a quick piss break, then when he returned, they were both dead.” He swallowed. “And it wasn’t pretty. In fact, it looked like they were both in agony when they died.”

“Poison?” I asked.

He shrugged. “We’re not sure. That’s why Kerry and Finn are here, to see if they can figure out what happened. I just hope to God it wasn’t anyone in the pack or Lachlan might kill them himself. This was our chance to get more intel about our enemy and it’s gone. Now we’re back to square one.”

My heart sank as I looked up at him. “Shit,” I whispered.

There was a light knock on the door, breaking the strange tension in the room. We both faced the door as Kerry stuck her head in.

“Hey,” she said softly. “Is it safe to come in?”

I nodded.

She smiled widely. “Great.”

Finn followed her inside, along with Chloe.

“Why don’t you have a seat at the dining room table so I can have a look at your arm?” Kerry suggested. “Then we can have some lunch.”

Appreciating the normalcy of what she described, I did as she asked, grabbing my coffee cup on the way to the table. I barely felt a twinge as she lifted my arm and began unwrapping the bandage.

I glanced up and met Finn’s eyes. “Hey there, handsome,” I teased. “How are you doing?”

He was looking at me with the strangest light in his eyes. It was a happy light, but still odd.

“What?” I asked. “Did I spill coffee on myself?” I looked down at my shirt, checking for coffee stains.

He shook his head. “No, no. You just look like—” He didn’t finish his sentence.

I waited a moment, but finally got impatient. “Look like what, Finn?”

Finn came closer, his pretty purple eyes shimmering in the bright sunlight pouring through the dining room windows. “May I?” he asked, lifting a hand to my temple.

I shrugged. “Sure.”

He placed two fingers on the side of my head and closed his eyes. A few seconds later, a huge grin broke out on his face and he looked down at me. “Let me be the first to offer my congratulations,” he declared cryptically.

“What?” I was completely lost.

“You are with child,” he answered.

“WHAT?”

“I take it you didn’t know,” he murmured.

I shook my head, my eyes going to Calder and my heart pounding against my sternum. Pregnant? How in the hell had that happened? He told me I couldn’t get pregnant! To my greater shock, there were tears in my mate’s eyes. Not small, manly tears. Huge drops that rolled down his cheeks and dripped off his jaw.

“We’ll just….give you some privacy,” Kerry mumbled as she ushered Finn and Chloe out of the dining room.

With halting steps, Calder came toward me. Then he dropped to his knees in front of me, his eyes traveling down my entire body to my stomach. Hesitantly, he lifted a hand and placed his large palm on my lower abdomen.

When I put my hand over his, he broke down and cried, leaning his forehead against my breasts. He shuddered with the force of his sobs.

I lifted my free hand to stroke his hair, murmuring comforting nonsense to him as I tried to come to terms with the fact that I was pregnant, despite Calder’s assurances that it was impossible. Though I was in a state of shock, it surprised me to see my big, bossy mate so undone.

Calder wrapped his arms around my hips, holding me close and tight. I almost lost control over my own tears when he pressed his lips over the spot where our baby rested.

Finally, he lifted his head, his wet eyes meeting mine. “I think this is the happiest day of my life.”

I touched his cheek. “I’m sure you’ll change your mind on the day the baby is born,” I teased.

He shrugged. “Maybe, but that hasn’t happened yet. So, until then, this is the happiest day.” Calder sucked in a deep breath. “This is a miracle.”

“I’ll say, especially since I didn’t think you could get me pregnant,” I replied dryly.

Calder’s mouth quirked in a smile. “You forget, darlin’. I told you that direct descendents of wolves that were once human could impregnate humans, or become pregnant, as in your case.”

I hadn’t thought of that. Obviously my grandfather or his father had once been human. Gerard stated my father had shifter strength and speed, but couldn’t change, so I definitely had the genes.

A truly terrifying idea occurred to me and I pulled back from Calder in horror.

“I’m not going to have a litter am I?”

He stared at me, completely confounded for a moment, then clutched his stomach and laughed until he had tears streaming from his eyes, this time from humor rather than joy.

Calder

I
sat at
Lachlan’s enormous dining room table with my alpha, Chloe, the entire vampire council, and Kerry. Donna, Ivie, and Shannon were spending time with my mate, though they all would have insisted on being here had they known that we were meeting.

I didn’t want to exclude my mate and would tell her what happened here when I went home tonight, but, for now, she needed to relax and heal. Especially in her condition.

Four hours later and I was still marveling over the fact that my mate was pregnant with my pup. In my mind, children were something that would happen in the future. I looked forward to it, wanted it, but considered it something to be thought over later.

Not anymore. In a few short months, I would be a father for the first time.

“How is it that in six months we don’t have any information on the Faction?” Lex asked.