Precedents (Loup-Garou Series Book 4)
YA/NA Paranormal Romance/Urban Fantasy
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Katey never expected to marry so young. She also never expected to be pregnant, or the first female loup-garou—werewolf—to give birth in thousands of years. As the embodiment of a Spirit of Peace, Katey’s carrying more than just her precious babies. She’s also carrying the future of her race. Her husband is doing what he can to help, but he has his own troubles.
What does Logan Keith know about being a father? He’s never had a good example in his life. And babies cost a lot of money. Logan’s doing whatever it takes to support his family, even if his sometimes dangerous jobs ignite clashes with Katey.
Then Katey and Logan, along with their pack, are summoned to an ancient castle carved into the snowy mountains of Switzerland. The council is meeting for the first time since the great Arnathian civilization fell apart due to the feud between werewolves and vampires. Can these two races make peace after spending centuries at war with one another? Katey’s supposed to be a great figurehead for the proceedings, but what does she know about politics or negotiating peace? After an assassination attempt, one thing is clear. Someone is determined to unleash a great evil and make sure that Katey and her loup-garou family have no future at all.

Excerpt from Prologue
Darren threaded his fingers through his dark, matted hair, willing his nerves to settle. He sat alone at the glass dinette table, a cup of herbal tea steaming in front of him. With his elbows propped on either side of the mug, he bowed his head to breathe in the chamomile. The morning sun slanted through the bay window and filtered through the thin curtains. One panel was drawn back, giving him a perfect view of the carport beyond. Everyone’s vehicle was accounted for, except Dustin’s.
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Upstairs, he could hear Katey and Logan in their bedroom, their bodies shifting slightly against the sheets as one or both of them were getting comfortable. The only sign that they weren’t making love was their gentle breathing and steady, slow heartbeats.
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In a house of loups-garous, sex was not a private thing. Ever since their first night as a mated couple, Darren, Dustin, and Ben had to invest in a package of earplugs. On other nights, they left the house completely and took to the woods.
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Nearly all the mornings after were awkward, nonetheless, when Katey would come downstairs, her hair a tangled mess and cheeks bright red. Dustin had joked for the first few weeks that he didn’t know Logan had it in him, or that he certainly inherited something good from his grandfather. That was months ago and the two newlyweds hadn’t grown out of their honeymoon phase yet.
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Darren lifted his spoon and stirred the water, pushing around the cordless teabag as the herbs steeped to make amber plumes blend in the hot liquid. The last few nights had been quiet, which was an oddity in itself, but Darren still found no rest.
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Over the last month or so, Dustin had found a third option besides running with his pack in the woods or wearing earplugs to escape the slightly intrusive sexual practices of the only mated couple in the pack. Quite unexpectedly, Dustin took to the town and wouldn’t come back until morning. More often than not, Darren was unaware that Dustin had left until he came back the following day. This time, with Darren’s senses uninhibited and the house not rocking, he heard his beta leave shortly after midnight.
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He still hadn’t come back.
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Soft, whispered voices came from upstairs, telling him that Katey and Logan were awakening, but they had learned the exact volume level that would escape Darren’s keen ears. He anxiously waited for any signs that they would decide to get in an early morning romp, but there was nothing.
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Apart from their heated lovemaking, Katey and Logan seemed to be adjusting well to married life. Perhaps it was too soon to tell. Darren had known plenty of couples, like Katey and Logan, who were so caught up in their courting phase that they were mated far too soon and immediately regretted the decision. Being loups-garous and spiritually bonded through their wolves was a definite helper in keeping them so in love, but Darren wondered how long it would last before they settled into a – hopefully quieter – routine.
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He brought the mug to his lips and sipped on the calming brew.
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Katey’s grandfather, much to the unease of all the pack, came to visit every couple of weeks to give her detailed reports on their progress in making plans for the council. True to his word, he kept a vigilant detail of vampire guards posted around the city to watch for hunters or anyone who would want to harm his granddaughter. After the fiasco in January, Michael was taking no chances, and their scent infiltrated the town. Darren couldn’t go out without catching a whiff of them in the wind.
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So far, the roster of loups-garous for the council had grown to a total of seventy-four, but this also included their betas and other entourage members. Only Michael was surprised by the low turnout. John, Darren’s former mentor and the appointed head of the loup-garou delegation of the council, was startled to find more vampires were interested in the prospect of peace. Of course, this was a cause for alarm in Darren. If any of these vampires were anything like Yaverik, who was brazen enough to try and fan the flames of war, then they might have their own agendas that didn’t involve peace.
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Darren had often wondered if the council would turn out as everyone hoped. His skeptical nature concocted images of betrayal, and assassination; anything but peace. With Katey at the center of it all, they all had reason to fear for her life. After nearly being hunted down by both vampires and humans, it was clear, now more than ever, that Katey was a prime target in this grand scheme.
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She was the one who was supposed to herald in an era of peace between vampires and werewolves. She served as the host for the spirit of peace, Tanatia, who was an ancient princess who was assassinated millennia ago for being the offspring of a werewolf and vampire union.
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Darren shook his head as he let the tea warm his throat. He still couldn’t believe that Katey was the daughter of Adam and Jane. He had known them both, especially Adam. Every day, something of the wise and powerful loup-garou shined through that reminded the alpha of better days when he was a man without a pack and without responsibilities.
Then, there were times when a little of her mother came out. A sassy look, a flip of her hair, the determined set of her jaw when Darren said something that displeased her, all of it came straight from Jane.
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He didn’t spend a lot of time with her on that late night in France, back when he was a young and inexperienced loup-garou, but he never forgot the impression the vampire left on him. Jane became somewhat of a template for all the women he loved from that day forward. Even Eleanor mirrored Jane in some respects.
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When Katey wasn’t busy with Logan in the bedroom or on the phone with Michael and John to discuss council meeting details, she spent her days down at the ballroom dance studio on Main Street with Lily and Forrest.
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After the incident in Louisiana with the hunters, it took the loups-garous of Crestucky a while to get back into the flow of normal life once more. Some families had lost loved ones. Fathers, brothers, uncles, and husbands had been killed in the raid on the safe house in Alabama. Though Forrest and his alpha, Jacob, had survived the onslaught, there was still plenty of rebuilding to do.
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The Deviants were not the only ones affected by the tragedy. Within Darren’s pack, biases and doubt had been formed. Ben, after decades of mystery and silence about his past, finally filled in the gaps of the missing years when they weren’t all together. The omega’s distrust of his own pack prompted Darren to question what else the loup-garou had been hiding.
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The old wounds of the past had been opened anew when he found out that Dustin was the cause of his family’s murder. Dustin couldn’t have possibly known that his father-in-law would send hunters after him, all the way from Ireland. Still, Darren couldn’t shake the idea that if he hadn’t been so eager to help a fellow loup-garou, his wife and daughter might have lived a few more years with him. Because they were human, they would have died anyway, but he had long treasured the day when he would see his daughter blossom into womanhood and find love. Now, she never would.
Darren had to forgive Dustin for his own sanity’s sake, but it would take time.
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Logan, on the other hand, was in a far darker place than any of them expected. When he turned in Louisiana, Darren knew it wasn’t any normal transformation.
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Whatever the spirit of Tanatia did, or whatever roadblock the voodoo potion had obliterated, Logan could change into his wolf or loup-garou form at will now. He was a more balanced loup-garou than ever before, but Darren had a feeling there was more to what happened between his young ward and Tanatia. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, or put a name to it, but something was still not right. Darren kept a close eye on Logan, regardless.
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Katey seemed to know exactly what it was, but she wasn’t telling anyone any time soon. She had more on her plate than ever before, as a fresh high school graduate and less than a year into her loup-garou training. They had seen no sign of Tanatia since Louisiana, but they had learned that it took a lot for the ancient princess to make a grand appearance. Darren crossed his fingers that they would never have to see her again because that meant things would never get so bad.
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It took quite a bit of trust to let Katey return to work. Having her brooding around the house and bored out of her mind during the summer months was a little more than they could handle. It was a chore to keep her occupied and Darren regretted the decision to not take the pack on a European vacation as he usually did during the summer months. With Katey still deep in training, he thought they wouldn’t have time to travel. He was wrong.
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Against his better judgment, Darren bought a game console and collection of video games to keep her and Logan engaged. He had seen how the contraptions sucked the sense out of his students and even some grown adults, but he was running out of options when Katey complained about working in the backyard garden and having watched every movie in the house, twice. He thought the game console would keep her from changing into her wolf form and running in the woods to burn off her restlessness. To his dismay, Dustin and Logan played co-op on the shooter games more than anyone, and Katey didn’t seem interested in learning how to handle the controller.
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They let her go back to work on a probationary arrangement in June and now it was early November. Thankfully, there had been no incidents, no hunter activity, and no whisper of assassination. Either the vampire guards were doing an exceptional job, or their location had remained a secret. Forrest and a few of those in his pack, the Deviants, kept watch over Katey when Darren and the others couldn’t be there for her. With both loups-garous and vampires on patrol, she might have been the safest young lady on the planet.
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With the addition of Katey into their pack, Lily also became a frequent visitor to the house. After her grounding restriction had been lifted at the beginning of summer, Lily came to see Katey nearly every other day. They were close friends, but Katey was also her maid of honor and Lily’s wedding with Forrest was set for early next year. It was still a fair ways out, but Lily loved to plan ahead and Katey was more than happy to help.
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Under Katey’s encouragement, Logan had taken to putting his carving skills to good use. At the weekly farmer’s market in town, Logan set up a booth with some pieces he had crafted. A few figurines, a table, a rocker, and a small headboard perfect for a child’s bed. He sold out on the first day, making a fair sum of money, enough to buy more wood and create more masterpieces.
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Darren helped him create business cards and soon, he was receiving calls from affluent families all across northwest Florida who wanted his hand-carved beds and other furniture pieces. If the pack had known his work would be so prized, they would have put his projects on the market a lot sooner.
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For a while, Logan maintained his prizefighting hobby and retained the title of Northside champion. Katey went to every show, and sometimes Dustin joined her. The boy who started fighting so long ago in Chicago had become quite a contender, but he only fought when there was a challenger, which didn’t happen often. However, over the past few months, Katey begged him to stay home more often and not fight so much. Of course, he gave in to her request and poured himself into his new crafting business.
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Ben and Dustin had made the choice to leave teaching behind them after the school year was over. Dustin had taken up a job in a hardware store across town and Ben found satisfying work at one of the gun shops. The omega’s knowledge of ammunition and various gun models made him a valuable employee and Darren couldn’t have been prouder. Most of all, Ben was happy. He connected with fellow veterans and seemed to find his niche, which had been a rather difficult task in itself over the decades.
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It was Saturday, and Darren had finished grading the essays from the week before. He continued on at the high school, educating a new batch of students and preparing them for the real world that awaited them the following summer. Katey’s graduation was bittersweet. It wasn’t as if she was going anywhere, but he enjoyed seeing her at the school every day. It was easier to keep an eye on her.
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He flinched when one of the young loups-garous jumped from the bed and shuffled across the floor in a hurry. A droplet of his tea sloshed over the edge of the mug and dripped onto his flannel pajama pants.
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Darren let out a thick sigh just as Logan sped down the stairs in his sleeping pants and a dark gray, hooded sweatshirt. The boy had put on a pair of tennis shoes, but no socks.
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“Be right back,” he shouted before dashing out the front door.
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Darren opened his mouth to holler back at him, but Logan was already gone. He looked outside the window, but Logan’s motorcycle was still there. Where could he be running to?
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Just as he set down his mug and braced himself against the back of the chair to help him stand, he heard the familiar popping and rumbling of an old truck engine make its way down the dirt driveway up to the house.
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Not wanting to miss his beta’s arrival, Darren eased himself back down and rued the way his muscles ached slightly with the effort. He wrapped his hands around the smooth porcelain and listened as Dustin hopped out of his red pickup and came in through the back door to the billiard room.
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From halfway across the house, Darren could already smell the cheap perfume, alcohol, and cigar smoke on his beta. Dustin came down the hall and stood in the entryway to the kitchen and dinette area.
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Loups-garous couldn’t become intoxicated, but there was a groggy and bleary-eyed look about Dustin that disturbed the alpha more than he would have liked.
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“I’d ask where you’ve been, but it seems pretty obvious,” Darren said as he sat back in his wrought iron chair. “So, instead, I’ll ask why.”
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Dustin leaned heavily against the doorframe. “I don’t have to tell you everything, Darren.” His voice was thick, but the alpha couldn’t quite discern why. If he had been with women all night, then Dustin must have been tired, but there was something else in his words that he hadn’t heard from his beta in a long time. Sadness. True, penetrating, and consuming sadness.
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He knew exactly when he last heard this particular inflection, too. It was after Dustin had told Darren all about how he killed his new bride on their wedding night when he changed for the first time. He had been prostrated with grief and remarked how he thought he would never love again. As far as Darren knew, he held true to that vow.
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When they met again, after half a century apart, Dustin was not the same man. A womanizer and philanderer, he chased skirts until Darren had to set down rules. That kind of behavior, though not morally illegal in their world, was frowned upon. What if he impregnated a woman who had no idea he was a loup-garou? What if she bore a son and he wasn’t around when the boy came of age?
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It was John’s history. Darren’s history. Dustin’s history. They all knew how detrimental it was to turn for the first time without a father or mentor. Dustin should have known better than to risk it, especially since that’s exactly how Logan came into being. Though the loup-garou gene skipped a century and passed from Dustin’s illegitimate daughter to Logan, the effect was still the same. Logan was left clueless and Darren had to pick up the pieces.
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Darren let out a long breath and looked down to the steam that rolled from his tea. “You don’t have to tell me, but I would appreciate it if you did. Perhaps I can help.”
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Dustin shuffled forward and dropped into the chair across from his alpha. He rubbed at his face and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Who else is home?” he asked, his voice cracking.
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“Logan just ran out and Katey’s upstairs. Ben went for an early morning run. He has to be at work in a couple of hours.”
Dustin nodded and looked out the window with a slightly puzzled look in his eye as if he didn’t realize how early it really was. “I…” he wiped his fingers across his lips and closed his eyes. “I’ve just been thinking of Cassandra a lot lately.”
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The alpha nodded in understanding. So, he was right. Dustin’s past was creeping up on him. “Is it because of a certain couple’s wedding bliss running a bit too long?” he asked, hoping Katey wasn’t listening. Darren was truly glad for their happiness and didn’t want to make her feel as if they were a burden in any way. If their lovemaking was truly bothersome, the alpha would have said something long ago.
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Dustin only nodded. “I can still smell her hair. I remember the way her skin felt. I remember her laugh and the way she played with the loose thread on her bodice… But, when I open my eyes, it’s another woman and she looks nothing like Cassandra.”
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The beta opened his eyes and balled his hand into a fist. For a moment, Darren wondered if he would smash the glass tabletop in a fit of frustration for the cruel hand that life had dealt him. Darren had lost his wife as well and knew the kind of sorrow that came with mourning such a loss, but he hadn’t killed her. She was murdered, and there was a fine line between being a widower and a murderer.
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It was only earlier this year that he learned Eleanor’s death was not Darren’s fault. The hunters weren’t after him, but he still wasn’t there to protect her when she needed him most. Dustin, on the other hand, was his own wife’s murderer, but there was no escaping the guilt. Darren couldn’t place himself in his beta’s shoes, nor would he want to.
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The front door swung open and Logan raced back up the stairs with a plastic convenience store bag swinging from his hand. He disappeared as quickly as he had arrived without saying a word to either of them.
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Darren and Dustin both looked toward the living room, then to one another.
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“Where did he go?” Dustin questioned.
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Darren simply shrugged and shook his head. “I’m done trying to understand him.”
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“Have they done anything this morning?” Dustin asked with just enough inflexion in his question that Darren couldn’t mistake his meaning.
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“Surprisingly not. It makes me wonder if they’re chomping at the bit. They haven’t been as… active as usual.”
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Dustin covered his eyes with his hand and groaned. “I swear, if I hear him pop batteries into something, I’m gone.”
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***
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The soft thumping Katey heard was not just in her head. Logan said he heard it, too. She perceived it as slightly more muffled than her own, but still louder than Logan’s when he lay in bed next to her.
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At first, she thought it was a bug, or perhaps one of the guys tapping their foot in another room. When she sensed that there was no one else upstairs but Logan, and he was fast asleep, she knew something wasn’t right.
She just never thought it would be this.
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Birth control was a joke to a loup-garou. Katey knew her metabolism would be far too high for any contraceptive pill to be effective. In the heat of passion, they often forgot about condoms, and when they did, it was a hit-or-miss thing for Logan to pull out in time. Such an occurrence happened a week before, but Katey never thought something like this would manifest so soon.
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She was too wired to sit, but her legs were too weak to stand or pace as Logan did. So, she crouched in front of the toilet and stared at the plastic pregnancy test sitting on the porcelain lid. Logan’s nervousness matched her own as the seconds dragged on, the minutes ticking off sluggishly. So far, there was only one pink line. They were waiting to see if there was a second. The package said they would see a result in three minutes.
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They made an agreement not to say a word, knowing that Darren and Dustin were downstairs and would certainly hear them. Logan had been abnormally quick about running to the store to get the test, though Katey had been willing to wait a little longer. She wanted to enjoy the idea that they would stay an unburdened couple for a few more years, maybe a century, just to enjoy all the wonderful privileges of married life. They could go on dates, sleep in late on the days that neither of them worked, and kiss and hold one another to their hearts’ content. Having a child might ruin all of it.
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In just a short while, Katey’s already complicated life became threatened by new responsibilities that she wasn’t sure she could handle. What would having a baby mean for them? How would it integrate into the pack? She had seen plenty of kids with the Devian pack, but they were a larger group. Her pack was small and primarily made up of adults. How could they take care of a child?
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What would happen when the child grew up? Would they turn? Katey and Logan were the first loup-garou couple in millennia since the vampires wiped out all the females of their kind in the war. Would they come out purely human and change later? Would they be loup-garou right out of the womb?
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Then Katey thought of the pregnancy. What if they reproduced in the same way wolves did? In litters. She covered her face in her hands, pushing away the nasty thought that she would have to carry four or six babies in her belly for nine months.
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This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening.
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She wanted to believe she was still dreaming, that this whole scenario was just the end of some hellish nightmare.
Logan must have sensed her worry through their bond and stooped down to wrap his arms around her shoulders from behind. Feeling his warmth and loving embrace chased away much of the queasiness and tightness in her chest.
“It’s going to be okay,” he whispered in her ear.
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All Katey could do was nod and squeeze her eyes shut against the tears that burned at the corner of her eyes. She wanted to believe him. She wanted to think that as long as she had him and her pack, having a child wouldn’t be so difficult. It was the next logical step in their relationship, but they hadn’t even been together for a year and she still considered herself to be fresh out of high school.
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She had her diploma, but there was plenty more she wanted to do. How would having a child complicate traveling with the pack? How would it affect her budding plans to go to college and get a degree? Would she have to quit her job? Would having a child financially cripple the pack?
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She had so many questions, so many fears and doubts. Her wolf was no help. It wasn’t scared at all, which was another sign that what she heard earlier was truly the heartbeat of her unborn child. In fact, the wolf was oddly content, perhaps even pleased.
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Logan nudged her head to get her attention and she opened her eyes. Blurry with tears, she blinked a few times before leaning closer to the toilet to peek at the little window on the pregnancy test.
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Two pink lines.
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(End of Excerpt)
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