Chapter 13 - Kenzie

"I'm what? You can't be fucking serious. Run the tests again."

Forrest and Willow sighed in unison, and my heart tried very hard to burst itself through my rib cage.

"We ran them twice, MacKenzie. I don't know what to tell you. I mean…You'd know if you met the prerequisites for this, so to speak."

Willow eyed me, shrugging slightly as she pinched her lips together.

Everything was spinning, and if I weren't already sitting down, I would have fallen into the nearest chair. I mean, sure, I met the one condition necessary for my… condition , but that had only been once.

Well, a few times. Fucking heat.

"I…You're really sure?"

Forrest nodded, taking my hand. The movement felt miles away, and my stomach, which had already been flip-flopping, lurched. I didn't know what this meant. I didn't know what I was supposed to do about it. It was like Grayson… Oh, fucking hell .

"Yes, honey. And we actually noticed a few other things we wanted to talk to you about."

I raised my brows at him. "Other things? Besides the fact that I'm pregnant?"

Willow stepped forward, rolling her eyes. Her bedside manner was much weaker than Forrest's, and I was about ready to tell her to cool it with the judgmental stares.

"You have V?lva blood. But I'm guessing you knew that," she said.

The term was still so new to me. Still, I was with Senna. I'd started to piece it together with Kaiden when we considered what we remembered about our grandmother. She had no wolf, and she'd always been a bit…prophetic.

"My grandmother, I think. Kaiden and I…She didn't have a wolf. And she'd…say things."

"That tracks from what we've found in your blood." Willow held up the printed data like it was supposed to mean something to me. "It's on the matrilineal side."

"Great. I don't really see how that's important right now. I'm apparently carrying a child after having gone into a sudden heat. How did that even happen? The pregnancy rates are supposed to be wildly low. But we've had both Senna and Kit get pregnant now."

Forrest held up a hand as Willow sighed, stepping in for her because he could clearly see how upset I was.

"That's just the thing. Senna is a V?lva, and Kit's human DNA reacted differently to the combination of wolf DNA. It looks like…well, it looks like the pregnancies were more likely to occur because it wasn't just the standard wolf-wolf combination. It's the differences that make the outcome more successful. Stronger."

I shook my head. "Wait. You're telling me that our genes, wolves, it's actually better to mix things around with others? I would have thought cross-species pregnancies would be impossible. Not more likely."

Willow held up the paper again, pointing to the rows of genetic information displayed.

"Here, look. This is the standard. A wolf-wolf child mix. It's Forrest's DNA."

"I am far from standard, but go on."

We both rolled our eyes at that one, but Willow continued. "This is yours."

When she pointed to the next row of information, even with my limited knowledge, it was possible to pick out the elevated levels displaying in my genes that weren't in Forrest's.

"There's more, umm, whatever those things are."

"Genetic markers." Willow nodded. "Yeah, and they're markers for health and fertility. They're higher in you. They'll probably be higher in Senna, Kaiden and Kit's child, and your child."

"My child."

The earth was just a giant bowl of soup, and the sloshing waves were threatening to get me hurling up the nothing I'd had for breakfast. I tried to breathe through my nose, but I was starting to hyperventilate. Everything was too much, too fast.

"I still don't understand. Grayson rejected me. How did the heat even go through? I…I…Oh fucking hell."

I hung my head between my legs, trying to right myself. Heat was roaring through my body, and at the back of my mind, I heard that small voice again.

Because that's how it has to be.

As the words washed over me, their diminutive energy so different than my wolf, it occurred to me that it couldn't possibly be her speaking. The voice was something else. But what? Could it be…

"Wait, wait, wait." I forced myself to sit up the moment a cool ice pack was placed on the back of my neck and sighed. "Can you tell me anything about the baby? Could you see their DNA?"

Willow shook her head as Forrest fanned me. The blistering heat in my veins backed off, and I heard it again.

Too soon.

"Unfortunately, it's too early in the development for us to check. I don't want to risk you miscarrying because I'm nosing around for a sample."

How the fuck was this tiny voice able to tell what was going on outside of me? And how was it possible that I already knew where it was coming from?

"I think they're talking to me. In my head."

Forrest and Willow stared at me blankly before the scientist finally spoke up. "Who's talking to you?"

Grumbling, I moved the ice pack from the back of my neck to my chest.

"The baby." I was met with more stares. "Ugh, I know how it sounds. I think it must have something to do with the V?lva thing."

Willow sat back in a chair near one of the long tables just behind her. There was an array of books set up from all of us studying them, and Forrest took up a spot next to her.

"There's nothing in the wolf legends that talks about a baby being able to communicate with its mother in utero." She cocked her head as I frowned. "Still, there's nothing in them about a V?lva being able to stop time, so…It's possible."

"We'll do more research into it, and when the time comes, we can do some tests on the amniotic fluid to learn more about the baby."

A tinge of nervousness hit me that was coming from both myself and somewhere else.

"I'm not sure the baby is thrilled about that idea."

Chuckling to myself, I let myself hang forward in the seat again. This was all just too insane to be real. I was probably going to wake up, and this would all just be a very vivid dream.

But when I looked back up at Willow and Forrest, I was still just met with their sympathetic expressions.

Nope, not a dream.

"What in the absolute hell is my life? How exactly am I supposed to have a baby with a wolf who's rejected me? Oh, and don't think I've forgotten about that nugget. What's going on with the heat and the mating thing? Have you learned anything about that?"

Willow turned to Forrest, gesturing to him like Vanna White from those reruns that Kit showed me. He cleared his throat, gathering up some of the books he'd been looking at and handing them to me.

"So, it's complicated, but from what I can see in your blood tests and what you've described, it looks like this source of information fits the best."

He pointed to a passage in the book, which had been left open to the correct place when he handed it over.

"Give me the gist of it, Forrest. I'm not in the mood to read."

The healer offered me another comforting pat on the knee, and I rolled my eyes a little, giving him a smile.

"Well, it looks like rejection pains—the entire condition, really—can be temporary. There's not much on it because there's not much on mates. They're supposed to be so rare, but I have a hunch that has more to do with our isolation from each other and other beings than their actual likelihood."

"So, it's another case of the isolation being responsible for bad fucking luck? We could find mates, breed more successfully, and what? Go into heat whenever the mood strikes if we were all together?"

Forrest nodded with a shrug. "Potentially, yeah. This says that it was recorded several times in the ancient packs that a rejection burn could be healed if the mates worked out their differences and repaired it."

"Wait, that suggests that mates don't have to end up together. That it's not guaranteed."

He nodded again, and when I looked over at Willow, she just shrugged.

"Don't look at me. I'm the scientist. I look for precedence regarding physical evidence and documented accounts. Not legends."

"No, Kenzie. I don't believe that mates are guaranteed. I think it's like every other relationship. This same source text also suggests that mates can be developed over time. Like it might not be clear for years, but then suddenly someone just knows because the affection and connection has grown."

I thought about Grayson, the way we'd been around each other for years before I knew he was my mate. I'd always just assumed it was because we were both so young, which I supposed could still be part of it. Still, this new information suggested that Grayson and I had become each other's mates.

Because we wanted it that way.

And if it was rekindling…

"Does the book say how the bond is strengthened again after a rejection?"

"Yeah," Forrest pointed to a section of the page, reading off the words he'd apparently already memorized, "it says,

The burn of rejection—our worst pain among V?lva and shifters alike—can travel with a wounded mate for the rest of their days, but it need not be a permanent fate. Rekindling the spark of connection can develop when one or both of the mates recognize the other as theirs once more. Continued time and intercourse with one another brighten the dim light. Experiencing a flux together—the giving and receiving of sacred aid—together with the mating bite will eradicate it."

My jaw dropped, and that swelling nausea kicked up again. Still, even as I felt like everything was crumbling around me, I couldn't help but notice that the pain I'd been feeling since Grayson's rejection was all but gone, the barest hint remaining.

"The ceremony," I mumbled, sliding the book back into Forrest's hands.

"The ceremony? What do you mean?"

"I was revealed as Grayson's mate during that ceremony. I saw something. A…light. It was impossible to ignore, and even for just a second…I admitted to myself again that Grayson was mine. That started this."

"And it looks like," Willow added, "that being around a mate can pull out a wolf's heat, particularly if emotions are running strong."

A sharp bite of laughter left me—humorless and exhausted.

"Well, fucking great. I was staying in his room because of the Alpha trials. And my heat started. Great. Amazing. Fantastic."

My sarcasm wasn't lost on either of the other wolves, and Forrest put the book back on the table and took the now-warm ice pack from me. Willow stood up, walking across the room to her medical equipment.

"We'll keep looking into things for you, but I think it's pretty clear by now how all this happened. If you don't want to go through with—"

"Whoa," I held up my hands to stop her words, "I'm not there yet. I'm still processing, thank you."

"Sure. Whatever you need, MacKenzie."

It was still a bit tight, but I knew this was Willow's attempt to be supportive. I did like her, and I'd been glad that these two had been around for Kit's pregnancy.

"Thank you. I…Fuck, I think for now, I just need to think about everything. Just…don't tell Grayson. I'll do it myself. When the time is right."

Willow walked over from busying herself with her devices, and Forrest came up along my other side.

"Of course. Doctor-patient confidentiality."

Forrest eyed Willow before rolling his eyes. "Gods, you're like a robot, Willow. We won't say anything, hon. This is your news. Just promise to keep all my juicy secrets when I start spilling them."

I laughed, shaking my head. Forrest was something else, but damn, he was a good healer—a good friend . And it had been a minute since I let anyone be that for me, even Kit.

"Thank you both. I, umm, I guess I'm going to try and eat. I still haven't, and I've heard from Senna that if you don't, the nausea just gets worse, so…"

"Small bites like crackers. And water." Willow nodded, helping me out of the chair.

Nodding at her, I grinned. "Sure thing, doc. I just need to find the kitchen in this maze of a house."

***

I wandered a bit through Kaiden's halls before I found the kitchen. Nothing in particular sounded good, so I just grabbed an apple and some bread. They were astoundingly basic, but it felt like the best option for my stomach, which was still a little shaky.

When I'd eaten the few slices with a bit of butter and most of the apple, I began to notice that the din of several other voices that I'd heard down the hall picked up. They were getting louder, especially so, and I was curious why everyone would be making such a ruckus.

Mate.

The word came to me from both my wolf and who I now had to assume was the embryo growing inside me. As unsettling as that still was, I knew there was very little I could do about it. Plus, it was very hard to consider the alternatives to being pregnant when I could actually communicate with said unborn spawn.

Because yeah, you're a spawn right now, squirt.

"Ugh," I sighed, "fine. I'll go check it out."

Getting up from my chair, I left the kitchen and followed my senses until they led me to a stairwell near the back of the building that went down just a foot or two. The air in this corridor was so much colder than the rest of the house, and something about it made my hair stand on end.

This was the Collins compound before my brother took over. I knew that Terrance had been a particularly ruthless bastard when he was still alive. Something down here had stained the essence of the house. It was like foul energy still coated it, particularly down this hallway that was leading me to the sounds of impassioned shouting.

What's going on down here?

I kept going, and when I arrived at the massive room that opened up at the end of the long corridor, I was genuinely shocked by what I saw. Both packs, Edwards and Williams, were gathered in this enormous space, crowded around something that looked like a fighting pit.

The walls were constructed from logs and recycled wooden crates, and in the center was Grayson.

"What the hell?"

Brutal was a nice way of putting his current interaction with Choal. They were beating the ever-loving shit out of each other, and it didn't look like either of them were going to let up any time soon.

It was challenging to track their movements, the two of them charging and dodging and slashing out at each other. My heart leaped into my throat as I watched Grayson be pummeled by Choal's fist. Blood stained Grayson's mouth, smearing over the Williams candidate's knuckles, and my mate collapsed to one knee.

"No."

I was too far away to do anything useful, and no one could hear me. Moreover, I was frozen to the spot, my feet unmoving like they'd grown roots that jutted into the earth. My hand went to my stomach, and nausea flared again. In the back of my mind, a twinge of concern for whatever was inside me kicked hard.

Don't leave us.

The thought was ridiculous and so stupid of me. But there was nothing to be done about it. It's how I felt, and I wasn't ready to examine what that meant. Hell, I wasn't ready for any of this, and I was pretty damn sure that I'd make a terrible mother—especially if Grayson left me alone to do it by myself.

Standing there like a statue, all I could do was watch as Choal went after Grayson again. However, something happened as my mate knelt there, something that neither Choal nor I were prepared for.

Grayson channeled his wolf, and I thought for a moment that he was going to shift. But he didn't, not entirely. His body pulled forward the claws and fangs he needed, sprouting with a layer of fur as his body elongated. Still, it wasn't a total shift. Grayson looked like those odd versions of werewolves depicted in human stories, and my eyes went wide as I stood there unblinking.

Too fast to track from so far away, Grayson launched an attack at Choal right as he leaped into the air to take him down. There was a terrible tearing sound, and then Choal collapsed to the floor.

Red oozed over the cement, coating Grayson's claws, and his low growl made it all the way across the room to me. He'd won whatever this fucking fight was, and he'd done it by calling on his wolf in a way no one had ever seen before.

I was sure that Grayson was about to kill Choal. He stood over him, saying something I couldn't hear, but then he stepped back.

The shock permeated every part of me as Aspen came into the middle of the ring and lifted Grayson's arm, declaring him the winner.

How…how did he do that?

Nothing in reality seemed sure anymore, and then I saw Grayson's eyes scanning the crowd. Movement finally returned to my body as I turned on my heel and fled the room. I wasn't sure why I was running, but I just couldn't be seen by Grayson right now. I had no idea what I wanted to say to him or how I was going to tell him about the pregnancy.

So, like I'd been doing a lot lately, I ran.