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Chapter Fifteen

Wade

I awoke with a start, patting the side of the bed in a panic. My heart pounded, disoriented thoughts racing through my mind, and relief washed over me as I realized I was still pregnant. Our baby wasn’t here yet, and they hadn’t fallen off the bed. It was only a dream. Another freaking dream.

The dreams had been different each time, but for the past few nights, they had been about our baby. They were nondescript and blurry in the dreams—I couldn’t see them, not really. But they were there. I could feel them in my arms, see their blurry form, hear their little coos. I loved them so completely it nearly hurt, and I was happy. At least up until this most recent dream.

Usually, they featured mundane moments, like holding the infant while they slept or feeding them. But last night’s dream was different. Last night, they fell off the bed. I managed to drop our baby.

Now, I was wide awake, the sun not yet up, sweat pouring off me, my heart racing.

Kurt’s arm came around me. “Is everything okay?” His voice was still sleepy.

“Yeah. I just had a dream.” A shitty one, but a dream, nonetheless.

“Come back to sleep. You need your rest.”

“I will in just a minute. Baby is on my bladder again.” I climbed out of bed and padded to the bathroom. After getting a drink of water and taking care of business, I caught my reflection in the mirror. My eyes moved to the mark on my shoulder—the one Kurt gave me. Unlike the usual discomfort or anger I felt at seeing the marred skin on my face, this mark brought up an entirely different emotion: love.

When I climbed back into bed, I snuggled into Kurt’s arms. I didn’t think I’d be able to fall asleep again, but slumber came quickly. This time, it was dreamless.

Next time I woke, it was to the smell of bacon wafting into the room. Kurt was already up and cooking. Sometimes, I swore the man never let the sun beat him awake.

“I guess I was tired.” I spoke through a yawn, rubbing the sleep from my eyes.

“Yeah, you’re allowed to be. You’re growing a whole extra person in there.”

I laughed softly and instinctively rested a hand on my belly. It was hard to believe our pup was almost here. Gone was the dread I’d felt, the fear of not being able to provide for them nearly paralyzing. Now all I felt was excitement and anticipation. We were about to meet our child.

We’d gone back and forth about whether we should try to get to the pack lands and settled in before the baby arrived. I’d had dreams that the baby was coming soon, along with a few bouts of false labor, but we still had time—probably. Babies were far from predictable.

A not-so-small part of me worried that if we left, I might go into labor on the way, becoming one of those parents giving birth on the side of the road in their car. I didn’t want that for them. It was still winter, and they deserved better than horns honking being their first lullaby.

In the end, we decided to play it by ear, and, so far, that “by ear” meant we were staying. Theo assured us that the cabin was open for as long as we needed. But then again, he’d told me the room was empty. On that, I was glad he was wrong.

If he even was wrong. The more I got to know those two, the more I suspected they could and did do things most of us could not. Or was that magical thinking? It didn’t really matter which.

“What do you want to do today?” Kurt asked as I rotated my stiff ankles under the table.

If they could even be called ankles. They had officially reached the cankle stage.

“Whatever it is, I think I need some walking. Maybe it’ll help my ankles look less like…ginormous.” They would at least loosen up a bit.

“Well, Elias had an idea about that.”

“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” I grabbed a piece of bacon off my mate’s plate. I was starving this morning.

“There’s a town nearby with a Christmas market. I thought maybe we could go—and possibly find some things for the baby.”

I cringed, thinking about how I’d arrived here with absolutely nothing. “You mean like a car seat?”

“Exactly…and other things.” The other-things list had to be huge. So far, the baby only had the handful of things Elias snuck into our lasagna bag that day.

“Okay. That sounds good.” I thought about my dwindling funds. Forty-something dollars wouldn’t get much, but it was better than nothing. And Kurt planned to cover the rest, citing that’s what families did. Still…I felt bad.

After finishing breakfast and taking showers, we set out.

The drive was stunning, the road winding through snow-dusted trees. The small town we arrived at looked like a Christmas movie set. Storefronts were draped in garland and wreaths, windows filled with decorations. Along the sidewalks, little booths offered handmade crafts and local goods.

The first stop was the baby store. When he said Elias mentioned it, I assumed it would be a general store with some baby items, but no—it was entirely devoted to babies. There were products here I didn’t begin to understand the purpose for, even after looking at the display. Babies were tiny, and yet they had an entire store full of products devoted just to them.

Kurt headed straight for the car seats. He stood there staring, and I joined him, equally clueless. There was a section for newborns—that much I understood—but the rest was overwhelming. All the seats looked the same to me.

“Did you need help picking something out?” a salesperson asked.

I said, “No,” at the same time Kurt said, “Yes.”

Leaning into his side, I changed my answer and listened as the salesperson gave us a rundown of the features and safety standards. Most of it might as well have been Latin. We then asked what she recommended for something simple and safe. We should’ve led with that. A few moments later, they guided us to a model that seemed perfect.

“Is that all today?”

Kurt took my hand, intertwining our fingers. “No, we need some essentials. Mind if we leave that at the counter until we are finished?”

By “essentials,” he meant a mountain of items: clothes, cloth diapers with snaps—who knew those were a thing?—pacifiers, crinkly toys, soft-and-fuzzy sleepers, and swaddle blankets. With every addition to the pile, my nerves grew. This was going to be expensive…more expensive than any other shopping trip I’d ever taken.

Once the salesperson left so we could take “one final look around,” I voiced my concerns.

“It’s money we have, I promise,” Kurt said, kissing me softly. “When we get to the pack, I’ll show you what we have and what we don’t. Trust me on this—we’re fine.”

“I trust you with everything.” If he said the money was fine, I believed him.

On the way to the register, we passed a section of handmade stuffed wolves. One caught my eye—it looked just like Kurt.

“I think we need a daddy wolf.” I picked it up. It was $43.99 and with tax, I had just enough for me to buy it on my own. When Kurt reached for it, I shook my head.

“No, I want to get this for them.”

He nodded in understanding.

At the register, I paid for the wolf while Kurt handled the rest. The salesperson helped us carry everything to the car. To my surprise, guilt didn’t hit me over how much Kurt had spent. We were a team. What was his was mine, and what was mine was his. He wasn’t buying things to hold over me later, like others had in the past. He was providing.

Once everything was loaded, we strolled through the Christmas market, sipping cocoa, eating homemade marshmallows, and buying a Baby’s First Christmas ornament.

“Thank you for the wonderful outing.” I kissed my mate under the mistletoe hanging from the lamppost. “I love you.”

“As I love you, omega mine. As I love you.”

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