Sold To The Alphas: A BBW Paranormal Romance (21 page)

I sat up a little straighter in my rocker, curious. "What is it?"

Rose frowned, staring at the evergreens for a long moment or two before turning her gaze to me. "I'll get right to it. I can gather that you love both your men, and I don't want to complicate things any further than I'm sure they already are. But I want to give you a word of caution about Grayson."

I sat frozen, stunned, not having a clue what her "caution" could possibly be.

She continued on, still frowning. "His heart's in the right place; I have no doubt about that. But as you know, sometimes a big heart, and wanting what we think is best for someone can get us into a bit of trouble. It can make us do crazy things."

I knew that was true in my own case with Skye, but I couldn't believe it about Grayson.

"What do you mean? What has he done?"

Rose lifted her bony shoulders in a shrug. "Nothing horrendous. But in an attempt to make you see that you should move to start a new village with him, he has just this afternoon enlisted the help of a pair of packless enemy wolf shifters who just happened to be passing by. He offered them money to do a fake attack on the village tonight, saying that he'd make a good show of fighting them off himself, though without actually injuring them.

“In this way, he figures he'll make you start believing that a move to start a new village with him would be your best bet." Giving her head a little shake, Rose paused.

"Apparently, he, Chase, and the pack already dealt with all legitimate enemy wolf threats these past several weeks. But he felt the need to 'hire' two wolves to stage a little attack to drive his point home to you about the danger of living in Shadowfen."

I sat speechless for a long moment before I could respond. "How do you even know all this? Didn't you once tell me that you're powers of intuition really only allow you to 'see' things concerning pregnancies and fertility?"

"Well, that's true. My own eyeballs also allow me to see things, too, and my own ears allow me to hear. I came upon Grayson speaking to the two enemy wolves in the woods just a while ago. Being that they were all in human form, they couldn't pick up my scent, and being that I know how to move through the woods without making a single sound after all these years, they didn't hear me, either.

“I think I heard most of their entire conversation. Then after the two wolves agreed to do the fake attack and left, Grayson gave me a few more details about his thinking and plans as well. He talks to himself a lot when he thinks he's alone, you know."

I didn't.

With his black feathers glinting in the sunlight, Jack cawed a few times, shuffling his tiny feet on Rose's shoulder, as if impatient, and she abruptly stood.

"I promised this greedy little one that we'll make a cake with fresh strawberries on top for a treat this afternoon, and I'm afraid he wants us to get right to it. His sweet tooth really is quite uncontrollable at times."

Wishing me a good afternoon, Rose grabbed her walking stick, tapped her way across the porch and down the steps, and began making her way around the side of the cabin. Suddenly,  just before she disappeared from view, she stopped just as abruptly as she'd stood up on the porch.

Shielding her face from the sun, she looked at me with her mouth curving just a degree. "By the way...it's a boy."

I managed a weak smile. "Oh, for Flora?"

"No. For you. You're pregnant."

THE FINAL
CHAPTER

Rose disappeared behind the cabin, and I sat in my rocker on the porch, mechanically, unemotionally, contemplating her words. Surely, she'd misspoken, I figured. Or, I hadn't heard her right. Maybe the stress I'd been experiencing had simply made me hear what I'd wanted to hear. Words that I'd always dreamed of hearing some day.
You're pregnant
. Sure that one of those scenarios had to be the case, I didn't even get out of my chair right away. I made no attempt to call out to her and ask her to repeat herself.

But after several seconds, curiosity got the better of me. If Flora
was
really having a boy, if that was what Rose had actually said or had meant to say, I kind of wanted to know.

I hopped up from the rocker, flew across the porch, and leaned over the railing, glad to see Rose hadn't gotten that far. "Rose! Did you mean...did you mean to say that Flora's having a boy? That
Flora
is pregnant with a son?"

Rose stopped, maybe fifteen feet away from me, turned, and shook her head. "I'm sure you heard me perfectly fine. You're just having trouble processing what you heard. You're just having a hard time making sense of it."

Probably quite stupidly, I unconsciously ran a hand over my stomach right then in an attempt to make sense of what I'd heard. "Wait. So...you said Skye's pregnant, then? You said
Skye's
going to have a baby boy?"

Rose shifted her gaze to Jack. "Oh, dear. I told you she was going to need a moment to process. We can probably make our cake, come back, and she'll still be questioning what I said."

I was beginning to believe what she'd said, at least as far as the words, but not the truth of those words. I had a thought that chilled me to the bone, despite the warm spring air. As Rose began walking back toward the porch, I spoke in a voice probably barely loud enough for her to hear me.         

"When you said that there was some big joke to you in my fertility deception...when you said there was something so funny about it that it would make you laugh someday...is this it? Is this the joke? Is the joke that you always dreamed about you playing a trick on me for some reason? You always dreamed about telling me I was pregnant just to get my hopes up?"         

Playing a trick just to be cruel didn't seem like Rose at all, and I knew I was grasping at straws as to what her possible motive for telling me I was pregnant could be; however, I just couldn't accept that what she'd said hadn't been some sort of a sick joke. But nothing else made sense.

Though, I had to admit, neither did Rose getting her jollies from being cruel.          

She reached the side of the porch and stood looking up at me, shielding her face from the sun again. "I'd never do or say anything to hurt you, Rowan. I'm not playing any kind of a joke on you. You're truly pregnant. The baby is a boy. I actually wasn't going to tell you, and I wasn't going to tell you the joke, either. I debated back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.

“I was just going to let you find out everything and figure out everything on your own. Figured it would be good for you to discover everything at your own pace and in your own way.

“But then...." Shrugging, Rose paused. "I really don't know. Something just made me tell you. Maybe I thought you might be close to revealing your little secret to your two men needlessly...and now it really
would
be needlessly.

“You did what you did out of love for your sister, and I personally can't see what good could come from revealing what you did now. Skye believes she's at least possibly fertile, and she'll get a nice surprise when she soon becomes pregnant, which I think that she will. Your men will soon learn that you're pregnant and just as fertile as they always thought, so no need to tell them that you ever thought otherwise, either."

My voice came out in a near-whisper.

"But...how?
How
am I just as fertile as they always thought?"

Rose smiled, crinkling the outer corners of her eyes. "The joke. You see, the medical tests you underwent back in Greenleaf actually revealed you as completely fertile. But the visiting fertility specialist mixed up the names and files before you ever got to them. She accidentally switched the name sticker on your file with another young woman's. I've been able to see this all in my mind.

“So, when you switched your chart sticker with Skye's, you actually
corrected
your file to label yourself as fertile. You simply made a correction. It was only Skye's file that you made incorrect." After giving her head a little shake, Rose let loose with a peal of laughter so suddenly that she startled Jack, who flapped his wings, squawking. "Now, tell me that's not funny, Rowan."

I stared at her in disbelief. "I think it's actually the least funny thing I've ever heard. I've spent the past several weeks...basically in agony about my deception. And all the while...."

Rose shrugged. "Well, suffering builds character. But I did start to feel just a teensy bit bad about the information I was withholding, I have to admit. Maybe that's why I decided to tell you today. About your pregnancy, and about Grayson. I'm not one to tattle, but I just felt you should know that information. Not that he's necessarily up to something altogether bad, because like I said, I think his heart is in the right place.

“But I told you just because I think it's information you should have going forward, whether that's with him or Chase. Either way, you should know that Grayson is somewhat of a sneaky little devil, like you are. But for reasons of love."

With my mind now processing in overdrive, I could suddenly barely breathe. "Rose...whose baby is it? Is it Chase's, or Grayson's?"

She shook her head, making a few stray gray tendrils fall loose from her bun. "I really don't have a clue about that, Rowan, I truly don't."

"But how can you-"

"Just because I have psychic abilities as far as things pertaining to pregnancies are concerned,  that doesn't mean I'm able to intuit
everything
. I'm sure what I'm sure about, and I'm not what I'm not. For example, I have no clue if Flora is having a boy or a girl. No feeling either way. But with you, the feeling I have is unbelievably strong. You're having a boy. Yes, you are for sure. But as for who the father of this tiny boy is, I have no earthly clue. I swear that on Jack's sweet head. I swear it on his greedy little beak."

I studied her for a long moment, deciding that I believed her.

Jack cawed, seemingly with impatience, and Rose patted his glossy black head. "We must be off now if this greedy little fellow is to get his afternoon cake and tea."

"But, wait, Rose. Tell me that you're absolutely a hundred percent certain about all this...about me being pregnant. See, I'm not even late for my period."

"Are you sure about that?"

I supposed I really wasn't. Believing that I couldn't get pregnant, I hadn't really been paying very much attention to my cycle. But now that I was thinking about it, I supposed maybe it
had
been a good month or so since I'd gotten my last period.

"I guess maybe I could be a few days or a week late. And I have been kind of tired and... unusually weepy today,  even considering the stress I've been under."

Rose smiled. "There you go. Hopefully you'll be one of the lucky ones who never feels sickness."  Jack cawed again, moving one of his little feet on her shoulder in a movement actually resembling a stomp of impatience.

Rose looked from him to me, grinning. "He's my boy...and he actually acts like a little child sometimes, doesn't he? We'll be off now. I expect you'll have an eventful day ahead. Your men will probably call a traveling doctor to drive down from Ashcrest right away to give you a pregnancy test and take a sample of your blood to take back to their labs to determine paternity. Hope the technicians won't make you wait long."

With a wave of her hand, Rose turned and began ambling away, with Jack making short little caws that sounded like they could have been caws of happiness. I only watched them go for a moment or two before dashing inside the house, in a near-frenzy to take one of the half-dozen pregnancy tests Flora had given me several weeks earlier.

Not even ten minutes later, I sat on the edge of the bathtub, holding a fully-developed pregnancy test stick in my hand. I stared at it, my gaze flitting between the "control" line and the equally-dark maroon line just a half-inch below it.

It was really true. I was actually pregnant. Though, if my trembling hands were any indication, I was still in a bit of shock about the news. I didn't even trust my quaking legs to stand.

I was still sitting on the edge of the tub a few minutes later when Chase and Grayson both came racing into the cabin and found me, saying they'd gotten my text, and asking me what was wrong. I was still in such a state of shock that I hadn't even thought over who I hoped would be the baby's father. For some reason, I looked directly at Chase when I next spoke.

"I'm pregnant."

He looked from my face to the test in my hand, then back to my face again, with what I thought was the hint of a look of disbelief flickering across his face. I couldn't exactly tell what the look was. But I didn't even care. At that moment, I knew. I knew that for whatever reason, or multitude of reasons, I wanted him to be the father of my baby.

No matter if he insisted on remaining in Shadowfen to defend the nearby towns from enemy wolves, no matter if he had to be gone a lot, no matter what. I just wanted him to be the father. I suddenly realized that while I loved Grayson, I wanted my baby to be completely brave and selfless like Chase was. I wanted my baby to learn from his father to never take the easy path, even if that path seemed to make sense.

With his expression unreadable, Chase sank to his knees beside me, took the test from my hand, and stared at it. "You're...it's positive."

I nodded, tearful for at least the hundredth time that day. "Mm-hmm. It's positive. I'm pregnant."

A grin slowly spread across his face, though it was no match for Grayson's. He'd been grinning ear-to-ear pretty much from the second I'd first said I was pregnant. He now sank to his knees as well, then took my hands and kissed them in turn.

The next few hours passed in a happy blur of celebrating with Chase and Grayson and sharing my good news with Flora and Skye, both of whom were overjoyed. They insisted on cooking a celebratory meal and delivering it to my cabin so that Chase, Grayson, and I could have a private celebration dinner, just the three of us. During it, the two of them didn't speak to each other, but they didn't fight or give each other any hostile glances, either. They both simply stuck with speaking to me only, both of them clearly as excited and as happy as I was.

After the meal, a doctor from Ashcrest, whom Chase had called immediately after I'd shared my news, arrived to give me a second pregnancy test and take my blood to test for paternity, and the mood in my cabin became decidedly more serious.

I knew Chase and Grayson's thoughts had likely turned the same direction that mine had, which was toward the second test. The one that would determine who was my baby's father and who would become my mate for life.

After my doctor-administered instant pregnancy test came back positive, as expected, the doctor, who was a tall woman with salt-and-pepper hair, took my blood, then prepared to leave. "I'll get this blood sample back to Ashcrest right away, and we should have your paternity results by the morning. We'll call you directly, Ms. Evans."

I nodded and thanked her, wondering if I really wanted to know the results.

*

Shortly after the doctor left, two enemy wolves entered the village, howling and snarling, and Grayson glanced at me before dashing out of the cabin. "Another wolf attack. They'll never end here in Shadowfen."    

He'd glanced at me, though he hadn't actually made eye contact with me. Even if Rose hadn't told me what was up, I might have thought something was. In addition to the lack of eye contact, Grayson's expression was out of the ordinary. It almost seemed to me to be a look of embarrassment, somehow. Which, I thought, was understandable, considering that he'd not only set up a phony attack on his own village, but that attack had now turned out to be pointless.