Bearing Hearts (City Shifters: the Den Book 2) (12 page)

H
e felt entirely drained
and completely unable to fuck her again after the fourth or fifth round. They paused for food and water, and he made sure Lucy ate and drank enough before he dragged her into the shower and pressed her up against the tiles. He washed her with his soap, so she smelled even more like him, and fucked her under the hot water until she made those breathy, needy noises that drove the bear insane. Little fox chittering noises escaped when he really got going, and he loved it. Loved every murmur, wanted to drag more out of her.

But she needed to rest. And he needed to pace himself. So he changed the sheets after they finally exited the shower, really only because the water went cold, and tucked her into bed with one of his t-shirts as a nightgown.

She fell asleep almost immediately, curled into his side, and Axel listened to her breathe until he, too, drifted to sleep.

Axel woke to the sound of Lucy gagging, then the toilet flushing and water running in the sink. He rubbed sleep from his eyes as she crawled back into the bed with a soft groan, an uncomfortable sound, and Axel propped himself up on one elbow to squint at her in the pleasant gloom of the bedroom. "What's wrong?"

"My stomach." She flopped on her back and closed her eyes. "I can't seem to keep anything down. I don't know what it is."

And for whatever reason, she didn't immediately curl up into a ball and smother herself in six layers of blankets. Her t-shirt rode up and exposed her midriff and the faintest tautness in her stomach. A bump. Exactly where... Axel held his breath.

Owen's jokes about doing math came back to him in a flash. Three months since Ragnar died, and Lucy couldn't keep any food down. His hand shook as he reached out and rested his palm against her stomach, right on the hint of a bump, and Lucy's eyes shot open. She gave him a sideways look. "What on earth are you doing?"

"How long have you been feeling ill?" He stared at where he touched her, where her heated skin rose and fell against his palm as she breathed. The polar bear knew. He knew by scent alone.

"A couple of weeks." Her blue eyes flashed in the dim light and she started to roll away. "It's probably nothing. Just stress."

"You're pregnant." He said it, hoping it was true and not true at the same time. Because if it was true, she carried Ragnar's baby. Not Axel's baby, not his young, but his twin's.

Lucy went completely still, staring at him, then slapped his hand away. "I am not."

"You are." He didn't move, didn't want to scare her or intimidate her. He wanted to comfort her, but the sudden wildness in her eyes warned him away. Not yet. "Lucy, you've been sick for weeks, you can't keep any food down, you're a little crazy..."

"News flash, I'm always like that." Lucy wobbled to her feet and tripped, and Axel leapt up to help her, terrified to his core that something might happen to the baby. His last link to Ragnar. The last spark of his twin in the world.

He tried to help her up but Lucy shoved him away and raced for the bathroom again, kneeling by the toilet as she retched and gagged and cried. Cried. Axel stood in the doorway and watched her, uneasy, and tried to think of what to do. He didn't know. He didn't know how to deal with this, or with her, or with the maelstrom of emotions that bounced through the apartment. He finally leaned to hold her hair back, waiting until she stopped gagging and just cried to hand her a damp washcloth.

She sat back on her heels, sniffling and wiping her face. "I'm not. I can't be."

And she looked at him in something like desperation.

Axel took a deep breath, then carefully guided her to sit on the edge of the bathtub. "Just a second. Just stay here."

He retrieved his phone from the bedroom and texted Kaiser to send Josie downstairs. Axel knew Kaiser wanted his mate pregnant, so if anyone in the building had a pregnancy test, it would be Josie. And maybe Josie could talk some sense into Lucy. He lingered in the living room, staring at the bedroom door. Too scared to face Lucy, not knowing what to say and not knowing how he felt.

Kaiser didn't bother to knock, only shouldered open the door and gave him a dark look as he and a sleepy Josie walked in. The alpha bear was not pleased. "You'd better have a good reason for waking me."

"You didn't have to come," Axel said under his breath. "I just needed Josie’s help."

"And you're a fucking idiot if you think I'd send my mate into another bear's den in the middle of the night. Now what the fuck do you want?"

Axel ignored the alpha and looked at Josie, suddenly terrified. "Lucy's pregnant. Probably. Do you have a test?"

They both went still, then Kaiser sighed. He turned on his heel and walked back upstairs, grumbling the entire time, and Josie yawned. "Yeah. We've got a bunch. Where is she?"

"Bathroom," Axel said, and pointed.

Josie gave him another sideways look. "So why are you out here?"

He hesitated, then lifted his hands in the most helpless gesture he'd ever made. "I don't know what to do. Or say. Or think."

She rubbed her eyes, frowning at the hint of light in the bathroom. "When did she figure it out?"

"She didn't. I did." Axel ran his hands through his hair, wanting to tear it out at the roots. "It just — she was sick and when she lay down, I saw her stomach and thought maybe... I just said it. She freaked out. I don't know what to do."

Josie shook her head and muttered something about idiotic men under her breath. She snatched the pregnancy test from Kaiser's hand as soon as he walked through the door, then turned on her heel and marched into the bathroom. Axel started to follow but Kaiser caught his arm, shaking his head, and pointed Axel to the couch. "Nope. You wait."

Axel hated every second, staring at the doorway to his bedroom, and wondered if he was wrong. Maybe she wasn't pregnant. Maybe she was just tired and achy and nauseated from something else. A flu, maybe. He wanted to pace. Wanted to break something.

Kaiser yawned again and leaned against the kitchen island. "Your brother's baby?"

"Gotta be." Axel couldn't drag his eyes away from the smidgen of light. The toilet flushed. They just had to wait. A minute or two, tops. "She loved him."

"And if it is? What then?"

Even the thought of what he would do couldn't break his focus. "What do you mean, what then?"

"If she's your mate but she's pregnant with your brother's baby..." Kaiser trailed off, then snorted. "That's a little daytime television for us, brother."

"She's my mate," he said, and the polar bear roared his agreement. "And he was the best thing in my life for most of it, until I fucked it up. This baby is like a piece of him. A small piece of him, and a lot of her, and maybe the best thing to happen to me in a long time."

"Good for you," Kaiser said, so soft Axel almost didn't hear him. "How does she feel about it?"

"What?" Axel frowned as he finally looked at the alpha.

"Come on, man. You've got her dead boyfriend's face. Is she okay with that, or are you a painful reminder of other things?"

"I don't know." She said it didn’t matter, that he didn’t remind her of Ragnar, but doubt lingered in Axel’s heart.

"Talk to her about it later, Axel. Don't just assume you know what she's thinking." Kaiser sighed, as if he knew from personal experience. "Each woman is a mystery, brother. Be gentle."

Axel held his breath as Josie appeared and nodded for them to walk into the bedroom. Lucy, looking stunned and a little sick, sat on the edge of the bathtub with the used pregnancy test in her hand. He stared at it, trying to decipher the result from across the room. What did two lines mean? Was it a happy face? A minus or a plus?

"What does it say?" he finally asked, gripping the edge of the sink so hard his knuckles cracked.

"It's positive," Josie said, when Lucy didn't move or speak and the silence stretched until Axel nearly flew apart. When he opened his mouth to speak and no doubt say something stupid, Josie held up her hand to cut him off. "But since the store bought ones can be wrong, I'll call my doc tomorrow and see about getting her an appointment for a proper blood test. Maybe an ultrasound. Lucy thinks it's been three months."

Axel nodded, desperate to touch Lucy and reassure her, but he didn't move. "I'll go with you."

"No." Lucy looked up for the first time, her cheeks pink. "No way."

"Why not?" Axel edged closer, the bathroom too crowded with three adults inside and Kaiser occupying the doorway.

"Because the next time I take my pants off in front of you is
not
going to be in a gynecologist's office," she said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

Kaiser snorted, and Lucy froze, her entire face going red. She cleared her throat. "Not that, um, there will
be
a next time that I take off my pants, uh, in front of you, but —"

"I'll go with you," Josie said. She smacked Kaiser's arm, no doubt in payback for making Lucy blush, and yawned.

"I'll drive you." Axel didn't wait for an objection or acceptance, just bulled on. "I'll wait in the lobby if you want. I want to go. I want to be there."

Kaiser grumbled but Lucy took a deep breath, looking at Axel with blue eyes that seemed duller, somehow. "Fine. But you sit in the waiting room."

"Good enough." He waited as Josie hugged Lucy once more and whispered something to her, and he waited as Kaiser herded his mate back upstairs and said something about more practice for those tests they bought, and then he sat down on the bathtub next to Lucy. She still hadn't moved, staring at that damn stick. "Are you okay?"

"It never even occurred to me." She shook her head. "I can't — I can barely take care of myself, Axel. How the hell am I going to take care of a baby?"

"With help. With family." When she shot him a dirty look, Axel caught her free hand in his and squeezed, wanting to comfort her. "I don't know anything about babies, Lucy. I don't. They scare me — they're so small and helpless and fragile. But Josie does. Owen does. Kaiser's good at the father thing. If you stay with us, with — me, there's already a village to help raise the baby. You're not alone."

She took a shaky breath and slowly leaned against his side, her head on his shoulder, and her voice came out small and uncertain. "You're not just saying that because of the code?"

"No." Axel turned his head enough to kiss her temple, drawing her into his lap so he could really comfort her. "I'm saying that because I love you."

Lucy looked at him, blinking, and her hands started to shake as she dropped the pregnancy test. "You what?"

"I love you." He took a deep breath and bumped his nose to hers, breathing with her. "I've loved you since the first time I saw you, walking into traffic, and I've loved you even when I wanted to throttle you, and I'll love you always. Always. No matter what you do or say or choose, if you go or stay. Lucy, you're my mate. You're the best part of me. I thought I'd never feel whole again, after I lost Ragnar, but you... You're everything."

She sniffled again, pressing her face against his neck. "Thank you."

It didn't matter that she didn't say she loved him. He could live without that. She'd just found out she was pregnant with his brother's baby. Maybe love was a bridge too far for her. And it was late and they were tired and she had that meeting hanging over her head the next day. Axel didn't want her to go, especially pregnant. He squeezed her tighter and nodded toward the door. "Ready to go back to bed?"

Lucy sighed. "I don't think I'll be able to sleep, Axel."

"That's okay." He stood, carrying her to the bed after turning off the light in the bathroom. He settled her in the bed and slid in next to her, making sure she had enough blankets and pillows, and Lucy turned toward him to curl up against his side. Axel inhaled from her hair and nearly lost himself. She was safe and his, and she knew how he felt. She would stay. She would have Ragnar's child and Axel would still have a piece of his brother in his life. Ragnar's heart beat on, inside of Lucy.

Their breathing synced as they lay in the darkness, and in the quiet as Axel dozed, nearly asleep, Lucy whispered, "I love you too."

He smiled, even though she couldn't see it, and held her tighter.

I
got up early
, even as Axel snored next to me, and retrieved my stuff from Kaiser's apartment. I'd woken frequently throughout the night, periodically touching my stomach as I wondered at the turn of events. Pregnant. But I got my backpack and my clothes and returned to Axel's apartment, and even tried to make breakfast as I paced through the kitchen. Nervous energy made my hands tremble, and I couldn't sit still. Meeting with Nick seemed even more dangerous, knowing I probably carried Ragnar's child. I'd been an idiot not to see it, but in the intense activity and travel of the previous three months, I hadn't been paying enough attention to see the signs.

The toast burned twice before I gave up and pulled a box of cereal down from the shelf. So maybe Axel wouldn't get a fancy breakfast in bed, since I couldn't concentrate long enough to keep things from getting ruined. And I knew better than to attempt something like eggs or bacon or anything that might splatter and catch on fire.

I jumped as a commotion rose up in the bedroom, and Axel fell through the door, wild-eyed and crazy-haired. He caught sight of me in the kitchen, though, and stopped short. "There you are."

I held up the box of cereal and tried to smile. "I'm making you breakfast in bed."

He snorted, shaking his head. He ran his hands over his face and patted his hair back into place. "Go sit down," he said, yawning, and shooed me over to a stool near the kitchen island. "You okay to eat eggs? What about steak or bacon or something?"

"I don't really know until I smell it," I said. I leaned my elbows on the island and my chin on my hands so I could watch him being all domestic. It was the last thing I expected from him, really. He didn't strike me as the chef type. He might have mastered take-out and ordering delivery, but I hadn't expected home-cooked meals. "I guess give it a shot?"

"Steak it is," he said. Axel retrieved a butcher-paper-wrapped package from the fridge and set it aside, checking the stove and skillet and fussing with spices. "Besides, I'm out of eggs. What are you doing up this early?"

"Couldn't sleep really well, even though someone kept me up awfully late." He smirked as he glanced at me over his shoulder, and I arched my eyebrows. Nothing like masculine pride in a mate well-loved. "So I went upstairs and got my stuff from Kaiser's guest room. I figured I'd be staying down here for a while. At least until we sort things out."

"Sort things out?" He said it slowly, as if weighing each word, and concentrated on unwrapping the beef. The scent of raw meat made my stomach turn, and I covered my nose. Axel didn't look at me as he dug through a drawer full of utensils. "So you might leave?"

"Well," I said, taking a deep breath. "I don't know if this is the best place for a baby. There's a lot of noise, and people coming and going, and you guys are kind of a target. I don't know if —"

I jumped as he retrieved a meat hammer from the door and started beating the shit out of the steaks. The muscles stood out in his shoulders as he pummeled the meat, and little bits of red flesh flew off the counter and stuck to the backsplash. I blinked. So maybe there wouldn't be much steak left.

Axel put the hammer aside when the steaks were paper-thin, and turned to face me, though he leaned back against the counter. "I see."

"You could come with me," I said softly. "I don't have a job here, I don't know anyone, there's no reason to stay except you. You could come with me and we could find some place that suits us both, far away from BadCreek and the drama and the danger."

"I can't leave the den," he said, shaking his head. "I owe Kaiser my life, and I have responsibilities. Owen is struggling, he needs help, and I can't walk away from him when he's hurting."

"Oh." I admired the loyalty, even if it complicated my plans. Or forced me to make plans when normally I preferred to fly by the seat of my pants. Not that that had worked so well in the past year. "Well, we can just see how things go, I guess."

"Right." Axel turned back to put what remained of the steaks in the skillet, and the hiss of cooking meat filled the kitchen. My nose wrinkled, and I debated just pouring myself a bowl of cereal. Puffed wheat might taste like cardboard but at least it didn't make me sick.

I glanced at my phone and considered telling him that the meeting had been moved up. I’d promised Kaiser, after all, to tell them about the meeting. Nick texted to meet around lunch, rather than later in the afternoon. Smith knew, and Lacey knew, so they'd be there to protect me. Since Axel knew I was pregnant, he'd never be able to stay out of the way if things didn't go exactly as planned. I didn't think I could risk it.

"There's something I should have given you earlier," I said, then stopped. I cleared my throat to try to get rid of the knot of tears, and tried not to be grateful that he continued facing the stove. Just in case things went badly wrong that afternoon, I wanted to know I’d given Axel everything that Ragnar left behind. I didn’t want him to find the letter in my backpack and think I’d been keeping it from him on purpose. "I had it with me, but I didn't know — Anyway. Here."

I set the envelope on the island, closer to him than to me, and waited. Axel lingered until the steaks needed to be turned to glance back, expression still lined with irritation, but froze. He must have recognized the handwriting on the creamy paper. It just said 'Axel' but that must have been enough.

My heart beat an unsteady rhythm against my ribs as I studied the envelope, not him. "Ragnar gave that to me, in case something ever happened to him. I didn't think I'd find you before I found his killers, honestly. But it's yours."

Axel stayed where he was, not touching it. He stared at the envelope as if it were a venomous snake that could fly and might leap through the air to bite his face. "What does it — what does it say?"

"I don't know; I haven't opened it." I rubbed my lower back and shifted on the stool, debating moving to the lawn chairs around the kitchen table. Not that the vinyl webbing would be any more comfortable than a wooden stool. "It's for you."

"What do you think it says?"

He still hadn't moved. I reached for the envelope, ready to tear it open and end his misery. "I don't know, let's —"

He grabbed it away, smoothing the rumpled paper where I'd almost torn it, and he stared down at the envelope as if it could save his life. "Wait. Just wait."

"Okay." I didn't want to push him to read Ragnar's letter, since there was no telling what my partner had written. I had an inkling, or at least a suspicion, since I knew how much Ragnar missed him. But whatever drove the twin brothers apart for over a decade had to be some pretty serious shit. "But don't let the steaks burn."

He cursed and fished the meat out of the pan, sliding it onto a couple of plates so he could test how done it was. He still eyed the envelope askance, but left it in the middle of the island as he carried the plates to the table. I hopped down from the stool and rubbed my butt a little as I hobbled over to the table, and caught Axel watching. I flushed but didn't care, since he was the cause of at least some of the discomfort. "Next time, warn a girl before you start with the spanking."

Axel paused, staring at me with a heated gaze, and leaned down to kiss the side of my neck. He grumbled a little as his palm slid over my stomach and around to my hip. "Next time, don't be such a bad girl."

I shivered, caught in his gaze, and for a wild second considered poking the bear again. But we didn't really have time for that, since it was already past ten and I still needed to prepare before meeting Smith. So I only tugged on the waist of his sweatpants, instead of just pulling them down and helping myself. "We'll see. Tonight, though."

His grip tightened on my side and I figured that might have been too far all on its own, but he only kissed my neck again and patted my butt as he shooed me to the chair. "Don't let your mouth write checks your ass can't cash, Lucy. Eat up. You're too thin."

"Don't worry about what my ass is cashing," I said under my breath, though I couldn't hide a smile as he took the chair next to me and handed me a fork. "Besides, I won't be thin for long."

I'd never been small but the thought of pregnancy and all the extra weight had me a little nervous. Axel started eating, trading the gristle and fat from my plate for tender pieces from his, and shook his head. "Good. Build up that ass of yours, give me more to spank," he said, eyeing me.

I laughed into my cup of juice and concentrated on eating. For the first time in weeks, food didn't make me want to barf. He didn't say anything else, and I knew he had to be thinking of the letter from Ragnar. And I knew with just as much certainty that I didn't want to be around when he read it. I would start crying and never stop, if it said what I thought it said.

So I finished my steak and leaned over to kiss him. "I'm going upstairs for a shower, since your towels are still awful and you haven’t washed the new ones. Then I'm going to meet Smith. I'll see you later this afternoon."

He caught my wrist and pulled me into his lap, wrapping his arms around me. He rested his chin on my shoulder and murmured, "Damn it. I still don’t like this. I get why it has to be this way, but I don’t like it. I don’t trust that Nick guy, I don’t trust Lacey to get to you in case something goes wrong, I don’t trust anyone. For God's sake, please be
careful
."

"I will." The fox felt remarkably playful after consuming some protein, and she insisted we bite him. So I nibbled on his earlobe, drawing a bear purr from the big man, and hopped off his lap. "And if anything happens, I'll turn into a fox and run away."

"Make sure you do." He took a deep breath, then concentrated on the rest of his steak. "I need you to come back, Lucy. And keep your phone with you, so we can find you. Just in case."

"I miss the good old days, when stalkers actually had to get out and about. Damn technology makes it too easy for you," I said. But I didn't entirely mind. There was a degree of comfort in knowing that Axel would know where I was just by a blinking light on his phone as it geo-located mine. As long as I could turn it off later, of course. "But yes, I'll have my phone."

As I headed for the door, I looked back and caught him studying the sealed envelope. I wanted to reassure him, but the words stuck in my throat. I managed to force out, "I'll see you this afternoon," and fled before there was a chance I would blurt anything else out. My guilt grew with every stair I took.