Sold To The Alphas: A BBW Paranormal Romance (22 page)

I'd either follow or stay with whoever was my baby's father. I didn't need any encouragement to choose to leave Shadowfen anymore, because it was no longer my choice where I wanted to go. The baby's paternity would be making my choice for me.

After giving me a quick kiss, Chase dashed out the door after Grayson, and I was left alone in my cabin. Thinking of Grayson's sheepish-looking glance, I realized I was beginning to feel sorry for him, and not in a pitying sort of way, but in a sympathetic sort of way. I, more than anyone, knew what it was like to concoct a half-baked scheme in an attempt to ultimately try to protect a loved one.

I knew that with his little ruse, trying to show me that Shadowfen was constantly under threat, Grayson was just trying to protect me the same way I'd tried to protect Skye. I understood that. I appreciated that. However, the feelings of sympathy I was now having for him seemed to be simultaneously eroding the feelings of love I felt for him.

Feeling sorry for him and loving him just didn't seem to go hand-in-hand. Which, of course, disturbed me, since there was a fifty-fifty chance he might be my baby's father. He very well could be my mate for life.

I decided right then,  that out of compassion, I'd never tell his secret, no matter what. I'd never mention it to him, or anyone else. I figured maybe it was like my secret, now no longer needing to be told. I couldn't see what good it would do anyone. If he was my baby's father, telling him what I knew would only embarrass him and start our new life together off on a bad note.

If Chase was my baby's father, there would certainly be no need to kick Grayson after the blow I was sure that scenario would deliver him. Not to mention that I realized ever telling Grayson's secret would also be outing Rose's spying activities, and causing anyone to have any hostile feelings about her was something I never wanted to do.

So, I'd never out Grayson. I decided I'd never out myself, either. Now I was glad for all my hesitation and interruptions that had caused me to never reveal what I'd thought to be the truth. I realized with amazement that if I had, especially if I had very early on, like I'd thought I should have, my baby would likely have never been conceived.

My baby
. I sat in the overstuffed chair in my living room, just marveling at the words. Just marveling at the fact that while I'd believed in miracles for other people, like Skye and Flora, I'd never had faith in ever getting one myself, but one had happened anyway. One that I knew was the biggest miracle I was ever going to experience.

Soon, just thinking about my baby, my son, a wave of joy rippled through me so intense that I laughed out loud. I supposed that what Rose had thought of as a "joke"
had
turned out to be pretty funny. Kind of. It was to me at that moment, anyway.

Chase was the first to return from the phony wolf attack, and he scooped me up and out of the overstuffed chair, sat down with me on his lap, and then gave me a quick kiss. "The enemy wolves have been dealt with, and the village is safe. There were only two of them."

I struggled to maintain eye contact with him. "Oh. Good."

He pulled me even closer, wrapping his muscular arms around me, and gave me another kiss before speaking again. "It was strange that the wolves seemed to have entered the village from the only direction where we were short on guards tonight. Strange, too, that Grayson insisted on taking them on single-handedly when there were plenty of us available to help.

“Also strange that he didn't kill the two wolves when it appeared that he easily could have. But instead, he just more like tussled with them before driving them back out the way they came."

To my relief, I was spared further comment by the arrival of Grayson himself. Because of the things Chase had been saying, I was beginning to wonder if Rose wasn't the only psychic in the village. Either that, or Chase was simply very smart and good at putting two-and-two together, which I realized was a wee bit more likely than him having mystical powers of intuition.

That night, despite having anxiety about what the test for paternity would reveal the next day, I actually slept fairly well. I was simply overcome by exhaustion, which something just told me might be my main complaint about early pregnancy, like Flora's was morning sickness. It was Chase and Grayson who tossed and turned all night, occasionally waking me up.

In the morning, the three of us ate a near-silent breakfast together, though
picked at
might have been more apt than
ate
. While we all pushed pieces of ham-and-cheese omelets around on our plates, I told Chase and Grayson that I maybe wanted to talk to each of them privately before
the call
came in. The one that would direct the course of each of our lives.

I  didn't even know exactly what I wanted to say to each of them. I just knew that I wanted a few last moments with each of them, before one of them became a person off-limits to me forever, after all the intimacy we'd shared. Even if that off-limits person was Grayson, which I was really hoping it would be, it made me feel strangely guilty to admit it.

I couldn't shake a feeling that I'd woken up with, a feeling that I shouldn't be gunning for one man to be the baby's father over the other, but I couldn't help it.

I was positive at this point that I wanted my baby's father to be Chase. I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him, in Shadowfen. However, if it turned out that Grayson was the father, I was determined to make the best of things.

Determined, but at the same time knowing full well that I might never be completely happy. There would always be a large part of my heart longing for Chase and missing him with every beat.

He and Grayson agreed to give me a few minutes alone with each of them, and Grayson stepped out on the porch, allowing Chase to speak to me first. The two of us sat down on the couch, and Chase took my hands, making me burst into tears.

I now knew for sure. Crying and exhaustion. Those were going to be my chief issues of early pregnancy.

I looked up at Chase, trying to smile through my tears. "Are you sure you even
want
to be the father of my baby? I have a feeling I might be like this a lot in the next few months."

He freed one of his hands from mine and wiped away a few of my tears with the pad of his thumb. "Do I
want
this? More than anything. All of it. You, your tears, any strange pregnancy cravings...all of it. I want to be your mate for life and the father of your baby more than I've ever wanted anything in my life."

Just then, my phone went off, startling me.

I grabbed it out of my pocket and immediately answered it with my voice wavering. "Hello?"          

The doctor who'd taken my blood the night before was on the other line, and she said some words to me, a lot of words actually, but I only really heard a few of them, connected to two different names. But the words and phrases I did hear, I was certain of. The first phrase that jumped out at me was: "Grayson North, excluded." The second phrase I really heard was: "Chase Gunner, paternity established with ninety-nine-point-nine percent accuracy."

The moment she stopped speaking, I thanked the doctor in a near-whisper and dropped the phone without even ending the call. Chase looked at me expectantly, his jewel-green eyes widening, but I couldn't speak. I could only cover my mouth with my hands, nodding, while tears streamed down my cheeks. Somehow, this nonverbal display seemed to tell him all he needed to know, and he pulled me into his strong arms, planting kisses all over the side of my tear-soaked face.

After crying against his broad chest for a short while, I finally found my voice again and lifted my face. "It's you. I got my second miracle. It's you, and I wanted it to be you. You're my baby's father. You're going to be my mate for life."

Now it was his turn to nod silently, and he did for a few moments with his strong, square jaw clenched and eyes becoming slightly pink before pulling me into his arms once again.

Several minutes passed before I realized that Grayson was still outside.

I glanced at the door, surprised to see it ajar. "I should go talk to him privately. Maybe you should stay in here."

Chase agreed, and after drying my eyes, I went out to the porch. But Grayson wasn't there. He wasn't anywhere near that I could see. I peered into the surrounding trees for a little while, wondering if he'd soon come out, but he didn't.

After a short while, Chase came out on the porch, pocketing his phone. "He overheard somehow. He just ran into Hunter in the lane and told him he was setting off toward Ashcrest and that anyone with a mind to could follow him. Then he shifted right away and raced away into the forest. I think this was for the best."

Thinking things over, I couldn't disagree, though this realization did little to alleviate a slight ache in my chest.

I didn't love Grayson anymore, and I knew it. However, I'd always feel affection for him, and I knew nothing could ever change that. I silently wished him the very best of everything, hoping he'd find happiness in the new village he planned to create.

That evening, after a celebration dinner in Chase's and my honor, thrown at the village hall by Skye and Flora, Chase and I walked down the darkened lane to his cabin, our new home together. We held hands and walked quietly while crickets chirped all around us, but suddenly, when we were almost to his cabin, Chase turned to me and spoke.

“I would’ve forgiven you, you know. Actually, I would have told you there was nothing to forgive, and there wouldn't have been. I know you did what you did out of love for Skye. You were just trying to protect her. You never intended to deceive anyone.

“The whole thing actually just made me love you more. I didn't care that we couldn't have a child together. We could have adopted, or tried fertility treatments, something.

Or nothing. I didn't care. I realized I just simply wanted you, whether or not you could ever give me a child."          

I'd stopped walking after the first couple of words he'd said, and now I just stood there in the lane, slightly open-mouthed, maybe just as equally shocked as when Rose had told me I was pregnant.           

With his eyes twinkling in the moonlight, Chase just grinned. "You talk in your sleep, Rowan. A lot. And as I'm a fairly light sleeper myself, well...this allowed me to catch a few things. Not many things, but...just enough.

“I strongly suspected from just about the very first night you came here. Then, when the Bloodfur's scenter scented Skye, who was
not
sold at your village auction, as fertile...well, I just put two and two together. I was certain. I never told Grayson, though. I just decided to keep your little secret all to myself."

"But...you never said a word. You never even hinted."           

"I have a feeling there's been more than a few little secrets floating around this village the past several weeks. I guess I felt like I had to play along with yours until you were ready to come clean to me. If you never had, it would've been fine. I wanted to still play along.

“I never want to be in the business of forcing the woman I love to reveal things she's not ready to or simply doesn't want to. Not to mention that playing along with the charade of trying to get you pregnant was...well, let's say it really wasn't that torturous of a task."

We soon continued on home after we mutually decided that even though I was now pregnant, we wouldn't stop acting like we were still trying. After a brief period of comfortable silence, I filled Chase in on Rose's "joke," the medical mix-up that was the cause of me thinking I was infertile in the first place.

Chase nodded, grinning, his handsome face making a striking silhouette in the silvery moonlight. "I've thought back to her intoxicated mention of her 'joke' a few different times today, and I figured a medical mix-up must have been the punchline. Though it's not so much laugh-out-loud funny to me as it is miraculous."

At that moment, as I held the hand of my mate for life with our baby growing in my belly, it was to me, too.

Over the next several weeks, many of the citizens of Shadowfen went to join Grayson down near Ashcrest, Hunter, Flora, and Lily included. I cried so much while saying goodbye to Flora and Lily that I went through at least half a box of tissues, which Chase dutifully held at the ready, rubbing my back every so often.