Free Night Season by Eileen Wilks Page A

sometimes a story. Walks to the park and pushing in the swing.
    She turned abruptly and started across the street.
    "Oh, stay and fight." He swung along beside her. "You're longing to belt me one. I might even let you."
    "Why are you here? Why aren't you at Headquarters drooling over your new spell?"
    "I'm stalking you."
    That stopped her.
    "Isn't that what they call it when a man follows a woman who wants him to get lost?" He freed one hand by tucking the crutch against his side and pushed at the small of her back. "Move it. There's a car coming."
    The car was three blocks away and cruising sedately, but the street probably wasn't the best place for this discussion. Cynna started walking again. "Maybe I will belt you one."
    Cullen didn't say anything. For the next half-block he didn't say a word, and neither did she. The crutches didn't give him much trouble. He kept up easily.
    Strangely, the jittery wires started to loosen. Maybe it was the walking. Maybe it was the inevitability of the conversation they were about to have… dream monsters were supposed to go poof if you turned and faced them, weren't they?
    Her monsters weren't going away, but panic had dulled to dread. She'd done plenty of things she dreaded. She could do this, too. Cynna jammed her hands back in her pockets. "You're waiting for me to admit it."
    "Yeah. I am."
    Cynna dragged in as much air as her lungs would hold, letting it out in a whoosh. "I'm pregnant."
    "I know," he said gently.
    Oh, dammit, she hated it when he used that voice.
    Cynna walked faster, but she couldn't leave her thoughts behind. Or her feelings. Or him . He kept pace beside her, silent.
    "It's given to us to know," Cullen had told her that night, their one time together, his eyes shiny with tears. Tears that had scared the crap out of her.
    Lupi knew it if a woman they had sex with got pregnant, but this knowledge was one side of a cruel coin. The other side was that it didn't happen often. Magic played hell with procreation, and limited fertility was the reason behind so much about them. Their determined promiscuity, for one. The way a Rho's son became heir, for another. Maybe even their looks. Cullen's physical perfection was an extreme example, but Cynna had never met an ugly lupus. The male of the species—and lupi were all male—were like peacocks or butterflies, their beautiful plumage designed to attract mates.
    Mates, plural. Always plural with a lupus.
    When Cullen had informed her that she was pregnant, she'd known about only one side of the coin, the low-fertility part. She hadn't believed him about the "special knowledge" side… partly, yeah, because she'd been hip-deep in denial. But dammit, she was on the pill. Cynna might take chances in other areas, but never about birth control. She'd been so sure she couldn't be pregnant.
    For the past five weeks she'd waited for her period to show up. Finally she'd bought the damn test. "You're happy about it," she said, bitter.
    "Happy is such a thin word… Cynna." He moved in front of her, stacked his crutches against his side and gripped her shoulders in both hands. "This changes everything for me, too. Everything."
    "But you wanted this. You wanted a child. You said you'd given up hoping."
    "Yes." He dropped his hands. "After so many years… ah, I'm older than I look."
    "I figured that." Another top-secret bit of lupus lore: they aged much more slowly than humans. "You can shock me with your true age later. Better believe I'll ask, but not now."
    "What are you going to do?"
    "I don't know. God, how could I know?" She threw up her hands, her voice rising. "Until this morning I didn't believe it. Even when I saw the tester, I couldn't believe it. What could God be thinking? I've got no fucking business raising a kid. I don't want to raise a kid!"
    That truth slipped out and hung there between them: she didn't want his child-to-be. Cynna felt queasy. She put her hand on her stomach. Something was growing in there right this