by people who turned into lions and wolves and occasionally went around killing people if they thought they deserved it.
I froze, staring at the bathroom floor. People who turned into lions and wolves. Dodge turned into a wolf, and if it was his baby... I lurched to my feet and headed for the living room. They’d said at the restaurant that shifters were born or turned. Born.
Deirdre looked up as I approached, a hint of concern crossing her expression. “You’re looking a little crazy, Percy. Sit down for a sec and we can talk.”
I couldn’t sit but paced back and forth, grabbing my hair as I tried to keep the thoughts in my head in order. It was just too much to process. Too much to understand and plan for and deal with. There wasn’t a clear solution to this problem. There wasn’t a checklist to deal with having a baby who was part wolf and the dad probably didn’t want to be with me. “I... What am I going to do?”
She massaged her temples. “Well, we should probably...”
I couldn’t wait for her to finish before the words burst out of me and tears blurred my vision for the third or fourth time that day. “Dodge doesn’t want me. He doesn’t want anything to do with me. He hasn’t said a word or visited since I left the hospital. How am I supposed to tell him this? He’s going to be trapped and he already hates me. It’s not like he signed up to be a father.”
“Well, about that...” she started again, holding a hand up to catch my attention.
But there was too much going on in my head. Too many new problems. Panic swirled up until I started to feel it in my chest, and shoulders, and guts, sending my hands shaking and my heart fluttering. Tears streamed down my face. “And – and it’s Dodge’s baby, one hundred percent. There’s no other possibility. And he’s a shifter. He was born that way. His mother was a shifter but his dad was human. Does that mean the baby will be human because I’m human? Or does it matter? Am I going to have a - a - a puppy? A wolf? How the hell will I find a daycare that can deal with a kid who turns into a puppy?”
And I turned to stare at her, as if the witch had all the answers.
Deirdre stared right back, then clamped her lips together and clapped a hand over her mouth.
My heart sank. She knew something. She had bad news, I saw it in her eyes. But I couldn’t ask.
It wasn’t until she convulsed and a squeaking sound escaped that I realized she was laughing at me. Deirdre fell back against the cushions, wheezed, “Doggie daycare?” and started howling with laughter.
“That’s not funny,” I said.
She kept laughing, though at least she covered her face with a pillow to try and stifle it.
“I’m serious,” I said. But she’d cracked through the shell of panic that had encased me. I heard how crazy I must have sounded, ranting at her about daycare for the baby who was still just a ball of cells. My voice wavered as I added, “It was a serious question.”
Which just set her off again into gales of laughter, huge hollering shouts that dragged a smile to my face even when I desperately wanted to frown. So I just gave up and collapsed on the couch across from her. A giggle worked its way up my throat and then I was laughing just as hard, though it mixed with quite a few tears. We were both incoherent for far too long.
She finally exhaled and pulled the pillow off her face. “Damn. Thank you, I haven’t laughed that hard in years. My abs are killing me.”
I rubbed my jaw. “I didn’t mean it to be funny. It’s a serious concern. What the hell do they do about kids? Do the kids just spontaneously turn into animals? What if they get stuck as animals? Is it a hormonal thing, so it happens when they’re teenagers? I don’t have any knowledge in this area and I’m pretty sure there isn’t a ‘What to Expect When You’re Expecting a Werewolf’ book.”
Deirdre chuckled and propped her feet up on the coffee table. “I’m not the best resource on this, hon. I’m a witch. I know what witch kids are like, and you should count yourself lucky you’re not having one. But there are plenty