I took a deep breath and filled my lungs with the loamy richness of a forest emerging from winter, the first buds appearing tentatively, as if still uncertain. Uncertain…good word. That was what I felt: uncertainty.

Uncertainty? Try abject, pant-pissing, stomach-heaving terror-

I took another deep breath. The scent of the forest filled me, called to me, like Clay’s presence out there, beckoning-

Don’t think of him. Just relax.

I followed the sound of a rabbit thumping nearby, upwind and oblivious of me. As I moved, I saw my shadow and realized I was still standing. Well, there was the first problem. I’d undressed, but how would I Change if I was still on two legs?

As I started to crouch, a pang ran through the left side of my abdomen and I froze, heart pounding. It was probably a random muscle spasm or a digestive complaint. And yet…

My fingers rubbed the hard swell of my belly. There was definitely a swell there, however staunchly Jeremy swore otherwise. I could feel it with my hand, feel it in the tightening waistband of my jeans. Clay tried to avoid the question-smart man-but when pressed he would admit I did seem to be showing already. Showing, when I was no more than five weeks pregnant. That shouldn’t be. Yet one more thing to add to my growing list of worries.

At the top of the list was this: the regular transformation from human to wolf that my body required. I had to Change, but what would it do to my baby?

My fear over losing my child came as a revelation to me. In the nearly three years I’d wrestled with the thought of having a baby, I’d considered the possibility that the choice wouldn’t be mine to make, that being a werewolf might mean I wouldn’t be able to conceive or carry a child to term. I’d accepted that. If my pregnancy ended, I’d know that I couldn’t have a child. That would be that.