* * *
Three days after his parents left the cabin, Evangeline still hadn’t told Maddox the news about the baby.
It wasn’t that she didn’t want to, either. It was just… there didn’t seem to be any time.
After he beat his father in the dominance challenge, Maddox was named the new Alpha of the pack and, well, that kind of took precedence over her news. Everything would be changing now that he went from next-in-line to the head honcho. And, sure, throwing a pup into the mix was another huge change, but she had a couple of months before she would give birth.
Maddox was Alpha of the Eastern pack today.
Thankfully, since it was so close to Christmas, Terrence offered his son an early gift: he’d save the announcement and the official transition of power until after the new year so that Evangeline and Maddox could enjoy their first holiday as a bonded mated pair without interruption from the rest of their packmates.
Evangeline knew that Sarah had something to do with that. After the fight, she took her mate aside with the excuse that she needed to tend to his injuries. When they left the bathroom, Terrence said he would delay the announcement until early January before Sarah said it was time for them to go.
The next morning, though, her mother-in-law called convinced Evangeline to take a ride into town with her while Maddox was missing again.
Convince was the right word.
One of the effects of the crash where Evangeline almost died was a newfound phobia when it came to being a passenger in a moving vehicle. Part of Cilla’s cruel spell was forcing Evangeline to relive the accident over and over again until she’d been so twisted, she pushed the last vestiges of Maddox from her mind while experiencing pure terror at just the idea of being trapped inside of a car. Even now that the spell was broken, she couldn’t stop herself from imagining the truck flipping end over end, careening off the mountain—even if the trip was as simple as running down to the store.
Making matters worse? The
cabin was built on the same range of mountains where Maddox and Evangeline were forced off the mountainside. It was such a struggle to drive up to the mountain in the first place, Maddox had to sedate her before they could take the trip.
No drugs this time. She couldn’t, not in good conscience, not now that she believed she was pregnant. And the only reason why she even pushed herself to get inside of Sarah’s car was because her mother-in-law found a respectable OB/GYN who would see her on short notice.
When the human Evangeline nearly snapped the grab bar off the inside of the car because she was clutching it so tightly, she began to regret forgoing the drugs.
She got a frantic call about ten minutes into the drive. Turned out the bond alerted Maddox to her severely anxious and fearful state and he returned to the cabin to discover her gone. She only managed to calm him enough to keep from dashing after her when she confessed that she was doing some last-minute errands with his mother and she’d be home before he knew it.
It was the truth. Just because the main purpose of the trip was to visit the doctor, it didn’t mean that the two women didn’t make a few pit stops along the way.
In a bid to keep Evangeline’s mind off of her very valid phobia, Sarah did all the talking. Not only was she Maddox’s mother and a very honest and sharing woman, but Sarah had also been where Evangeline was, pregnant and unsure how to navigate these strange new waters.
She realized they were both at fault. Sarah explained that, while the early stages of a shifter pregnancy—and, just because Evangeline was human, the pup she was carrying meant it was a shifter pregnancy—had a female’s hormone levels through the freaking roof, that only explained the way she’d been feeling. Sad, angry, abandoned… she took a situation that normally wouldn’t have been too upsetting and turned it into the end of her mating.
Maddox, on the other hand, might have been subconsciously following his instincts when it came to his pregnant mate, protecting her to the point that he was neglecting her, the man he was should have known better than that. Especially since it was still extremely obvious that he was hiding something from her.
Which was kind of fair, she admitted, since she hadn’t told him about the baby just yet.
By the time Christmas Eve rolled around, Evangeline decided that one of two things needed to happen: she needed to either prove to herself that her mate still wanted her, or she needed to drop the bomb and let Maddox deal with it.
She couldn’t stop thinking about Sarah’s advice. Maddox would eventually figure it out on his own, but unless she basically jumped his bones, Maddox might not get the hint that all she wanted was her husband’s loving touch.
That night, when Maddox finished his patrol, she knew exactly what she was going to do.
Hell, she seduced him once. She could do it again.
Right?
5
Maddox thought his mate had turned in for the night.
With the excitement of Christmas being the next morning, Maddox put his worries off to the side for the evening, eager to get the chance to play Santa Claus—or, as he liked to think of it, Santa Claws. The big gift was too damn big to even think about bringing it inside of the cabin, but he quickly got the last of his presents together, adding them to the growing pile under the tree.
He was just propping the awkwardly wrapped bicycle up against the wall behind the Christmas tree when he heard the creak on the stairs and knew Evangeline wasn’t sleeping.
She also was wearing a coat.