Lydia smiles at me gently again as she helps me up and lays out a few of her dresses on the bed for me to choose from.

“Oh, it’s a fancy event, huh?” I tease as I look at all the dresses that I note are carefully chosen from a selection of very loose bohemian styles.

“The boys want to do something nice for you,” she says with a glint of excitement in her eyes. “Which one do you want to try on first?”

I point to a dark purple dress that looks soft and sparkly, and then I start to pull my T-shirt up over my head to try it on. Before I even get the shirt off, with my face still stuck inside of it and unable to see Lydia’s expression, I hear her gasp.

I immediately worry that someone has come into the room with us and that perhaps Remus and his pack have already found a way inside the house for some sort of surprise attack. I pull my shirt off over my head quickly, because it is closer in the direction of coming off than getting pulled back on; and I look at Lydia’s shocked face.

But she isn’t looking at the doorway or at anyone else. She’s looking at me. And when I look down to see where her eyes are fixated, I see why.

How had I not noticed how much

fuller and rounder I had become just these last couple weeks?

I guess being in one of the boys’ soft, oversized T-shirts all the time has made it easier for me not to feel the restriction that my normal clothes would have made me feel around my waist. I stand there looking down at my very obviously protruding stomach and my swollen breasts and realize that not only have I started to show way earlier than I would have expected, but that I am showing a lot.

Too much.

A horrible, all-encompassing terror overtakes me.

What if it isn’t a baby at all, but a monster growing inside me?

I’m left standing, frozen, as suddenly it isn’t just Lydia’s eyes on me.

As if that moment wasn’t already full of enough shock; Rory, Marlowe, and Kaleb show up at the door. Their faces, eager to escort me to this impromptu celebration, fall as soon as they catch sight of me.

They are frozen as I am, staring at me in a stunned awe that is a mix of concern and amazement.

Finally able to move, I cross my arms over my chest, feeling embarrassed and exposed for some reason … even though the boys have definitely seen me naked on more than one occasion and I am as comfortable with Lydia as I am with my own mother. More comfortable, actually.

I look down at my stomach, feeling sick.

“Lydia,” Marlowe says as the three of them start to slowly walk into the room toward me. “She shouldn’t be that big so soon … should she?”

The thought of monsters crosses my mind again, and my skin begins to crawl. My head snaps up to Lydia, hoping for reassurance.

But I find none.

“I don’t know,” Lydia answers, making the pit in my stomach drop further. “I’m going to call the doctor.”

The doctor.

This is a discussion we’ve had several times without actually discussing it. From what I’ve gathered, the shifter doctor that Lydia knows isn’t as sympathetic to our kind—the turned kind—as we’d like. Any mention of him before this has been immediately quelled by one of the boys, or sometimes, by Romulus himself.

For Lydia to suggest calling him now, it only confirms my growing fears.

Something is wrong.

“No,” Kaleb says as he stands close to me and puts his hand on my plump belly. “I don’t want anyone touching her.”

“I agree with Kaleb,” Rory says. “We can’t trust anyone to be around Sabrina right now. There are too many people that want her dead.”

All three boys stand around me, with each putting one hand on my bare stomach. This time the baby isn’t calming down, it’s doing somersaults inside my abdomen. The boys’ eyes are wide with astonishment as they watch their fingers being pushed up and down by the movement beneath my skin.

Lydia seems amazed too.

I just feel like I’m going to pass out.

Tags: Eden Beck Wolfish Paranormal
Source: readsnovelonline.net