Of Mistletoe and Mating (Claws Clause 1.50)

It didn’t matter that, like Terrence, Evangeline towered over her. Sarah rose up on her tippy-toes, her arm a steel band around Evangeline’s waist as she led her all the way through the cabin, into the room furthest away from the back exit.

Evangeline wondered if that choice was on purpose when her mother-in-law finally let go and, to her surprise, moved so that she was standing directly in front of her.

Sarah’s golden shifter’s eyes seemed to shimmer in delight as she locked her gaze on Evangeline’s middle.

“Congratulations, dear.”

“Congratulations?” echoed Evangeline. “For what?”

“For your pup. And I know, I know… it isn’t proper etiquette for me to say anything before you and Maddox make an announcement, but I can’t help myself. This is wonderful! I—”

Sarah might have kept on talking forever if Evangeline didn’t squeak out one word that cut her mother-in-law off mid-sentence:

“Pup?!”

“Oh, yes.” Sarah gestured at Evangeline’s belly. “Pup. Baby. Whatever you want to call it, you’re having one. And I’m gonna finally get to be a grandma, so I guess I’ll congratulate me, too. What an absolutely wonderful Christmas present!”

“What are you— are you kidding me? I’m… I’m not pregnant.”

“Sure, you are.” As her wide smile drooped, Sarah cocked her head slightly, her dark blonde bob falling almost to her shoulder with the motion. Her eyes flashed. “You knew that already, though, didn’t you?”

Um, no. Evangeline didn’t.

She must have given it away because her mother-in-law let out a soft chuckle as she straightened. “Well, now you do, I suppose. It’s fairly recent, I’d say, since I didn’t notice at Thanksgiving, but you’re definitely plus one for Christmas, sweetie.”

Evangeline blinked. Not at how Sarah put it—Maddox’s mother had al

ways had such a colorful way of putting things—but at just what she was saying.

That, after the last few months of trying, Evangeline was—

She bit down on her bottom lip, wanting it too badly to believe it so readily. “I don’t know. Maybe I should get a pregnancy test or something.”

“Oh, goodness. You don’t need to do that. This,” Sarah said, tapping the side of her nose with a manicured finger, “is the best test around. Trust me on this one. Maddox knocked you up and good.”

Really?

Finally?

He had warned her from the first time he came inside of her without a condom that pups were a huge possibility. It had everything to do with the make-up of a shifter. Mating was an instinct specific to paranormal, most notably shifters. A biological urge to continue the species.

It was also a biological quirk. Because a shifter couldn’t reproduce with anyone but their mate, the body didn’t respond until they found their mate. The males didn’t get hard until then, and they were shooting blanks until they claimed their mate. Female shifters didn’t ovulate or release eggs until they started to bond with theirs.

Evangeline was human. Maddox, though? A full-blooded alpha wolf shifter, he was surprised the first time he caught Evangeline’s scent and absolutely shocked the first time his cock came to life.

And, okay, it had taken them some time before the two virgins were ready to mate. They were careful, though. Due to her insistence that they marry before he fully claimed her, Maddox always wore a condom to keep him from giving in to his instincts to bite her and breed her and bond her.

Last summer, after her memories started to come back from the awful witch who stole them, Evangeline realized they were married. They were mated. They’d been bonded, too, even if Cilla’s spell did its best to sever the tie between them.

And finally, after she slipped into his room one night and seduced him, they claimed each other. Maddox, by giving her his bite the same time he gave her his seed. And Evangeline, who offered her heart and her body and joyously took everything he offered her.

He had warned her that first night that while mating and claiming cemented the bond, his seed was just that: something he planted deep inside of her every time he came, with the hope that a new life would start.

It hadn’t.

Well, until now.

Evangeline felt a bubble of hope rise up within her. She’d never admit to anyone—especially not her mate—but she’d been worrying about that. Over the last few months, she kept waiting for the inevitable, growing more and more frustrated when it became clear that she hadn’t gotten pregnant yet. She understood that it wasn’t automatic, and that it wasn’t always easy, but she thought… well, Maddox was a shifter. She was his mate.