Chapter 45

Dominic

I woke up facing Mira. She was still asleep.

She lay on her back, one arm on her stomach and one flung across the emptiness on the other side of her.

She was dreaming, I knew.

Her brow was inclined upwards, as if she were catching sunlight on her face. Her cheeks were soft, her lips were partly open.

Her breath was deep in her chest.

She looked content, but not quite relaxed, like she still had a purpose in whatever pleasant dream she was having.

She braided her hair to sleep. Some loose strands hung around her temples, and my fingers itched to lightly brush them away.

I want to trace every line of her.

I felt the power and passion of my wolf flare within me, then closed my eyes to push it away for now.

Instead I rolled over onto my back next to her. I shifted closer to her while I slept, and now I gave her a few more inches of distance between us.

My movement must’ve shaken Mira. and she slowly blinked open her eyes.

She took in a deep breath as she looked at me, her eyes adjusting to the light.

She smiled.

I burned.

I smiled, then broke our gaze to stare at the ceiling.

“Morning,” Mira said, blinking at me.

“Good morning,” I said, “how did you sleep?”

“Mm it took a while to get there, but I think I just had the loveliest dream…” she trailed off, trying to conjure up her subconscious.

“You think?” I asked softly.

“The details aren’t there,” she explained, “but I can still feel it a bit, the tone or atmosphere, the color of it in some way.”

I hummed in agreement, enjoying watching her as she described her mind to me.

“Anyway, it was nice, or at least not a nightmare,” she said, and her eyes became downcast and distant.

We both took a breath and were silent, thinking about the living nightmare that could be happening to the missing girl in those testing facilities.

And, of course, what could’ve been happening to me.

Last night I had answered some of Mira’s questions, as best I could, about my time there, but so much of it is still unclear even to me.

It felt good at least to have someone else to share it with.

“You looked peaceful,” I told her.

“Watching me sleep again?” she said with a smirk.

“I can’t help if I wake up next to a beautiful person and I want to enjoy the view,” I said boldly.

Mira blushed, eyes widening and looking away.

“That’s kind of you,” she said shyly. “Is that part of the contract?

I frowned.

“Why do you say that?” I asked, in earnest.

“I just…” she hesitated. “it’s confusing sometimes, isn’t it? What we’re doing?”

“Yes,” was all I could say.

“I wasn’t always someone to think about my wedding, growing up,” she said.

I was slightly taken aback, but remained quiet.

“Or being married, or anything,” she went on. “By the time I was starting to be attracted to other people, I went through so much with my family that I think I lost years of being young and hopeful.”

“Some of your youth was stolen from you,” I said, staring back at the ceiling. “It can feel impossible to face something as an adult when you missed out on that time as a child.”

I heard her move but she stayed silent. I turned to see her head had fallen to the side as she looked at me, with that familiar curiosity in her eyes.

“You know all about it, too,” she said, her eyes glassy.

“The past, Mira,” I said with firm confidence, “cannot hurt us unless we let it.”

“Hmph.”

“We have the future,” I said, trying to lighten the mood. “We have each other.”

“I guess we do,” she said. “And do you think we’ll have any others?”

She raised an eyebrow and drew out the words others like a euphemism.

“Others?”

“Small others, little ones,” she added. “Doesn’t the contract have something to do with…children?”

My eyebrows went up on there own, and Mira noticed and chuckled.

“I know, I know, it’s stupid, we can talk about it later—“ she said awkwardly.

“No, it’s just, I —“ this was not the speech of an Alpha— “we can talk about it, of course, and we should.”

Silence.

“Okay…” Mira said, “well we should come up with a timeline first, just to think about when and how I’ll want to get pregnant. I know having a child does’t have to ruin my career— we’re past that misogyny, thankfully— but still I want it to be a good time for both of us especially as we enter new roles and have other responsibilities—“

“Mira, you’re rambling,” I put a hand on her arm. “Go back a second. What do you mean, how you will get pregnant?”

If I thought she was blushing earlier, I was wrong. She turned a new color of scarlet as her mind went to the mechanics of child-making.

“I didn’t want to assume…” she said, a bit breathless. “And there are other ways of course, I do work in medicine and obstetrics, if another method of impregnation that intercourse works better for us, as a couple, then that also requires a timeline.”

I had not thought that her desire to refrain from intimacy might last after marriage. Such a large part of finding a Mate was to leave a legacy of your children behind.

“If that is,” I stammered, “what you want.”

“Just want us to keep things…respectful, with the contract,” and was wrapping up. “We can keep our options open.”

“Right.”

She pulled herself up and out of bed, and I watched her begin her morning routine. Once she started getting ready, it was like I disappeared.

She was focused on her tasks and most likely shuffling through her schedule and her notebook setting plans for the day.

“I’ll be at the hospital for a while,” she said a bit later, as she made her way to the door. “Any plans for the day?”

“Actually, I might meet Lila,” I said.

I had a text form Lila when I got up asking if she could talk and clear some air. I wasn’t exactly sure what she wanted, but agreed so as not to cause any drama.

“Oh, okay,” Mira replied, suspiciously. “About…anything in particular?”

“Not that I know of, she seems to be making amends,” I said. “We’re old friends, and an Alpha needs all the long-standing allies he can get.”

Mira made a face that I could not quite interpret before she went out the door.

Mira

It was a busy morning at the hospital, and I was grateful for the distractions.

Talking with Dominic about childbirth felt both productive and mortifying, and I it was good to myself into work for a while.

“The princess is coming in today,” Cinda said as I arrived.

“Tessa, ultrasound, right,” I responded, looking over my schedule. Since I was now a member of the family, Tessa was back as my patient.

“Hopefully she is in a good mood,” Cinder snorted.

“Be nice,” I said playfully. “I’m going to pull those rose hips tinctures from the lab, they’ll be good for her cramps and nausea.”

The lab was a mess.

It was like someone had been in all night, into the morning, working on something desperately. Things were put away in a frenzy, and everything in the room felt like it was tilted.

I smelled something foreign in what would normally be a sterile place, as if a spell was lingering in the air.

My instincts told me something was wrong.

I went to the logbook to see who had been in there this morning.

One doctor had come in and out this morning, but I was focused on the name above it.

Someone had signed in late at night but never signed out.

It was Lila.