Kelley Armstrong - Otherworld Chills

“Paige?” Savannah rapped at the door.

“Hold on.”

“Unless it takes you ten minutes to pee, I’ve been waiting long enough.”

“It didn’t work. I have to try again.”

She sighed and slumped at the door, like she used to when she was a teen and suspected I’d retreated to the bathroom to avoid a fight I didn’t care to continue.

I took out a second box—a different brand—pulled out the kit, and started over.

Another ten minutes later, I was sitting on my bed with Savannah, both of us staring at two strips, bearing identical results.

“I’m calling Lucas,” she said.

I reached for her arm. “No, he’s in a meeting. This isn’t …”

I was about to say it wasn’t important. But it was, wasn’t it? So incredibly important. And yet …

If we’d been trying for a baby, like Savannah and Adam, I wouldn’t have made that call. I’d have sped to him, and stood outside that meeting door, eagerly waiting. That was how it should be.

I felt the pain of that, the loss of that, the realization this was an experience I’d never know, the joy of running to my husband and throwing my arms around his neck and screaming, “We’re having a baby!”

This would be a very different conversation.

“I know it’s not urgent,” Savannah said. “But you need him. Now. If you can’t call, I will.”

I kept hold of her arm. “Not yet. I … I need to see Dr. Mendez. This must be a mistake.”

“Two positive tests plus morning sickness plus a late period. It’s not a mistake. I know this isn’t the answer you want, Paige, but you’re the one who’s all about the proof. This is the proof.”

I took a deep breath. Then I told her what Benicio said last night. When I finished, she said, “God, he can be such a shit-heel. I’d say I can’t believe he’d suggest that, but I can totally believe it. And then …” She trailed off and looked at me. “Wait a second. Right after you refuse, you find out you’re pregnant? That’s way too coincidental.”

“Exactly. If I knew of a spell that caused pregnancy, I’d be thinking he was guilty of more than suggesting it.”

“But there’s not. There’s magic to help get pregnant, like your mother used, but there’s nothing …”

She trailed off again, gaze going distant as her hand rested on the bump of her stomach. I’d noticed her doing that lately, resting her hand there. I had no doubt Savannah was ready for motherhood. She’d never been the most mature young woman, but she wanted this and would be mature for her baby. Now, seeing her instinctively connecting with her unborn child, I felt a pang of grief for that, too, that I had a child in my womb and didn’t feel that way, feared I never could.

I blinked back tears and said, “If that look means you’re wondering whether there is a spell, there’s not. Pregnancy still requires a sperm and an egg.”

“Oh, I’m sure there’s plenty of that going on. Probably even more than when I lived at home, when you guys napped so often I worried you were suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome.”

“Yes, but there’s no magic that can get me pregnant. A seventeenth-century spell can’t counteract modern birth control. Which is why I need to see the doctor who prescribed me that birth control.”

I’d been at Dr. Mendez’s office for hours. It began with a pregnancy test and other samples, all sent to her in-house lab. Supernaturals have enough anomalies in our blood that she needs a dedicated lab, also staffed by supernaturals. Yet even putting aside everything else, processing my test took time. Savannah stayed, no matter how often I insisted she didn’t need to.

Finally, Dr. Mendez called me back in for the results.

“I’m sorry, Paige, but yes, you are definitely pregnant.”

I managed a wan smile. “Not the usual way you need to give that news, I bet.”

She took a seat. “Actually, if patients get their results from me instead of the drugstore, it’s usually because they’re praying that drugstore test is wrong. It rarely is. In your case, I had to check because of your contraceptive implant. The chance of it failing is so incredibly low, even I thought there must be a mistake.”

“So I’m the lucky one-in-ten-thousand chance of failure?”

She shifted in her seat. “Actually, no. You were as likely to get pregnant as any other sexually active, thirty-four-year-old woman.”

“What?”

“There’s no trace of the birth control in your system.”

I shook my head sharply. “That can’t be. The implant has been in for five months, and I can’t be more than six weeks pregnant. That means it was working.”

“No, it wasn’t. You’d have had residual protection for a while. After that? Well, you are thirty-four. Pregnancy isn’t going to happen overnight.”

“But … you’re telling me … the implant …”

“Isn’t working. At all. I’m going to remove and analyze it, because I have no idea how this could have happened, and you can certainly sue the manufacturer, but I know that’s the least of your concerns right now.”

“Have there been other reports of it failing? Is there some way to check now?”

“I did while you were waiting. There’s nothing. Somehow, you received a birth control implant that was, for all intents and purposes, nothing more than a placebo.”

I texted Lucas as I left the doctor’s office. As much as I hated to interfere with his day of meetings, Savannah was right—I needed him. In possibly the only thing that went right that day, he’d not only finished early but was waiting at home.

Savannah dropped me at the condo door. Before I went in, she said, “I won’t tell Adam if you’d rather I didn’t. Whatever you decide, that’s no one else’s business.”

I nodded.

“And whatever you decide?” She caught my hand as I climbed out. “It’s not my business, either, but I’m behind it. I’m behind you , Paige. One hundred percent. Always.”

I stopped then and leaned across the seat to give her a hug, a tight one, my face pressed against her hair so she wouldn’t see my eyes welling up.

I walked into the condo smelling tea. Not just tea, but my favorite blend, one I had to order because I could never quite duplicate it. I was long out of it, too—it’d been on back order for months.

When I walked into the living room, Lucas was there, pouring tea into a china cup. On the end table was a two-tiered tray of English tea pastries and sandwiches. And where we’d once had an ordinary love seat, there now stood one with dual recliners.

When he caught me staring at the love seat, he said, “That is the one you wanted, isn’t it?”

“It’s exactly the one I wanted. The one I’ve been searching for. But where …” My gaze went to the tea. “And also where …?”

“Connections,” he said. “Quite possibly the only advantage to being a Cortez.”

I looked from the love seat to the tea to the pastries, and I managed to say, “Savannah called you.”

“Hmm?”

“Savannah called you. To say I wasn’t having …” I faltered. “Wasn’t having a good day.”

A wry smile. “She didn’t. No one needed to tell me that. After that dinner with my father and a day of shopping, I decided you could use …”

He waved at the tableau, and my tears welled again, this time threatening to burst into full waterworks. Lucas hurried over, bumping into the table hard enough to bruise, and saying, “What’s wrong?”

“We … we need to talk.”

“Savannah. Is she all right? The baby …”

“The baby’s fine. Every—everyone’s fine.” I stumbled over that last bit, but it was true. There was nothing wrong with me. Just nature, taking its course by leading me off course.