Bear My Babies

Chapter 6

“Hon, are you feeling all right?” Tilly’s voice filtered into Melissa’s brain as a warm hand touched her chilled shoulder.

“What time is it?” Melissa asked trying to sit up. Tilly helped her.

“It’s after 5:30. You’ve been asleep for six hours. Bruce called to check on you. He told me to wake you up and make you eat.”

Melissa’s stomach made some very unique noises at the mention of food. As to what those noises meant, she wasn’t sure. The mention of food should have made her feel ravished, but at the same time she remembered the last time she had these injections. Projectile vomiting was not on her list of things to do today. She did a mental check in of her body going through each part. There wasn’t any part of her that wasn’t sore, but that was to be expected with the treatments she was going through. Hopefully, her body would start getting used to it after some time.

“Bruce told me to start you off easy to see what you can handle. I brought you some broth.” Tilly handed Melissa a Styrofoam cup.

Melissa tentatively brought it to her lips. The fragrant soup filled her nostrils making her stomach sound off again. Tilly smiled at her as she chomped on her sandwich. When Melissa sat the cup down, Tilly handed her a sandwich as well.

“You seemed to handle the broth like a champ. Now put some real substance in you.”

Melissa accepted the sandwich and scarfed it down. Her appetite came back with a vengeance. There was a fear that it would make another appearance but once she’d chewed it up she felt a lot better.

“That was so good. Thank you so much.” Melissa said guzzling a bottle of water.

The warm, filling food was making Melissa sleepy again. She wasn’t sure how that was possible since she had slept most of the day, but she recognized her body was adjusting to its new hormone state. If she was going to stay healthy and get through this with as little risk as possible, she needed to listen to her body and give it what it needed.

Melissa yawned as she snuggled into the blanket wrapped around her.

“Do you want to come to my house tonight?” Tilly asked her as she cleaned up the dinner trash.

“No. I’m going to sleep here tonight. I brought extra clothes just in case this happened. I’m so tired, I’m going to go right back to sleep.” Melissa plumped up the pillow and sunk into the couch.

“I’m worried about you, Melissa. You were as white as a ghost when Bruce brought you in here after the injections.”

“I’m fine, Tilly. I know you love me and you’re worried, but really, it’s okay. Now get out of here so I can get some sleep.”

Tilly leaned over and pulled the blanket further up Melissa’s body. “Your cell is on the table. I charged it for you. By the way, you and I are going to have a serious talk tomorrow. When I turned on your phone, there were twenty-seven missed calls from Nathaniel. Melissa, this is getting out of hand.”

“Can we talk about it later?” Melissa whined.

She left her cell off for that exact reason. She was surprised Nathaniel hadn’t shown up already. She had been avoiding her phone for days since Bruce and Tilly kicked him out of her office. Tilly was right, she needed to do something with Nathaniel, but it was useless to think about it tonight with her head in sleepy land.

“Yes, we can talk later. And don’t think you are going to get away with it. I’ll let you sleep. Call me if you need anything.”

“Will do.”

Tilly flipped the light switch, bathing Melissa’s office in darkness. The full moon shone through the window giving Melissa some light. She listened as she heard Tilly leave the office and lock it behind her.

As tired as Melissa’s body was, she couldn’t drift off to sleep. She grabbed her phone and dialed Thomas. She promised him she would call him about a time they could meet up and discuss the schedule. Her stomach flipped around at the thought of having s*x with Thomas to create a baby. Their baby.

If someone would have told her months ago that she would finally get the nerve to leave Nathaniel and agree to become impregnated by a were-bear for $50,000, she would have thought they needed to be institutionalized. Now here she was with the means to pay off her mother’s medical bills, and finalize her divorce. The weight Thomas had lifted from her shoulders by helping her financially was something she would be forever grateful for. The fact that he was also giving her a baby made him one of the greatest men she had ever known.

Her body felt warm and fuzzy as she dialed her bear savior wanting to talk to him just to see how he was doing. Normally, they talked every day. He would call and ask about the injections and she would give him the watered-down version. Their conversations didn’t last more than a couple of minutes and were very clinical, but for some strange reason, Melissa looked forward to them.

She felt bad that she had to let him go so quickly today. He seemed lighter and he sounded like he wanted to tell her something. In fact, Melissa tried to remember the whole conversation, but she was pretty sure he told her that he had some good news. Maybe he told his parents about the arrangement and they took it better than he expected.

Melissa pressed the speed-dial to Thomas’ cell and laid back down on the couch.

“Hello,” Thomas answered, but Melissa could barely hear him over the noise in the background.

“Thomas, can you hear me?”

“Hold on,” he yelled over the noise. The loud clatter of people grew softer and almost completely muffled. “Sorry about that. What do you need? Is everything okay?”

His voice was slightly slurred and Melissa wondered how much he had been drinking. Being a shifter, Thomas’ body processed alcohol faster than humans. For him to be slurring his words he must have been doing some impressive drinking.

“Everything’s fine. I told you I would call you later to set up a time we could meet and talk about.”

“C-day.”

Melissa smiled. The way he said c-day, she was certain he was grinning.