Chapter 4: Heartbeat

My obstetrician was a wolf with a practice on the fourth floor of a Kirkland office building.

Her waiting room had a fish tank, three old magazines and one Alpha who had been sitting in it for forty minutes.

"You're early," I said.

"I'm punctual," Anselm said.

He had stood up the moment I came through the door, and the receptionist was trying very hard not to stare at his shoes.

They were handmade.

Everything about him was handmade, and none of it fit in a room with a fish tank.

"You're also in my chair," I told him.

He looked down at the chair he had left, and then he sat in the one next to it.

Wynne was on shift, so he was my only company, and I discovered that I didn't hate that as much as I had planned to.

The doctor called me in at ten past.

I lay back on the paper sheet with my sweater rolled up and the gel cold on my stomach.

Anselm took the chair beside my head and put both hands on his knees.

He had stopped outside the door and waited, and I had said, "It's your appointment too," which was term two.

The screen showed a grey cloud.

Then it showed a small bright flicker.

"There," the doctor said. "Eight weeks, and strong."

A sound filled the room.

It was fast, a rapid wet galloping, nothing like a human heartbeat, and I knew it at once for the sound of a pup.

I had been told.

I had read about it.

None of it had prepared me to hear it.

I turned my head to say something dry about the volume.

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