ANASTASIA MULBERRY
Even though she had just awoken from an hour and a half nap after having done nothing but sit in front of her laptop all day, Anastasia woke up groggy from sleep.
Slightly disoriented, she blinked back the sleep and propped herself up against the headboard and glanced around the room, trying to figure out where she was.
After a few moments of rubbing the sleep from her eyes, she took in her familiar surroundings and sighed before slumping back against the headboard behind her. Instinctively, her hands trailed up to press down gently on her stomach, almost as if making sure that the baby was still in there. She internally snorted at the notion. As if the unborn baby would just go crawling out of her vagina while she was asleep.
It was laughable, and the baby – or rather, pup – seemed to agree as it began kicking, causing her to wince slightly.
“You’re hungry, huh?” She cooed down at her belly, laughing softly as the baby kicked again. “Yeah, me too. Come on, let’s go see if your daddies have some food for us.”
When she felt another kick, Anastasia chuckled through the wince and slid off the bed, aimlessly looking for her shoes on the ground as by this point, having just started her third trimester, she could barely see her own feet over her stomach.
During her pregnancy, Anastasia had visited the pack house, now more frequently than before as Raphael and Justas wished for the baby to be around wolves and its own kind as much as possible, but this was the first time that she had fallen asleep here. However, she faintly remembered falling asleep outside on a patch of grass in front of the pack house where they had all enjoyed a picnic with some other wolves, and could only assume that one of her friends had transferred her here for better comfort and for that, she was grateful.
Taking the two flights of stairs down slowly, she kept her hand firmly planted on the handrail for added support. As soon as she reached the ground floor, she could hear distinctive chatter coming from the end of the hallway which opened up to a living room, and she followed the sound with a small smile on her face, looking forward to the great cooking of the pack chef whom she had grown very fond of these past couple of weeks.
Her mouth watered just at the thought.
“And sleeping beauty awakes!” Raphael announced before he she even entered the kitchen, having sensed her to be awake the moment she opened her eyes.
“Oh, stop teasing her!” Linda, the pack chef lightly chastised the wolf with a slap of a spoon to the back of his hand rested on top of his mates, and Anastasia couldn’t help but guffaw at the sight. “Give her a chance to sit down and get some food in her before you get started with all your nonsense.”
“Thank you, Linda.” She grinned up at the woman before rounding the counter and pressing a soft kiss to her cheek, gladly accepting the steak dinner which had been especially reserved for her.
Anastasia absolutely adored steak. Heavy on the meat and light on the vegetables, just the way she liked it.
“How did you sleep?” Justas asked from over his cup of coffee, lightly massaging Raphael’s hand as the wolf was still pouting about the light tap.
“Well.” She smiled at him before raising both her knife and fork, getting ready to tuck in. “Were you the one that put me in bed?”
Justas merely nodded, a man of few words.
“Thank you.” She smiled gratefully at him before turning to Raphael and pulling a less than pleasant face at him, one which both burst out laughing out while Justas’ lip merely twitched in response.
Light conversation travelled around the kitchen as Linda left for the day and a few other wolves joined them. Anastasia added a few words here and there but mostly, she focused on her meal as she found herself to be far more starved than she had previously believed.
Pausing midway for some water, she glanced up and smiled at the sight of her friends.
Raphael had leaned over and laid his head against Justas’ shoulder whom had his arm around his mate, resting his hand on his hip. Bowing his head, he leaned to brush his lips against Raphael’s hairline and Anastasia couldn’t help but internally coo at the beautiful, wholesome sight. Yet another reminder of what she was doing for them.
At the thought, she laid her cutlery down on the counter before pressing her hands against her stomach, smiling softly as she felt the baby shift around.
Finding a surrogate in the werewolf world was very difficult as there weren’t many cases of infertility however, that didn’t account for a gay or lesbian couple who couldn’t reproduce with each other; her friends Raphael and Justas included.
Anastasia had first met Raphael on the first day of college, becoming fast allies when they bumped into each other in the hallway. They then went into spending their first official hour of college in the wrong lecture, far too embarrassed to get up and leave in the middle of it. While they were doing different courses, there always appeared to be one class they had together and any time not spent together, they made up for outside of college, mostly in her dorm room where she had been able to snag a double room but never really given a roommate.
Since then, they had been inseparable and very quickly branded themselves as friends which was upgraded to best friends. By the time they finished college, it was bittersweet but they rejoiced in the fact that she only lived a short drive away from him.
Once Raphael returned back to the pack for good as a nurse – hoping to upgrade to junior doctor soon – he met his mate, Justas whom had transferred to the pack with his family, and the rest was history.
When she had discovered that her favourite couple and friends were struggling to find a surrogate to carry their child, Anastasia hadn’t wasted any time in offering herself. While they were initially wary, especially because she was only a quarter-wolf – from her father’s side – and didn’t really embody many qualities of a wolf, the pack doctor was able to confirm with a simple test that she would be able to carry the pup to term without any health issues for either her or the baby.
A regular human – unless mated to a strong wolf – would never have been able to do this as werewolf pups were far too strong and would end up tearing up whatever poor soul that attempted to carry the pup but thankfully, she didn’t have to worry about the same.
One of their sperm was randomly picked and with her egg, she now found herself heavily pregnant six months later.
Much of the pregnancy had been very regular and akin to a human one so far but now that she was this was far along and the baby was far more active, the doctor at her local hospital had suggested that she started seeing the pack doctor.
“Ana?” A voice called out to her, breaking her away from her internal ramblings.
“I think I ate too fast.” She mumbled sheepishly before reaching out for her glass of water again.
Laughter filled the kitchen and one of the wolves moved over to rub her back for some relief, and another round of laughter sounded.
Once she had finished with their meal, the crowd in the kitchen moved through the living and down the stairs into the den where a huge cinema room had been set up, and they joined in the current viewing of Tenet which the Beta couple had picked out.
Anastasia made sure to smile politely at Dalton and Bronwyn as they had been nothing but pleasant to her during this whole ordeal, managing all the paperwork and passing their situation by the Alpha before they were able to move forward.
“How are you, Anastasia?” Beta Dalton shifted his body in his seat as he glanced back at her.
“I’m good, thank you, Beta Dalton.” She smiled politely back at the both of them.
“You’ve got impeccable timing. We only started five minutes ago so you haven’t really missed much.” The Beta female turned to join the conversation. “How have you been sleeping, Ana? I know when I was pregnant with Devon, he used to keep me up all night.”
She nodded and sighed in response, further sinking into the comfortable seat that she was sat on.
“You’ve hit the nail on the head. This little one is so active at night that I’ve resorted to taking several naps during the day.”
Dalton chuckled as he glanced at both Raphael and Justas. “Seems like you’re going to have your hands full.”