Gray Back Alpha Bear(8)

Creed had failed her, and the burn of that would last for always, but Willa was a pretty good consolation prize.

“Remember the night we spent in my treehouse and made that blood pact to take the road trip?” she asked.

Willa turned down the radio and nodded, her bright read ponytails whipping this way and that. “Yeah, you all put my hand in a bowl of warm water and made me pee my pants while I was sleeping.”

“I didn’t do that! Brittney and Kara got me, too! I only wet mine a little, though. You know why Brittney did that, right?”

“No.”

“Because she wet her bed until she was ten.”

“She did not!”

“I swear she did,” Gia said, giggling. “She made me pinky promise not to tell, but I think that’s why she played pranks like that. Because of her own insecurities.”

“Oooh, Gia, you bad girl. You broke a pinky promise. Maybe you’ll make a good Gray Back after all.”

“I’m not going to be a Gray Back. I’m just here to lay low until I can figure out my next move.”

“Mmm hmm.”

Willa didn’t sound convinced, but let her speculate. After the way Creed had hurt her, Gia wasn’t interested in mooching a life here. She wasn’t interested in mooching anything. She just needed a place to get back on her feet. A temporary home with shifters capable of teaching her how to raise her child safely, and then she’d be on her way.

Gia was no Gray Back.

Never would be.

****

Creed threw back another shot of cheap whiskey and pressed the tiny glass to his forehead to feel the coolness against his growing headache. At least Sammy’s Bar was quiet, thank God. It was more than he could hope for in the trailer park.

One drunken night had ruined three lives—his, Gia’s, and the baby’s.

If she knew how broken he really was, she wouldn’t have come back here asking for help. She would’ve hidden the baby away and never let him know the child existed. If she knew how damaged he was, she would’ve never slept with him in the first place.

Fuck, but he’d been careful! A fresh wave of anger blasted through him. He always used a condom—always. And then this happened? What was the fucking point of all the safe sex if he knocked a woman up, anyway? No, not just any woman. Gia. He felt nauseous. She was too good for him, too good for this place, and too good to be doing this alone. He was an anchor tied around her waist, sinking her beneath her potential.

“Bar’s closing in an hour,” Kong’s rich baritone sounded behind him. The giant gorilla shifter grabbed Creed’s shoulders and squeezed until his bones cracked before he sat down in the stool beside him. “Think it’s time to sober up?”

“I’d rather not.” Ever again. Creed gestured to the bartender for another round.

“I’ll have the same,” Kong told the blonde with the painted red lips as she poured Creed another shot of the burning liquor. “You want to talk about it?”

Creed waited until the bartender was finished and had sauntered down the bar to chat with a trio of good ol’ boys who sounded three sheets to the wind with their rampant slurring.

With a miserable sigh, Creed admitted, “I’m going to be a dad.”

Kong’s dark eyes went round, and a slow smile spread across his face. He gripped Creed’s shoulder and shook him slowly. “Congratulations, man! Fuck yeah, I’ll toast to that.” He ignored Creed’s glare and tinked his shot glass against his, then tilted his head back and slammed the drink. “I can tell by the way you’re scowling that you think your life is over.” Kong twisted the glass in his hands on the bar top. “Did you know in my culture, babies are revered, as well as the women who bear those children? It is a great honor if a woman chooses you and her spirit accepts your seed. A child is never a bad thing, Creed. A child is a gift.”

“A gift given to the wrong man. Kong, my mother is a psychopath, I have no father, and I couldn’t manage to please a single foster parent into keeping me. I aged out of the system with no healthy parental relationship to draw experience from. I’m the least qualified person I can name to father a child.”

“And how’d that feel?”

“How’d what feel?” Creed muttered.

“Not having a parent stick around for you?”

Oh, he got where Kong was going with this. “Fuck off.”

“You gonna do to that kid what was done to you?” Kong’s eye ticked. “I don’t think so. Because the Creed I know would make a great father. The Creed I know put together a crew of grizzly shifters no one would touch and is making it work.”