A Family by Fate

Quinn Newman had learned a lot about being alone.

She had learned how to warm a bottle with one hand while making breakfast with the other. How to braid curly brown hair before her daughter could squirm away. How to smile when people stared at her for being eighteen with a two-year-old tugging at her hand.

Most importantly, she had learned not to wait for someone to come back.

But sometimes, when her daughter looked up at her with those familiar gray eyes, Quinn remembered the day everything had changed.

She had been sixteen.

Sixteen, terrified, and standing in the bathroom with a pregnancy test trembling between her fingers.

Two pink lines.

She stared at them until her vision blurred.

“No…”

Her hand went instinctively to her stomach.

There was nothing to see yet. Nothing to feel. Just the terrifying knowledge that her entire life had changed in the space of a few seconds.

She was pregnant.

With Asher Woods’ baby.

At sixteen, Quinn had thought Asher was forever.

He was her boyfriend. Her best friend. The person who had promised that nothing would ever come between them.

So, after spending nearly an hour sitting on the closed toilet lid trying to convince herself she wasn’t dreaming, Quinn finally found the courage to tell him.

She met him behind the school that afternoon, where the trees blocked most of the afternoon sunlight.

Asher leaned against the old brick wall, his arms folded across his chest.

“You said you needed to talk.”

Quinn swallowed.

“I do.”

He looked at her for a moment.

“What happened?”

She reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out the pregnancy test.

Asher’s eyes dropped to it.

His expression changed.

Quinn forced herself to smile, even though her heart was pounding.

“I’m pregnant.”

Silence.

She waited for him to say something.

Anything.

Instead, he stared at the test as though it were something he didn’t recognize.

“We’re going to have a baby,” Quinn whispered.

Asher’s jaw tightened.

“Are you sure?”

Quinn nodded.

“I took three tests.”

Three.

She had been so frightened when she’d taken the first one that she’d convinced herself it had to be wrong. The second had shown the same result.

The third had destroyed the last bit of hope she had that it was a mistake.

“I know we’re young,” she said quickly. “I know this wasn’t planned, but we can figure it out. We can—”

“Quinn.”

Something about his voice made her stop.

He wasn’t smiling.

He wasn’t excited.

He wasn’t scared in the way she was.

He looked almost… disappointed.

“What?” she whispered.

Asher pushed away from the wall.

“I need to tell you something.”

Her stomach twisted.

“Okay.”

“I never thought you were my mate.”

Quinn blinked.

“What?”

“I kept waiting.”

He looked toward the ground.

“I thought maybe it would happen eventually. I thought the bond would appear.”

Quinn stared at him.

She knew what he was talking about. Every wolf in their world knew about mates. The person their wolf supposedly recognized as the one they were destined to be with.

But Quinn was human.

She had always known that made things different.

She just hadn’t realized how different.

“So… what does that have to do with the baby?”

Asher finally looked at her.

“I wanted to know if I could.”

Her face went pale.

“If you could what?”

“Have a child with a human.”

The words hit harder than anything Quinn had ever heard.

She stared at him, waiting for the punchline.

There wasn’t one.

“You’re saying…”

“I wanted to see if it was possible.”

Quinn’s fingers tightened around the pregnancy test.

“So that’s all I was?”

Asher didn’t answer.

Her eyes filled with tears.

“You were just testing whether you could get a human pregnant?”

“I didn’t know it would actually happen.”

“But it did.”

Quinn’s voice cracked.

“You got me pregnant, Asher.”

She pressed a trembling hand against her stomach.

“There is a baby in here.”

“I know.”

“No.” She shook her head. “You don’t get to say that like it means nothing.”

He looked away.

Quinn had imagined telling him a hundred different ways.

She had imagined him hugging her.

She had imagined them crying together.

She had imagined him promising that they would figure everything out.

She had never imagined standing alone while the boy she loved told her that their daughter had begun as an experiment.

“Do you even love me?” she whispered.

Asher was silent.

And somehow, that silence was her answer.

Quinn wiped her tears with the sleeve of her jacket.

“Then I’ll do it myself.”

“Quinn—”

“No.”

She stepped backward.

“You wanted to know if a human could have a wolf’s baby.”

Her voice trembled, but she forced herself to keep going.

“Now you know.”

She turned away from him.

“And you never have to worry about us again.”

Two years later, Quinn still remembered the sound of his footsteps walking away.

What she didn’t know then was that someone else was going to come into their lives.

Someone who wouldn’t see her daughter as an experiment.

Someone who wouldn’t walk away.

An Alpha who had spent his entire life believing he would never have a mate.

Until the moon led him straight to Quinn Newman.