Left for Undead by L. A. Banks

guard
asked, flexing as he glanced back at Crow Shadow.
    “Uh, no,” she replied, but still visibly shaken. “I
just saw a mouse, is all.”
    The two guards looked at each other for a moment.
    “If there’s anything harmful going on here, ma’am, you
can come with us. You don’t have to stay here.” The guard holding the glass of
water offered it to Jennifer, all the while glaring at Crow Shadow.
    “If you’re scared in here,” Crow Shadow said, “you can
go with these gentlemen. All right?”
    “No,” she said, shrugging away from them and sipping
the water she’d been given with a shaking hand. “It just caught me off guard.
We’re married; we’ve got a baby together. I.   I.   well, I
guess I mate for life, too.” She lifted her chin as two big tears rolled down
her cheeks. “I ain’t got no family, nowhere to go, so I’m staying.”
    “Ma’am, you don’t have to stay here if he’s hitting
you, you understand. We—”
    “Whoa now, just wait a minute,” she said, swinging her
legs around to get off the bed. “He ain’t never laid a hand on me that way.
Never.”
    “Okay, Miss,” the guard standing closest to the door
said, eyeing his partner.
    “ ‘Ma’am’ it is,” Jennifer said, crossing the room to
go stand by Crow Shadow. “I’m married.”
    The other guard released a long breath of annoyance.
“If you say so.”
    Thrusting out her hand, she flashed her diamond chip
at them as though it were a ten-karat stone. “I am ‘Mrs.,’ thank you very
much—and I saw a mouse.   and I want you gentlemen to leave. You
should have an exterminator come next time instead of throwing terrible
accusations against my husband.”
    Again the guards gave each other suspicious glances,
but they nodded and moved toward the door, but not before one mumbled under his
breath, “I wish this trash would do their drugs at home.”
    Crow Shadow just closed his eyes as the door slammed.
He knew the flurry of questions was coming and he waited, feeling them building
like the low-pressure system of a pending storm.
    “Why’d you go and do something like that—show me
something like that in a damned hotel!”
    “Because if you had a heart attack or a miscarriage or
wanted to leave me,” he said in a quiet tone, “I wanted you to be around other
humans who could immediately help you.”
    “Or were you trying to get me to leave you? Then that
way your conscience would be clear.”
    “No. My conscience would never be clear, no matter
what. Because you shoulda seen this before we slept together. It was my fault
you got pregnant..   I didn’t understand the human cycles.”
    “I didn’t make you use no condom, so I can’t put it
all on you.   and I shoulda known my own cycle.”
    “Water under the bridge now.”
    “But you kept your word, which is more than anybody in
my own family ever did.”
    For a while they said nothing and he simply sat there
with his eyes closed.
    “Is our baby gonna be able to do what you did?” Her
question came out in a frightened rush.
    “Hopefully, if it’s lucky.”
    He opened his eyes and stared at her, watching her hug
herself and intermittently wipe away her tears.
    “Okay, then I’ve got like a thousand questions more to
ask you and I’m hungry and want to eat breakfast,” she said after a moment.
“Because after you get over the shock, that wolf thing you do is really pretty
cool.”

CHAPTER 5
    Coffee mug pressed between her palms, Sasha closed her
eyes and lowered her forehead to the kitchen counter as she wrapped her ankles
around the legs of the stool. The situation with Shogun was so messed up.
    “I know,” Hunter said, getting up to pour more joe. “I
felt the same way when he told me. This sucks.”
    “I’ll talk to Amy as gently as I can, but.  ”
    “Yeah, yeah, I already told him that it was better for
him to sit her down and explain the differences between Werewolf and Shadow
Wolf males. That should really come from