Accidental Surrogate

Ella

I’m so focused on Sinclair, I don’t even see the car until it’s almost upon me.

I’m too stunned to move, not that there’s time to get out of the way. The only thing I can do it try to turn my body away from the vehicle, to shield my unborn child from the inevitable crash.

Time itself seems to slow down, and there’s a dull roaring in my ears. My thoughts fly by, and I’m amazed at the logical clarity I’m able to find in a single, split second. I tell myself to go limp, the impact won’t be as terrible if my body isn’t tense with fear. Isn’t that why drunk people often survive car accidents that would be fatal otherwise?

Unfortunately I don’t have time to unwind my tight muscles, as soon as I’ve had the thought a huge weight collides with my back, slamming into me with so much force the breath is knocked from my lungs. I’m spinning, twisting as the wall of iron surrounds me, forcing my feet off the ground. A deafening crash fills the air, though it seems delayed. Haven’t I already been hit?

Then I’m being thrust forward, or is it backwards? I’m moving, flying through the air and yet my limbs are completely constrained. My eyes are clenched shut, and the sound of wrending metal and shattering glass explodes around me. It’s all so sudden, I don’t have time to be afraid, to say prayers for my baby, if not for myself.

I wait for the pain, but it doesn’t come. After a few moments of holding my breath I realize I’m not moving anymore. Am I dead? Was it so sudden that I didn’t feel it?

I peek open one eye, and sunlight blinds me. Is there a sun in the afterlife? I know shifters have a version of heaven, but I didn’t imagine humans got to go there.

There’s a click, like a car door opening, and then the sound of racing footsteps. “Catch them!” Sinclair’s deep voice snarls, so loud that I think he must be yelling in my ear.

belatedly, imagining myself sprawled over the hood of a vehicle, in too much shock to feel the impact on my broken

street in

had been fast enough to reach me, but he hadn’t had time to push me out of the way. Instead he’d turned me away from the car and wrapped his own body around me, shielding me from the impact of the

too slow for his supernatural strength. I’m afraid to

bleeding, and his body must be covered with bruises. The impact would have killed me, and his shifter strength might have kept him alive, but not even an Alpha wolf can walk away from such

has been torn to shreds by glass from the

the ground a few meters down the road. He must have tried to make a run for it when the car stalled, unable to simply plow through Sinclair’s iron body the way it would have my own. I immediately recognize the driver as one of the rogues who attacked

feral than any I’ve known before. That rogue hurt Sinclair. He wanted to end my baby’s life and would have taken mine in the process, but he actually did hurt Sinclair. He might have taken my baby’s father from us both –

myself up on shaky legs and lunging towards

catches me around the waist, pulling me back.

kill him!” I insist, not recognizing this bloodthirsty woman

can already hear sirens in the distance, loud, shrill, and drawing closer with every moment that

“He hurt you! Let me go

stuttering in his chest, as if the internal engine that fuels his

returns my feet to the ground. “You’re all bloody.” I observe pitifully,

a petulant toddler, though admittedly a very violent one. Still, Sinclair isn’t listening, the stubborn man has his palm pressed to my belly, his eyes scouring me for