Chapter Text
“Hayden.”
Shane had waited until they were the last two people in the locker room before acknowledging his friend. Hayden didn’t react at all when Shane called his name. His attention was focused on his phone and whoever he was texting as he absentmindedly ate a protein bar. Shane recognized the brand and flavor. The protein bar was more of a candy than a protein bar in Shane’s opinion, but Hayden liked the taste of iced oatmeal cookies. However, Hayden usually only ate that brand because of cravings. Pregnancy cravings.
Throughout the entirety of the Metros’ morning practice, Shane had assured himself that he wasn’t picking up a sweet and milky aroma every time he was near Hayden. He hadn’t made eye contact with JJ from across the ice, realizing the only other wolf on the times besides him and Hayden was smelling the same thing. If Shane was unable to smell anything else in the locker room because of that aroma perforating through the room as he changed, it had to be some fluke. He was simply hallucinating the scent that seemed to cling to his friend more often than his actual scent. Shane couldn’t have possibly been picking up the same scent that had trailed after Hayden since 2012 because a certain someone kept getting pregnant.
Hayden had promised him that Amber would be the last pup.
But he also said that for Arthur.
And the quadruplets.
And the triplets.
And the twins…
Hayden had a lot of kids. A fuck ton one might even say. Eleven was enough that Shane could no longer fight back whenever Ilya joked about the Pike household being overrun by feral wolf pups because he was right. Shane had been in that house. It was a miracle it had remained standing after all these years. Shane loved those kids but he had lost a pair of shoes each time he visited because the shoes somehow always became the favorite chew toy of at least one of the pups. Apparently, Reebok was like catnip to tiny werewolves. Jackie and Hayden tried to combat this, but it was usually a pup that was a few months old and hadn’t formed a single coherent thought yet so things like treating others with respect were beyond their comprehension. It was cute though, so Shane didn’t really mind. It also wasn’t like he didn’t have sponsors sending him more tennis shoes than he knew what to do with.
“Hayden,” Shane reiterated, unsure if the other man had heard him.
“What?” The word was sharp as Hayden finally looked up from his phone, Shane could make out the contact name Jackie on the top of the screen. With how easy it was to peek over to read the messages, Shane wondered how often Hayden had done the same to his phone.
Jackie
have you scheduled anything with jennifer yet?
Hayden
yeah
a few weeks out
its right after we return from buffalo
i think she is sick of seeing me
Jackie
she shouldnt be
we keep her in business
Dr. Jennifer Reneau, a OBGYN who specialized in lycanthropic pregnancies, was on a first name basis with both Jackie and Hayden. Shane didn’t know if this was a good thing or not, but it was certainly indicative of something. Dr. Reneau also was the one who had delivered all of their children so Shane already knew that his suspicions had been confirmed. It meant he could get straight to the point.
“Again? Has Amber even gone through her first shift yet?”
“Could you at least try to pretend to be supportive? And, yes, Amber has gone through her first shift,” Hayden raised a brow, letting out a sharp exhale at the embarrassed look on Shane’s face.
“Sorry.”
“It’s fine,” Hayden sighed. “Your reaction was better than Theriault’s. He went through his usual fucking spiel about how I need to be a team player and not be controlled by my wolf. I don’t know why he even cares. No one knows I carried my pups outside of you and JJ. I have played throughout every single one of my pregnancies. He should be thankful that I’m a wolf.”
“Did he threaten to get you traded again?” Theriault had been throwing around that threat since Jackie had turned Hayden when they got married. The Metros coach hadn’t been too keen on there being another non-human on the team, especially one who had chosen to no longer be human. The only thing their coach had seemed to like about Hayden turning was being able to microdose him with wolfsbane. It was necessary to keep them on the same level of humans, but Theriault always seemed to enjoy seeing that initial discomfort whenever a dose was newly administered.
“No, he threatened to buy out my contract because he claimed no one would be willing to have me on their team once they found out I had been bitched.”
Shane grimaced, “He said it like that?”
“I took a few words out,” Hayden shrugged.
“That sounds more like him.”
“He has said worse to you and JJ, so I count myself lucky.”
Shane hummed. Hayden wasn’t lying sadly.
“Do you know how many you’re having yet?” Shane decided to change the subject. While Hayden hadn’t been to the doctor yet, wolves had a pretty good sense of their bodies. Even if Hayden had only been a wolf for roughly five years at that point, he had been pregnant for a majority of that time, so he knew a thing or two about how many pups he was carrying.
“It feels like it did with Opal, Celeste, and Elise,” Hayden answered, laying a hand on the soft curve of his stomach that was still left behind from when he was carrying Amber. It was small enough of a bump that most humans would take it for weight gain and it wasn’t unusual for hockey players to be softer around the stomach. Any fan or teammate certainly wouldn’t think that Hayden was carrying his wife’s children. Most outsiders, humans and non-humans alike, didn’t know about the existence of werewolf carriers and sires. “So probably three. I hope at least one of them is a boy. I feel bad with Arthur being the only one, but I think they are all girls this time around too.”
“There is always next time,” Shane offered sarcastically but the sarcasm didn’t land.
“Yeah, that was what I was thinking too.”
“I’m joking. Please let this be the last time,” Shane rushed, almost scared.
“We’ll see,” Hayden said too offhandedly for Shane’s liking. It was as if he wasn’t even considering it. “I would have to convince Jackie and I don’t feel like it.”
“Hayden, you are about to have fourteen kids.”
“Jackie wants more pups.”
“Hayden, that’s enough.”
“I like giving my alpha what she wants.”
“Hayden.”
Shane couldn’t remember the last time that Hayden wasn’t pregnant. Obviously, there were the months between each litter where the Pikes meticulously planned to conceive at the perfect time so that their pups would be born during the summer, but Shane didn’t feel like that counted. The newborns were so attached to and reliant on Hayden that it was like he was still carrying them. Lycan babies were born in their wolf form and were typically unable to shift until they were two months. As pups were born blind and deaf, they were essentially just little lumps that were as big and as helpless as a potato. For what felt like the entire time Shane had known the couple, the Pike household had been filled with the pathetic whines of the newest litter and the high-pitched attempts at howling of the older pups that still sounded far more like yips. Shane was willing to admit that he wouldn’t know what to do if it was suddenly silent and devoid of all the pups that he grew to love as his nieces and nephew, but he still thought that maybe it was about time that they stopped having kids.
Shane would never say that to the mates’ faces.
Of course, he had heavily implied it to both of them in private one-on-one conversations, but he would never directly say it to the couple at the same time. Jackie would kill him and she would get away with it.
Jackie Pike was a bit of a conundrum to Shane. He loved Jackie. She was one of the few people who didn’t get on his case when it came to his dietary restrictions during the season. She was incredibly kind and patient. She was outspoken but also very openminded. She was a fantastic woman, friend, sister, mother, and wife. Shane could never thank her enough for her presence in his best friend’s life. Jackie was his favorite Metros WAG. She was hilarious, good company, and a fantastic running partner. Shane considered her to be one of his closest confidants.
Jaqueline Louvier, on the other hand, was the bane of Shane’s existence. One of the worst decisions Shane had ever made in his entire life was encouraging Hayden to go talk to the woman ogling him from the other side of a club in Montreal. If Shane had known that he was sending his friend over to make out with Jacqueline Louvier on the dance floor, he might have acted with a bit more hesitation before placing Hayden in the jaws of the alpha heir of the biggest wolf pack in Quebec. Those fangs had sunk in deep and fast, leaving Shane unable to do anything by the time he realized what he had done.
Shane had recognized the woman as a fellow lycan. There had been a brief acknowledgement – a quick eye contact and subtle nod – when he had entered the club with his teammates. Besides him and JJ, she was the only other wolf in the club. The flecks of gold in her emerald eyes that no human would’ve spotted were undeniable. It would’ve been near impossible not to notice the person who had already marked and laid claim to the space. Her musky scent clung to the air as if she owned each breath everyone took in her presence. It was a type of confidence that Shane had taken as arrogance until JJ later explained who exactly she was. The way JJ had watched Hayden from afar the entire night finally made sense. Shane had been cautious too. He had been ready to step in if necessary, but he hadn’t been as alert as JJ. He had deep down trusted Jaqueline like a fool, having no idea of the power and influence she held. Even when JJ had told him, he hadn’t exactly understood until Hayden and Jackie got married, resulting in Jackie finally taking her father’s place as leader of the Louvier pack.
The problem was that Shane knew as much about wolf politics and customs as Hayden, a human at the time. Being told that Jackie was part of the Louvier pack hadn’t meant much to him outside of knowing that Hayden was being pursued by someone of status. The only pack Shane was remotely familiar with was the Hollander pack in Ontario (it had five hundred members while the Louvier pack had twenty thousand) that his father had been kicked out of after mating his mother. Yuna hadn’t been a lycan, or even a human that could be turned into one, so Shane had never known that half of his family.
Being a mutt, it was unlikely that Shane would ever be allowed into a lycan pack without backlash. As different as humans claimed non-humans to be, they were very similar in certain opinions: purity was prized. Shane was part okuri-inu, a wolf yokai species that now only existed in diaspora. They were a species that had once haunted mountain passes and roads in Japan, devouring or helping lone travellers as they saw fit. Around a century before his mother was born, the okuri-inu residing on the island Hokkaido were nearly driven to extinction as their animal counterpart was killed off in targeted poisonings and government-backed bounties. Those in Honshu were gone entirely by the end of the Meiji Restoration as they had either fled the country or were slaughtered by hunters. With the complete eradication of wolves in Japan, it became clear that any found were demons that could hide themselves within the human population and no wolf shifter was to be given any mercy.
The packs that remained in Hokkaido did not have the means to leave, resulting in them living among the Ainu who resided in the region and shared their values and language. However, as the Ainu were forced to assimilate to Japanese culture, the okuri-inu began to lose even more. The erosion of their identity had been devastating and humiliating to the packs that had already given up everything. In fact, the first time his mother had shifted into her wolf form was in Canada. She had to be taught by a lycan because her parents had never learned how to shift. His grandparents had died without ever reconciling with their wolf. They were forced to be something they weren’t, yet they were never fully accepted. Not by humans. Not by lycans. Not by the Japanese. Not by the Canadians.
At times, Shane wondered if he was nothing, but it was so much easier to claim what he wasn’t and what others believed him to be. It was simpler to say he was an Asian-Canadian lycan than to explain what others couldn’t understand and what he could barely comprehend at times.
What he did know was that the Hollander pack wouldn’t consider him a lycan and they had deemed his mother to be a false wolf. After everything his mother had been through, Shane knew that that had been one of the greatest insults to her.
Jackie was undeniably a wolf and maybe in another world Shane might have envied that, but he instead admired it. She had so much on her shoulders, yet her resolve never faltered. She was present for her family and people. She embodied everything a lycan should be and what he had not seen from anyone else outside of his father and JJ. This would have been the extent of Shane and hers relationship if it weren’t for the fact that she immediately knocked up his best friend after they got married.
According to JJ, it was very common for the heads of lycan packs of European descent to have large families because back in Europe humans and other creatures would try to kill off the bloodline. Having large head families was especially prevalent during the organized extinction campaigns against wolves during the 19th century. Unlike humans, werewolves did not fear their children dying off to disease. Large families did not need to be created for that. It was famine and silver that killed them. Therefore, JJ had not been as surprised as Shane had been when Hayden announced two months after his wedding that he was carrying his and Jackie’s first litter.
Hayden had just been turned.
He had just learned that he was now capable of carrying children and he was already announcing a pregnancy. Shane had been in such disbelief at the announcement. Having kids as soon as possible was not uncommon for hockey players, but they typically weren’t going about it like this. It hadn’t made sense to him until he had seen the way Jackie had sidled up to Hayden, wrapping an arm around his waist and pressing her face into his neck. She had looked at Shane as she cozied up to her husband, Hayden explaining how they were going to have twins, and she had smirked at Shane.It wasn’t a jovial or playful smile. It was the type of smirk that Ilya would give him whenever the vampire knew he had gotten under his skin. It was the type of smirk he only saw when people knew they had gotten the better of him. She had gotten something Shane would never admit to himself that he wanted.
“I won,” her eyes said.
At that moment, Shane understood that Jacqueline Louvier was going to ruin his life.