Practical Difficulties

By Emily Carrington

Maxine, a trans male-to-female werewolf, is struggling to get beyond her grief over the losses she suffered in her past. Now her mate, Sonya, is pregnant. When Maxine’s ghosts rise to break the new lovers apart, they have more help than they need from her pack.

Sonya’s starting to wonder whether Maxine’s loyalties lie with the wolf pack she’s been with for decades, or with her new mate. It’s beginning to look like sabotage from all quarters. How can a new couple stay together, especially with pups on the way?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Changeling Press
• Release date: Oct 11, 2019

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Chapter One

Sonya Johnson stared at her clean pad, scowling at its whiteness against the cocoa dark of her thigh and the pale mauve of her panties. Her period should have started four days ago. Granted, she’d stopped taking her birth control after she’d forgotten to take it for three days back in late September. But was it too much to ask that her slip wouldn’t bring on pregnancy? She was a damned doctoral student and working a full-time job.

Please, God, she whispered. Let it just be late. I do not have time for this right now.

She shivered as a blast of air conditioning rushed across the back of her neck. Maybe it was time to grow her hair out and screw the cuteness of her current kinky-haired bob.

I’m a medical technician. I know enough about the human body to get this message: either stress is delaying my menstrual cycle, or I’m pregnant.

She cursed her mate before she could stop herself.

Sonya sighed, flushed the toilet, and pulled up her panties and shorts. It wasn’t Maxine’s fault, even if she was a trans werewolf and still had a dick. They’d both thought Sonya’s pill would take care of things. They’d briefly discussed using condoms too, but Sonya privately thought at the time that that was overkill. Maxine liked teasing herself with a condom now and then, but as a form of birth control, they were weren’t all that reliable.

They only succeed sixty percent of the time… but maybe I should have banked on that extra sixty percent.

She made an exasperated noise, very quietly.

The only thing that is Maxine’s fault, partially at least, is how infrequently I see her.

She’d long ago stopped tripping over the idea of calling Maxine, a male-to-female transgender werewolf, she. Not even thinking of her mate’s cock, as she did often while masturbating, could cause her confusion. Maxine was so utterly female, mind and spirit, that male genitals couldn’t change her essential nature.

Sonya walked into the bedroom she and her mate shared and went to her side of the wall-length closet. She took off the striped shirt she’d been wearing and put on a sweater with a cowl neck. It was a soft orange that complemented her medium brown skin tone and had the added bonus of clinging to her curves in all the right places.

Too bad Maxine isn’t here to appreciate it. She sighed noisily and then covered her mouth and glanced around, almost expecting half a dozen werewolves to pop out of the woodwork and ask her what was wrong. She kept her SearchLight-won shields in place most of the time, and her lips shut almost as much, but she still felt as if the whole darn pack could read her like a book.

Those shields were something she’d picked up at the academy in DC, learning them from the parapsychology teacher. She didn’t use them much at work, at least not when she was relaxed and in her own domain -- the medtech department. But with all the psychic powers boasted by the members of her new eros pack, she felt on edge if her mind wasn’t guarded.

Shaking her head, grimacing as she thought of how paranoid she’d gotten over the past two weeks, Sonya headed into the living room to sit at the desk Maxine had bought her as a mating ceremony present back in late September. It was now the first week of October and she did not need to be worrying about pregnancy when her first dissertation defense was happening in less than seven days and she hadn’t seen her mate for more than a few minutes at a time since they consummated their relationship.

And while that was the worst of it, not being with her mate, her third problem was almost as pressing: three of the werewolves in her new pack were openly hostile toward her. Oh, not where Maxine, who outranked all of them, could see, but whenever they caught Sonya alone…

Oh, stop thinking about it all in such negative terms. They’re just pests. And as for Maxine, she sleeps here every night she’s in town, doesn’t she? You’ve made love four times so far. That’s good for two weeks’ worth of living together, isn’t it?

Well, actually, no. Sonya had gotten the impression from listening to her friend, Luke, talk about his early relationship with his husband that sex every day wasn’t uncommon. In fact, the only time her genie and dragon friends hadn’t managed sex at least three or four times a week was when Mark, the dragon half of the pairing, was in crisis.

Was Maxine in crisis?

That was a good question. As Sonya sat down at her new desk to start poring over her doctoral dissertation for the millionth time, she admitted she’d been so buried in her own work that she hadn’t reached out to Maxine to see if her mate was troubled by anything.

* * *

Maxine stared incredulously at the three more wolves who had problems this evening. I’m trying to get to my mate, she implored. Can’t these wait until morning?

The trio -- Tessa, John, and Christopher -- exchanged looks. Then Tessa, who was closest to Maxine in rank, said, All right. But first thing.

There was something she wasn’t saying, something the gamma wolf was holding back, but Maxine was too glad to have a chance to be with her mate to care. She breathed a silent sigh of relief. She knew she shouldn’t be leaving John and Christopher, who wanted to fight out their difference, unattended for the night, but…

But nothing. If they end up fighting… She pulled out her cell phone and dialed Michaela. As the alpha’s mate, Michaela was one of only two wolves who outranked Maxine’s beta position. Maybe she could hold down the fort while Maxine went to see her stressed-out mate.

Sonya had sounded unsettled when they’d talked on the phone. And the two of them hadn’t seen each other in three days. Sonya had been in Washington, DC, at SearchLight Academy. That was over nine hundred miles away. This meant Maxine’s telepathy, which didn’t always work at the best of times, had been completely foiled.

Still, she had to see to her packmates. That was a beta’s job. So, only after she’d secured Michaela’s help did she head for the apartment she shared with Sonya. It was after dinnertime, and Sonya had probably fended for herself for the meal.

She entered the luxuriously appointed five-room space. Sonya sat on the couch reading out of a notebook. Still working on your dissertation, dear?

Her darling looked up and smiled tiredly. Half of what they said actually makes sense now that I’m not feeling cornered and ripped to shreds. But she put down the notebook and crossed to Maxine. Putting her arms around Maxine’s neck, she asked, Do I have you to myself for the evening? Her honey brown eyes shone with need, although something lingered under the happiness. Tiredness? Stress?

Thanks to Michaela, yes. Maxine wrapped her arms around Sonya’s waist, loving the way her mate’s curves fit against her own angular body. Sonya was all softness. She had a curvy butt and ample breasts. Beautiful skin, three shades lighter than Maxine’s own. She always smelled of shea butter and citrus. The blend of scents reminded Maxine of her favorite candy: orange chocolate.

She had the pleasure of feeling Sonya relax against her. Long day, dear?

Anytime you fly from DC to Tampa it’s long.

I’m sorry I couldn’t be there to pick you up. It was Saturday; she should have been free. But…John and Christopher are preparing to have a dominance fight and they needed counseling.

They sure chose a bad day for it. But Sonya didn’t sound really angry. I drove myself to the airport in any case, so it made more sense for me to drive home.

Maxine liked hearing Sonya call this place home. It had been a weeks-long project to first bring Sonya’s stuff here and then to find places for everything. In truth, there were still two or three