"Rachel is watching her. She's so good with her. So Thia's taken care of and I'm bored."

"Then go make more babies if you're bored," Jacque offered as she flipped the page of the book she was currently reading. She hadn't gotten much sleep the night before—what with the fight she and Fane had had, and then the make-up session that followed. Now cranky didn't adequately describe what she was feeling, especially since Fane had yet to open the bond between them. The end of her pregnancy was proving to be a test in patience for everyone around her, and Jacque found that if she kept a book in her hands it gave her less opportunity to complain, growl, whine, or throw things at Fane for putting her in her current state. Although he did deserve to have things thrown at him, just not for that reason.

"I can't. Dec is in the doghouse."

Jacque looked up from her book, a single brow raised on her freckled face. "Let me guess, he wouldn't tell you why they were blocking us either? And when has that ever stopped you before? Being mad at him is like foreplay for you—you freak."

Jen tilted her had back letting her long blonde locks cascade over the arm of the couch as she walked her feet out in front of her until she was lying prone on the cushions. "I didn't say it stopped me last night," she said giving Jacque a wink. "And yes, he refused to tell me. That isn't why I'm not practicing making babies right now. I meant that he's actually in the doghouse, like literally."

"You don’t have a doghouse."

"That's why he's building me one. Actually he's building me two," she snickered. "And a playhouse for Thia."

"You don't have a dog."

"But I want to get one for Thia."

"Thia can't even crawl. Why do I feel like I'm pointing out the obvious here?" Jacque abandoned the book altogether and gave her full attention to her friend.

"One day she will be ready to have a puppy, so I just want to be prepared. You know, all that don't put off for tomorrow what you can do today crap. And it might be to teach my mate a lesson about keeping things from me. We've both been down that road and we both know it never leads to anything but a big pile of crap."

Jacque pinched the bridge of her nose. The book was no longer in her hands…not good. "Okay, first, gross. Second, that saying doesn't apply to something that doesn't need to happen for at least five years down the road."

"Thia might be advanced. Who knows, she might be ready to have a puppy long before she turns five. It's good to be prepared for these things. You'll understand once you squeeze that little fur ball out." Jen motioned to her enlarged stomach.

"You're joking, right? There's a camera hidden somewhere around here and you're about to yell, you got punked! Because there is no way that you just verbalized the ridiculous idea of Thia being so advanced that she would care for a living being before she can fix her own breakfast."

"Who spit in your Kibble and Bits? Good grief, Red, it's not like I'm going to toss her a puppy and say good luck," Jen snapped. "I'm going to make one of the younger wolves pretend to be a puppy and let Thia learn to take care of him first. Then we will know if she's advanced." Jen tapped her head and shot Jacque a smirk. "Yep, all that came from up here. Feel free to be impressed."

"Did you swallow a stupid pill this morning or am I hemorrhaging out and this is all just some weird hallucination?"

Jen jumped to her feet and straightened her clothes before heading toward the door. "I'm glad we had this little chat, Red. Oh and if you do start to hemorrhage, try not to get it on the furniture. Nobody wants to sit in old Jacque juices. That just wouldn't be right. Toodles."

The library door closed behind her and Jacque was left sitting dumbstruck in her chair. She looked down. "Nope, not hemorrhaging." Then she looked back up at the door. "Did that seriously just happen?"

"Did what just happen," Sally asked as she came through the door Jen had only moments ago exited.

"Jen, doghouse, Dec, tossing a puppy, Thia, wolf, advanced, hemorrhaging, stupid pills." The words just tumbled out of Jacque in a jumbled mess because that's what the whole conversation with Jen had felt like.

"Okay see, when I hear words like advanced, hemorrhaging, and stupid pills used in the same sentence with Jen's name, I don't even want to know the rest of the conversation. That's just one of those sentences where I can immediately say, stop, I've heard enough." Sally sat down on the couch where Jen had been sitting and Jacque nearly told her to get up before the stupid could rub off on her. But Sally spoke first. "And where the crap is your book? Yesterday you didn’t have a book and we wound up being the sideline commentary to Dec and Jen's little foreplay argument. We're lucky Jen didn't decide to retaliate last night. Not to mention when you don't have a book in your hands, your brain starts to ooze out of your ear and you start spouting off crazy crap about castrating Fane and beating Vasile with a paddle engraved with the words dumb ass on it, just because he gave life to the man you mated."

Jacque let out a sigh at Sally's words. Okay, so maybe she'd been a little hard on Jen. It wasn't like Jacque hadn't been spewing her own form of stupid for the past month. Maybe Jen hadn't swallowed a stupid pill after all. And they were all under the same frustrating stress since their mates had taken stupid pills after their meeting with Vasile yesterday. Maybe Jen had just been absorbing all of Jacque's stupid, and then yesterday she absorbed Decebel’s stupid and she'd finally been overdosed.

"Sally," Jacque practically whispered.

"Yeah?"

"We have got to get this baby out of me before I overdose anyone else on my stupid."

"Uh, what?"

"Exactly," Jacque said as she shook her head and picked up her forgotten book.

Suddenly the door flew open and Jen stepped through it. "Scratch what I said about the whole puppy thing, Thelma, we have totally got a mission, with no time for cleaning up puppy crap or helping Dec get unstuck from the door of the doghouse. The action drought has finally ended and it is raining danger all up in here!" She clapped her hands together as her eyes danced with energy.

Sally leaned forward, still eyeing the keyed up Jen, and whispered to Jacque. "I totally get what you mean about overdosing on your stupid now."