Cara Randall has dedicated her life to helping protect and save hybrids. Her hospital and shelter, Sanctuary, helps the injured or mistreated hybrids of Samta, New Kanoa. While she has success with her job, she's lacking the one thing she wants most...
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It felt like Cara's belly was growing more and more evident every day. Because of the shorter pregnancy with a hybrid young, what would normally be a slow and drawn out gestation period was instead rapid, like someone was fast-forwarding the whole thing. Changes were occurring on a daily basis instead of weekly. The past four weeks had taken my mate from not showing at all to looking like she was in her fifth month; the bump was still small but it was definitely there.
Jimin and I couldn't keep our hands off Cara, partly due to her being our destined mate but also because she was carrying our young. Both of our hybrid instincts about protecting the kit had come out in full force; the two of us had been so overly protective of our girl walking in the snow that she had scolded us on more than one occasion. At least I wasn't as bad as the Arctic fox, who, while we were out shopping for Christmas presents growled at anyone that dared come near our mate... let's just say we were promptly asked to leave.
One thing that became abundantly clear as we were buying things for the kit was just how cramped our home really was. When it was just Cara and I, the house was comfortable; when Jimin came along, the home became small. So, for the past couple of weeks, Jimin and I had embarked on a top-secret mission, one that our beautiful mate wasn't aware of.
"I got an email from Leedo saying we can go this morning," Jimin spoke in a hushed voice as we laid in bed while Cara was in the bathroom.
"I'm free this morning if you are. We've got the scan this afternoon so we should be right as long as we're back for that. Did he send any photos?"
Jimin handed over his phone and the pictures looked perfect. My tail flicked with excitement. I particularly loved the bay windows that would get the morning sun; I could imagine sleeping there with our little kit curled up beside me.
"I have a good feeling about this one," I said, flicking through the images. "Hopefully it's as good in person as it's shown here." I looked through the house's floor plan, counting each of the bedrooms – six in total. It had everything we'd ever want or need, with plenty of rooms for our growing family, as well as a huge backyard to run around in.
"I'll shoot him a reply and say we're interested," the fox replied, taking back his phone. He finished the email just as our girl came back in the room.
"Good morning my beautiful Kitten," I cooed, opening my arms and enveloping Cara in a big hug as she laid back down. "How's the nausea this morning? Still kicking your butt?"
I chuckled as my mate nodded into my shoulder. "I still love you even if you've been puking up your guts," Jimin teased, kissing our girl on the back of her neck. "Still the sexiest mama-to-be I've ever seen."
During the time I'd been with Cara and then after Jimin came along, we had been trying to help our girl see how beautiful she, and her body, was. Being on the heavier side of normal had basically decimated Cara's self-esteem, especially when people made nasty and passive aggressive comments about her size. Both Jimin and I loved every single thing about our mate and we'd always told her so. As much as she was glowing while being pregnant, Cara was also slipping back into her old habits of seeing the faults in herself because of the growing belly and hormones. Where we saw our new kit blossoming and growing in her belly, our mate only saw herself getting fat.
