35. Isobel
There’s a lump in my bed.
No matter how much I toss and turn, the moment I relax and try to get some sleep, the lump appears and presses into my body to a discomforting level.
It’s got absolutely nothing to do with the knowledge that the lion I tended to for weeks—one I felt myself drawn to and seeking out for companionship—is in actuality a shifter who has spent time with my fated mate. A shifter who rejected his own, much to his regret and self-disgust. It’s also a completely separate issue to the fact that my fated mate not only disappeared the moment he discovered I was carrying our cub, but that he still hasn’t returned to us.
It also has nothing to do with the dreams invading my sleep every night, each one more vivid and explicit than the last. Dreams where I have not one, but two men lavishing attention over every strip of my skin until I wake drenched and trembling with need.
Nope.
Nothing to do with ANY of those issues at all.
I just need a new mattress.
One without the memories and echoes of the love I both found and lost, all within the space of a year. One that doesn’t cradle me like two pairs of loving hands.
And pigs will fly.
I shift my cumbersome bulk yet again, and this time my baby lets me know that they’ve had enough. I’m nearing my due date, and I’m both anxious and excited to meet the little one. To look at their tiny features and see myself and Quin in them. To discover if they take after him with his dark hair and hazel eyes, or if they have more of my Scottish heritage flowing in their blood.
I curl onto my side, staring out into the darkness of my bedroom. My door stands slightly ajar, something I’ve found Simon and Tálstrom both prefer.
Simon has been brilliant when it comes to giving me space. His main objective has been to ensure that I am safe, that I don’t put myself or my cub in danger. However, he understands that I am a grown woman, and have been fending for myself for a long time. He doesn’t jump into situations feet-first like my brothers and will accept my refusal should he offer me assistance. At the same time, I know that the times he does offer, it’s generally at a point where I’m no longer capable of completing the task without help, so I tend to accept it.
It’s peeving both of my brothers to no end, and I am here. For. It.
Another thing Simon has been able to provide me with is reassurance. We both know that Quin is still alive, although the bonds we share with him are muted and dim. Simon has told me a number of times that he taught Quin how to smother his bond and hide them, so that the so-called “scientists” at Vieux Sang couldn’t manipulate or study them. He also assures me that one of the added skills he and Tálstrom gained when they became Altered was the ability to manipulate their bonds. So, while the one I share with Quin may be silent, the one Simon shares with him is anything but.
***
I’m seated on the bench swing at the front of my house, watching ribbons of technicolor paint the sky as the sun sinks behind the horizon. Another day has passed, one without my mate beside me. Soon it will be too late, and he’ll have missed my entire pregnancy.
The cushion-covered wood creaks with age as I push against the porch floor with one foot, the other tucked up beneath me. I’m lost in my own musings when an arm brushes mine, and I turn to find Simon standing silently beside me.
I scoot over and he settles onto the cushion next to me. We sit together on the swing, communicating without words for long minutes. His presence soothes me, settling my tumultuous thoughts with only his proximity. My heart pangs with longing, but I smother it quickly. I already have a mate, and I have no desire or intention to betray him in any way.
Simon is my friend. No matter how much I’m drawn to him on a deeper level, he can never be more than that. I can’t betray Quin in that way.
We’ve grown close, of course we have. It would be impossible not to do so with the events of the past few weeks. He’s become essential to me, like another part of my whole. Only one other person has ever been that close to me, to share that type of relationship with me. And he’s not here. He’s gone and isn’t coming back.
“Isobel, do you trust me?”
I look up at Simon’s soft question and smile sadly.
“If I didn’t trust you, Simon, you wouldn’t have been given a bed just down the hallway from my own room.”
“Quin hasn’t forgotten about you, you know that, right? He’s coming for you. Never doubt that.”
Frustration pours through me. How does Simon know I’m doubting the connection I have with Quin? How does he know that I’m angry and upset and lost, that all I want is Quin here in front of me so I can rage and scream and laugh and love him with my entire being?
“He told me about that day. The last one you had together. He didn’t leave you, Isobel. He never has, not really. He’s been by your side in his dreams and memories. It’s what has sustained him through his darkest days.”
I kick back in the swing, resting my head on the back of the bench. I stare up at the darkening sky, counting the stars as they appear in the velvet firmament, feeling their appearance soothe something dark and jagged inside me.
“You know, growing up I didn’t have many friends,” I murmur, and I can feel Simon’s full attention bearing down on me as he listens to me ramble.
“I’m a latent shifter, in a family of cougar shifters. My mama doesn’t shift, but Da, Dane, and Dillon all do. All Da’s side shift, all into cougars. Mama’s side? They’re all hit-and-miss. Neither Grams or Gramps shift, nor do any of my uncles or aunts. I have a couple of cousins, though. One is a beaver, if you can believe it, and the other is a llama. Their parents both found their fated mates, and they take after those shifters. So, while I have a whole passel of cousins in the same boat as me, they don’t live that close. It hurt to always be surrounded by shifters, and a lot of the time I’d just wander off and be my own company. Paw Paw didn’t like me being isolated like that, so he brought me here to help him, and I flourished.”
I turn my head, my gaze meeting Simon’s intense one, and I find myself drowning in their blue depths. My heart tugs inside my chest, the pang so sharp and sudden it feels as though I’ve been cut and splayed open for his perusal.
“The animals we rescued, the ones that couldn’t survive in the wild? They became my friends. Until Quin came along, unless they were related to me or were a hundred percent animal, I didn’t have any friends.”
Tears well in my eyes, but I ignore them. I need to purge this from my soul, confess it all to the man seated beside me.
“The day he shifted from his tiger and back into his human skin, that was the day I found my best friend. And up until recently, he was the only friend I had. Until you… and Tálstrom.”
A single, salty droplet spills over my lashes and trails down my cheek, but I don’t wipe it away. Neither does Simon. We leave it to trail its way down my face, a silent statement of loss, hope, and change.
“I feel safe with you here, like I have another best friend to walk beside me through all of life’s trials and tribulations. If I can’t have my mate by my side, protecting and cherishing me as I would protect and cherish him, then you make a spectacular back-up. I know I can come to you for almost anything, and that you would give your life, your very all, to ensure that my cub and I have a life full of happiness and joy.”
Simon’s own eyes glaze over with emotion, and I know that my next words will likely shatter his composure completely.
“In the absence of their father being present, will you take on that role? Will you and Tálstrom stand in Quin’s stead, until the day he can return to us all? Will it upset you if I ask you to become part of our family, to become my other best friend and confidante, and godfather to my unborn child? Will you stay with us even after Quin returns, even if it takes years for that to happen? Is that unfair of me to ask you to give up your life, to put it aside for my sake? Am I being selfish?”
Simon’s face creases into a smile so breathtaking, so heartrendingly beautiful that more tears fall down my cheeks. I feel myself tumbling blindly into an abyss so unexpected and deep, I don’t think I’ll ever return to the surface.
“Isobel, it would be both an honor and a privilege to be counted as part of your family. I decided a long time ago that I would spend the rest of my life nurturing the bonds between others in my life, and doubly so for any bonds between fated mates. That you would trust me to care for you and your cub, all while your mate is fighting his way back to you both… I don’t have the words to express my gratitude for your faith and love. Thank you. Just… thank you.”
My hand reaches for Simon’s, and I clutch it while bringing it to my belly. I gently press his hand to my prominent bump, flattening his palm so it lays open and spread above the movement of my cub.
“Cub-cub, this is your Uncle Simon. He’s one of your daddy’s best friends, and is mine, too. Why don’t you welcome him to the family?”
My cub listens, kicking and spinning agilely in welcome. Simon and I sit on the swing, watching the moon rise as his hand rests on my belly, a closeness forming between us that will prove as strong as steel.