11
O n the flight back, I couldn’t get Luna Regina’s words out of my mind. Was my mate a good, loving male? Were we only right for each other physically: genetically compatible to produce optimal offspring, to perpetuate a strong Alpha bloodline, but maybe not suited for having dinner together at a romantic restaurant? What was mating supposed to be, originally? Just an evolutionary necessity or a meeting of the souls?
Dominic and Theo were silent as well, so there was no pressure to sound normal. I could be in my head as much as I wanted to. What would I do if I wasn’t pregnant?
Now that I had a clear image of how infertility could ruin a mating, I couldn’t stop obsessing over it. On the other hand, I also had the image of Grace and Elliot’s mating, the five pupless years, and the endless love and tenderness he had in his eyes whenever he looked at her. I clutched my mental coat tightly to hide how much I coveted a love like that.
I felt thick, sludgy jealousy coating my insides like it did whenever I was in the presence of love. I had to admit to myself that my mating with Dominic wasn’t strong enough to withstand adversity, and that was a sad and sobering thought.
◆◆◆
The week after the trial, Dominic and I did a good job of avoiding each other. Before, I would have minded, I would have wondered. Now, I was glad to be left alone.
He was having nightmares he didn’t talk to me about. I kept remembering how strong Regina had been, how composed, how she took matters into her own hands and dealt with an impossible situation. Compared to her, I was still a pup, weak and emotionally dependent on a male who didn’t really care for me.
Luckily, my friends were back, and we met for lunch at Grace’s house to catch up and exchange gifts belatedly. She was due to have the pup any day now. I told them all about the trial, since everyone was interested in the scandal of the century even though most of it had already been reported in all the papers. But I also had something else to say.
“I think I’m pregnant,” I said quietly, and they all squealed excitedly.
I wasn’t even completely sure yet, but I had to tell someone.
“How long has it been since your heat?” Mira asked, ever the nurse.
“Three weeks, so next week I’ll know for sure,” I said.
“Oh my God, I am so excited,” Charlotte said and her eyes were misty, “you were born to be a mom. Wait till Anthony hears about this!”
I laughed. The gray fog of the last weeks was starting to dissipate. I was going to have a pup. I felt my eyes and nose burn and I sniffed.
“No crying!” Lynn admonished. “What did Dominic say?”
“I, uh, still haven’t told him.”
Silence.
“Why not?” Grace asked gingerly like I was a doe she didn’t want to spook.
“I want to wait until I’m sure.”
“Oh come on, three weeks is almost 100% certain, what are you waiting for?”
“I don’t know,” I sighed. “Things have been weird again since we came back from the trial, and it’s putting me on edge.”
“Weird, how?” Charlotte asked.
“He’s been avoiding me and spending all his time at the office. When he’s home, he looks at me the same way he looks at the puzzle I got him for Christmas, like he’s trying to figure something out. It’s weird.”
“You gotta tell him,” Mira said gently.
“I will. Next week.”
◆◆◆
“So, how long will you be gone?” I asked Vera, who invited us to lunch to say goodbye before she left on her top-secret assignment.
“Three months, probably.”
“Wow,” Sonya said, “that’s some job.”
“It is. I’m excited.”
“I’m happy to see it,” Florence said, “you haven’t been this excited about your work for a long time.”
“I think this change will be good for me,” Vera said and smiled at me like she was trying to tell me something.
After lunch, I decided to stop by Dominic’s office before going home and just tell him about the pregnancy. I knocked and when he gave permission, I entered to find him lost in reading some files. His desk was a mess, and his hair was ruffled. He looked exhausted. Between the nightmares and leaving the house at 7 am to avoid me, it was no wonder.
After not getting anything from him, I tentatively called, “Dominic?”
“What are you doing here? I thought you were having lunch with my mother?” he seemed confused.
“I was. We were saying goodbye to Vera. She’s leaving on assignment,” I said stupidly, like he, as the Alpha, wouldn’t have known about it already.
“Hm,” he hummed and continued reading his file.
I shifted from one foot to the other. This felt like being in Father’s office once upon a time, asking to be allowed to have a sleepover at Theresa’s house. I never was.
“Did you see the deck swing Grace and Elliot got us for Christmas?”
Stupid question. That thing was huge. Of course, he’d seen it. But I figured mentioning Grace was a good start – I’d segue into her going past her due date and then into my own pregnancy. It was too early for him to scent it, but my wolf now knew for sure. She was ecstatic, and honestly, when not standing in Dominic’s office, clearly disturbing him, so was I.
“Penelope,” he sighed impatiently, “can’t you see I’m working?”
I recoiled as if he’d struck me. He rubbed his eyes warily, and by the time he was done, I’d schooled my face back to neutral, I hoped. My mental defenses were always in place these days, I didn’t need to check.
“I’ll leave you to it, then,” I said, my voice miraculously steady, and turned to leave.
“Wait.”
I remained at the door with my back to him.
“The King asked me to accompany him to Spruce Mountain to help dismantle the pack. You know that my mother is from there and I’m more familiar with it than most. I’m not happy about it, but I have to go.”
I turned to look at him.
“I’m leaving tomorrow. For two months at least.”
My jaw fell open. Wasn’t this something to be discussed with your mate first? I didn’t bother asking him because his actions made it clear that, for him, it wasn’t.
“It’s probably for the best,” I said after a while, and he shot to his feet.
“What?!”
“You heard me. You’re distant and absent and irritable all the time, so maybe it’s better if you leave for a while,” I said, fully intending for him to hurt like I was.
It was a foreign feeling, a heady one, and I could tell it was dangerous to indulge in it too much.
“Penelope, you don’t mean that,” he told me as his eyes tried pushing those words into me, begging me to make them true.
“I actually do, Dominic. See you at home,” I said and left the office. I heard him smash something as I left, but I couldn’t find it in me to care.
I stayed up reading and then slept on my comfy couch. When Dominic came downstairs with his suitcase in the morning, his face was shuttered again. Gone was the male with the pleading eyes. Alpha Dominic stood before me in all his physical glory, as emotionally hollow as he always wanted to be.
I walked him out, and he pulled me into a hug.
“Will I get one of your letters?” he asked softly.
“As many as I’ve gotten from you,” I said, and felt my words hit a mark.
The whip of his anguish hit me over the stomach, and I almost doubled over from the pain. Luckily, he held me through it.
“Take care, sweet peach,” he murmured in my ear.
“Goodbye, Dominic,” I responded.
As I watched him drive away, fatigue settled inside me, bone-deep. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. It wasn’t supposed to hurt this much. I was done fighting for something that wasn’t even there, and I sure as heck was done begging for scraps of his attention.
Maybe I couldn’t change who my mate was, but I could change how I acted and responded to him. I had a pup to think about now.
Once I was done crying, I went over to Florence’s house and tattled.
“So then he just... left?”
“Yeah,” I sighed from my spot on her sofa.
“Don’t worry, dear, we’ll make a plan with the pack and with your friends. Everything will be okay. You know that everyone is there for you and the pup, we all love you so much.”
“Everyone but my mate loves me,” I said bitterly.
Florence remained silent for a long time.
“You know, I blame myself. I can’t help but feel like all of this is my fault,” she said in a strange, strangled voice.
I looked at her and she seemed a decade older than she was a minute ago.
“When my mate died, I just... I fell apart. I was so lost in my grief that I completely neglected Dominic for months. He’d lost his father, and then his mother checked out as well. By the time I recovered, my sweet, gentle, sensitive pup was gone. The son I used to have never came back, not fully,” she said, trying and failing to wipe her face dry.
The tears were too fast.
“The same thing happened with my father, but I don’t think I went in the same direction as Dominic did.”
“The same boiling water that softens the potato hardens the egg,” she said, and I kept thinking about that saying for the rest of the day.
As I lay in our bed alone (something that made my wolf extremely unhappy), I briefly thought about what poor Heather would do without her chauffeur for the next three months, and it made me smile.
Then I remembered what Elliot had told me about not talking to Dominic while he was driving, and the thought of the two of them sitting in the car in silence on all their drives made me giggle.
I’d be alright. I thought of my pup. We’d be alright.
Tomorrow was a new day.