Chapter 10
TEN
PHELAN
Some people told everyone every single secret the second they had a few too many beers. Others did so when they were coming down from a victory, the dopamine giving them a sense of invincibility. The amount of information revealed after a winning championship game could fill an entire gossip rag.
But with Rawling, it was that quiet time, right before he fell asleep, that he was his most honest and most vulnerable.
I’d come to cherish it. It was when he shared how he felt about me, about life, and about our future.
There were days when it wasn’t sunshine and roses, but pushing those down and ignoring them weren’t good for either him or our baby.
I was glad to be the person he could share it with, the one he could trust.
Tonight, we were lying in bed, holding hands, both of us facing the ceiling, just waiting for sleep to come.
We’d been sleeping that way the past couple of nights, and I really enjoyed it.
The first night I was grumpy about it, not that I’d show him that, but I was.
I wanted to hold him close, snuggle him, bask in his scent.
And he was hot, like stove hot, not the normal I couldn’t keep my hands off him variety. Pregnancy hormones were doing a number on his body. He was taking it like a champ, but I’d have loved to be able to take some of it from him.
But as we lay there, the peaceful connection formed by that touch hit differently in the best of ways. After that night, the first thing I did when we climbed into bed for sleep, not for fun, was to reach for his hand and hold it tightly.
“You seem like something’s on your mind today.” I didn’t want to push, but I also knew that if there was anything I could do to help, I wanted to do it.
“Yeah, I’ve been thinking… a lot, actually.” He sucked in a long breath, releasing it slowly. When he did this, I got the impression he was forming his words, and I’d learned not to interrupt. “I’m wondering if I should drop out,” he finally said.
I waited for him to continue.
“We’re gonna have a baby soon. That baby needs me.”
There was still a decent chunk of time before our baby would come, and when they did, we could easily schedule our classes so that we didn’t need childcare.
Of course, my family was ready for any help.
Despite knowing all of that, I remained silent.
Truth was, it didn’t feel like that was the real reason for him speaking up.
“There’s time to think about that,” I said.
“So you’re saying it’s a bad idea?”
“That’s not what I said, but it’s a big decision, and racing to make it might lead to you having regrets.”
He let go of my hand, and at first I thought he was angry, but then he rolled onto his side and was looking at me. I did the same, my eyes on his face in the dim light of the moon cascading through the crack in the curtains.
“What if I’m a hunter? What if I hurt our baby?”
And there it was, what was really nagging at his brain.
“You aren’t and you never would.”
“But what if?”
“The what-ifs that could never be are not the what-ifs you should be worried about.”
“You don’t know that. Sometimes I think the baby would be safer with you, without me around.”
My heart broke. He wasn’t rejecting me or our child. He was trying to love and protect, and that was a whole lot to take in.
“Hunters are not real. You are not dangerous. Just the fact that you’d be willing to walk away to keep our pup safe… that right there is all the proof we need that you could never hurt them. Our baby is safe with you.”
This wasn’t the first time we’d had this conversation, and I feared it wouldn’t be the last. For some reason my message wasn’t being received, and I didn’t know how to fix that.
“I’m gonna say something, and I don’t want you to be mad. What about therapy?”
“That sounds like a really bad idea.” Rawling’s immediate rejection didn’t surprise me. I’d have probably done the same, but I would do anything about now to help him. “This isn’t something I can just talk about.”
“No. I mean, yes, you can or we can. Not the hunter stuff, but the rest?” Why did he have to be right? “We’re in this together as mates. I’ll be by your side the entire time.”
“Have you noticed that the health services here don’t offer that and no one mentions their therapist in public spaces? There’s a reason for that. There aren’t any, not for us.”
“Yeah, I know, but there’s got to be one, right? Just because we don’t see them doesn’t mean…” I didn’t finish my thought. Telling him that not seeing something didn’t mean they didn’t exist was as good as saying hunters might be real. Not really, but he’d see it that way.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized he was right, though. Without resources at the ready, we were at a standstill. It wasn’t like we could go to humans.
Therapy might not be feasible, but there had to be something I could do to help. I knew part of his struggles were that Rawling had held things in for so long paired with a past he didn’t fully understand.
It was the two of us against the world on this. It wasn’t like there was anyone we could talk to. My parents were supportive, but I needed them to stay that way. And sure, Atticus was my closest friend, though not anymore, but no one was giving him an empathy award.
“I love you.” I leaned over and kissed his cheek. “We’ll figure it out.” And I meant every word. “I think we just need some sleep. We’re too tired for this conversation.”
I needed to come up with some sort of a plan, and a clear head would go a lot farther than what I was currently dealing with. I waited till he fell asleep before allowing myself to do the same.
I didn’t know if it was a dream or a noise outside, but something woke me with a start. I sat straight up to discover I was alone and, from the scent of it, had been for a while. I threw on some jeans and followed my mate’s scent.
My mind played the “what-if” game he was so good at, and it led me straight to his old room, the one Jack still lived in with Bardoul. Bardoul, who wasn’t exactly on good terms with Rawling at the moment.
“Hey.” Rawling looked at me, but it was like he wasn’t there. He was breathing like he’d just run a mile after being on the couch for a year, and his eyes never fully seemed to register who I was. Wonderful.
I wanted to put my hand on his shoulder, but he pushed me away, which, if he was sleepwalking, made sense because he wouldn’t know who I was.
That wasn’t what shocked me. What did was how strong he was.
Even if I had expected it, I would’ve ended up on the ground.
His strength outdid mine, and I was an alpha.
“Rawling, Mate, what’s going on?” I slowly stood up. “You’re safe. You’re fine.”
I tried to play in my head all the things I’d learned about sleepwalking and realized every single one of them was from a sitcom and held no actual useful information.
“Hey, listen, love. I need you. Our baby needs you. Please come back to me.”
I didn’t know which of those phrases it was that worked, but Rawling snapped back. It was as if I was looking at a stranger in my mate’s body and then suddenly Rawling was back.
He looked at me, looked around the area, then back at me. His eyes went wide.
“Where am I?”
“You’re at your old room. I think you were sleepwalking.” Although as I said the words they no longer felt true. This was more than that, and I was starting to freak out about it.
I wanted to say more to reassure him, but the door opened and Jack was there.
“Sorry,” I said. “He was sleepwalking and on autopilot, ended up here.”
“Do you know what time it is?” Great. She was pissed.
“Yeah, I’m sorry. Hormones, you know, all that.” Please don’t let her google pregnancy hormones and sleepwalking. I was no med student, but I was confident those two were not connected.
“Do you need me?” Her eyes were closing as she stood there.
“No, go back to bed. We’re good.”
Bardoul was standing in the background glaring at us.
“Let’s go back,” I said to Rawling.
“Yeah.” He looked down at his feet. “I didn’t get dressed.”
“I got you.” I scooped him up, and to my surprise, he let me without a single pushback, curling into me as I walked down to the infirmary.
This time when we climbed into bed, I held him tight, hating that he was shaking. He told me over and over again that he was sorry, that he made me get up, that he disturbed his friends, that he wasn’t by my side when I woke up, until exhaustion took over and he fell asleep.
Sleep didn’t come as easily to me. As much as I tried to brush it off as sleepwalking, everything shouted it wasn’t. Something was happening to my mate, and I didn’t know what it was.