Confession
“Thank you for coming tonight.”
Leanne looked up at me, the two of us standing on my still-undecorated porch. Aegis was chasing Collin around in the front yard, Lucy squealing with laughter on his shoulders; Dylan was talking animatedly a few feet away with Jade over some video game, and Ivy and Paul were arguing over the finer points of a pumpkin pie recipe.
“I am glad I came,” Leanne said, touching my arm. “It really is good to have you back in Werewolf Hollow, my dear.”
“I’m sorry I left.”
“Don’t be.” She lifted her chin, and a chilly breeze ruffled her hair. “All things in their time. Would that I could show you just how much your assumed death affected everyone.”
“I can think of someone who probably wasn’t bothered,” I joked.
Her green eyes glittered. “You would be wrong, even then. Brittani Choi was there, mascara smudged to death, sobbing her eyes out.”
“What?” I stared at her. “Brittani Choi? She was crying? In public?”
Leanne laughed, a graceful, soft sound. “As I understand it, you two were friends once.”
“Well, sure. But then Ivy moved into town, and rather than accept her into our group, Brittani just… turned on me. She made me choose. Ivy was new, I couldn’t abandon her.”
“Children do the darnedest things.”
I thought to all three of my kids, and then dryly agreed. “Ain’t that the truth.”
“Aegis was the most strongly affected, you know,” Leanne said. “He had so many regrets, even after we learned that you were all right. He wanted to go find you.”
I was surprised. “Why didn’t he?”
“That was the first time his father fell- hard. It was the beginning of the end; Aegis couldn’t leave the pack with his father sick. When Graham finally passed, Aegis couldn’t leave the pack at all, and I was no help to him whatsoever. He had to make that sacrifice, to stay with his people. Now, I believe he is trying to make up for lost time.”
I watched him running around in the grass. He and Lucy managed to catch hold of Collin’s shirt, dragging him to the ground with them. “He’s always been meant for this. For being an Alpha, I mean.”
“Yes, but he needs a Luna.” She patted my arm. “You’d be a good one.”
“I don’t know if you’ve forgotten, but I ran off when things got too hard.”
“That wasn’t running off.” She looked out, smiling slightly. “That was a tactical retreat.”
“You handled your grief better than I did,” I muttered.
Leanne snorted, a very unusual sound coming from her. It was so like both Jade and Aegis, I had to wonder if that’s where they’d got it. “Did I? Maybe I haven’t left town, but I certainly haven’t been present. I’ve left my son all by himself.” She shook her head. “No more. When Jade told me you had come home, I felt like that was my sign. It was time to put away my selfish needs to sequester myself away like a hermit and come out.” She squeezed my arm. “You have been there for my family far more than anyone else in this town, sweetheart. Now we are all here for you.”
“I would not make a good Luna,” I said softly. “I can barely take care of myself.”
“Oh, posh.” She patted my shoulder. “I’ll get that cherry pie finished tomorrow, and then we’ll head on over to that Fall Festival and… what did Jade call all of this, again?”
I felt dread in my heart. “Oh, please, no-“
“Brittani’s Buttkicking Brigade,” she said, which was about as awkward as hearing Santa Clause swear because he’d stubbed his toe. She gave me a grin. “See you tomorrow, my dear.”
----
Everyone drifted away after Leanne, until at last, it was only Aegis left behind, which somehow seemed only natural.
Collin had Lucy asleep on his back by then, and he started shoving his brother back toward the front door.
“Hey,” Dylan complained. “Hey! I’m going! Why are we rushing all of a sudden?”
“Dude, just go inside,” Collin said acidly. “I’ll tell you when you’re older.”
“Oh, don’t you start with that garbage-“
“If you weren’t constantly making googly eyes at Jade, you’d probably know what I was talking about!”
“I’m not making googly eyes, fur for brains!”
“Dude, shut up. Help me get Lucy’s teeth brushed, will you?”
I shook my head, watching them go in through the door. The ‘Three Stooges’ comment I’d made to myself just this morning suddenly filtered back through my brain, and I laughed.
“They’re a lot like you,” Aegis said, apparently guessing where my mind was at.
“What, chaotic?” I joked. “We’re all a hot mess. Must be genetic.”
“They’re kids. I think it’s expected.”
We stood for a moment, and I looked up at the lightly waning moon. “Brittani’s going to know you all helped me.”
“I imagine she will,” Aegis said dryly. “I’d be more surprised if she didn’t.”
I looked at him, startled. “What? Why?”
“Brittani’s not with Lawrence for nothing,” he commented. “Her observational skills are surprisingly talented. While I don’t totally condone her methods, I think a part of her is struggling with your return. She doesn’t know how to process her feelings. She believes she is helping you.”
I scoffed. “I don’t think she ever knew how to deal with her feelings. Do you think they’re fated mates?”
“Oh, definitely,” Aegis commented. “I have very little doubt.”
The question hanging in the air between us couldn’t be denied. “Why me? Why now?”
Aegis blinked and let out a gust of air. “You want that conversation now?”
There was that feeling of standing on a precipice, looking out over the total and complete unknown. “Maybe.”
“I’ll give you the short of it, then.” He crossed his arms, leaning against the wall. “It isn’t just now, and it’s always been you.”
My heart was racing. Caffeine had never done for me what adrenaline was doing now. It was either butterflies throwing a rave in my stomach, or moths trying to chew their way out. Aegis was leaning against my house, giving me this heated looked, amber eyes glittering in the moonlight above us; he was broad-shouldered, tall, powerful, and in every way, the most gorgeous man I had ever seen. My ex drew a sad, pale image in my mind next to him.
I had it bad.
“Aegis,” I said softly, shoving those feelings down. “I find that really… really hard to believe.”
He snorted. “My entire life was dedicated to preparing me for taking over the pack. I never once got a pep talk about how to talk to girls. I thought I had plenty of time; I could focus on the pack, and then I could figure out my feelings.” He looked at me, and there wasn’t a trace of humor in his expression. “If I’d have known how little time I actually had, I would’ve told you much sooner.”
“But…” I floundered. There were two parts of me at serious war with each other: the first wanted so desperately for this to be true, because somehow, even after a decade, I had feelings for Aegis that had never gone out. “But why?”
“I’ve known you a lot longer than you think I have. Seen you and the kind of person you are for a lot longer than you know.”
“Aegis, I’m really nothing special. Everything I ever did, it was just… the right thing to do. I’m not anything special. I just did my best.”
Aegis tilted his head. “It’s not that I believe you’re inherently special, Sylvia. It’s that I know you’re meant to be mine. When you disappeared, I thought that you were dead.” There was a flicker of something I didn’t recognize in his expression, something dark and… sad. “I thought I had lost you forever, and I’d never even gotten a chance to try to explain what I was feeling.”
I blanched. “I’m sorry.”
“That’s not your fault.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I wanted to go after you. Hell, I was prepared to. I was going to find you and stay with you, help you, protect you. You were out there all alone, and you needed someone with you.”
Aegis had always been like his name. A shield, carefully displaying only the emotions he wanted the people around him to see, and in careful doses. Now, a look I definitely recognized filled his expression: despair.
“I couldn’t go,” he said, and there was misery in his voice. “I couldn’t. For ten years, every part of me has wanted to chase you down… but I couldn’t. I wanted to find you, because I knew you must have been struggling, but the pack… I couldn’t leave them.”
I slipped my fingers in his hand. “That’s not your fault.”
“I am what I am.” His voice was heavy and filled with dismay. “Even now, I can tell you I love you, because I do, but I am an Alpha. The pack… must always come first.”
Every part of me was shaking. I might have believed I was dreaming, but I was vibrating with energy. It was crackling across my skin, dancing between the hairs standing straight up; I felt my heart hammering, the blood pounding in my ears.
“That’s why I loved you,” I said. “Everything you did, you did out of sacrifice. Even without your father’s training, everything you did… it was with the people who needed you most in mind. I’ve always… always loved that the most.”
“Rudy told me you had found someone.” Aegis swallowed. “He was my only link to you. I believed I had lost my chance forever. I questioned whether I had denied my pack their Luna. I thought it best to let you have that chance… and I stopped asking.”
“He was a mistake.”
“He was never the one you were meant for.”
“How can you be so sure I’m your fated mate?” The words shook with my breath. “I’m human. What if I’m not?”
But Aegis shook his head. “I’m pretty sure you already know.”
“I wasn’t the only girl obsessed with you,” I scoffed.
“It wasn’t obsession.” He raised a hand and touched my cheek, stepping forward. The hand I had slipped my fingers into engulfed my own; his amber eyes shone brilliantly. “You know that.”
“All I wanted was a family,” I whispered. “I wanted to give my children a family. I wanted it more than I wanted anything else.”
“See?” His warm breath skated across my skin. He smelled like cake batter and cinnamon and sugar. “You and I, we’re the same. We’re built on self-sacrifice; two halves of a whole.”
He was so close. I couldn’t speak. I could barely process his words.
“There’s one way to know,” Aegis murmured. He released my hand, both of his coming up to cup my face; his hands were calloused, rough and warm, and they sent a thrill of electricity through me. His body heat was enveloping mine; the chill of fall vanished. “You’ll feel it, even if you’re human.”
I was drowning in amber. My breath hitched as he dropped his face to mine… and then he was kissing me.
Electric was an understatement.
An explosive current burst through my body, and something completely foreign exploded in my gut; a need, a desire, a flood of relief and fire. I gasped against his mouth and threw my arms around his neck just as his hands dropped to my waist, crushing me to him.
I had never experienced anything like it. Whatever excuses for passion I had ever had in my life paled in comparison to this moment, when my entire future and present and past was engulfing me, needing me, wanting me.
He kissed me hard, his breathing coming out in ragged bursts; his arms threatened to pull me so deeply into him, I might disappear. I gasped, and he kissed me harder, tasting me; my knees buckled, and he caught me.
A moment later, Aegis pulled himself away- barely. I almost thought I saw electricity literally sparking in the space between us as we stood there breathing like marathon runners.
“Oh,” I said, stupidly. My voice cracked and pitched up.
Aegis laughed, and it was a sound that made my heart skip about fifteen beats. Airy, light, buoyant; he was bursting with magnetic energy. “Oh?” He laughed again. His arms were still tight around my waist. “That’s what you have to say?”
“I think I’ve gone dumb,” I whispered. I touched his face, trying to believe this was real. “I should have come back so much sooner.”
“Who knows if it would have happened like this,” Aegis murmured. “Besides: now I have you, Collin, Dylan, and Lucy.”
My chest ached, and for a moment, I struggled to find the word for what I was feeling.
“Hope,” I whispered.
“What?”
“I see hope,” I said, staring into his eyes.
He snickered. “And you called me cheesy.”
“Shut up.”
“Brittani should’ve asked us to make a cheesecake.”
I burst into laughter, because it was like I was filled with helium. So much desire to burst and run and move and shout, and yet not wanting to move from where I stood.
“I’m never letting you go.” Aegis cupped my face and kissed me again- shorter, sweeter, never enough. “I’m never letting you down again.”
“Me, either, Aegis. Me, either.”