Aaron #2
She’s sitting up when I come back in. I hand her the pitcher, and she drinks the whole thing in one pull and holds it back to me. I take the pitcher and set it on the end table, and sit down on the edge of the bed.
“Lie down,” I tell her.
She does. I lower myself gently beside her and settle my head against her belly, my arm draped across her hip.
“I’m sorry I came at you like that,” I murmur.
She doesn’t answer, she just breathes. I turn my head and press a kiss to the small soft pouch of her belly through the fabric of her dress. “I love you so much.”
Still no answer. But her hand comes down and finds the back of my head, her thumb stroking behind my ear once, and she doesn’t pull away. I close my eyes.
“I want it all with you.” My voice is thick.
“I want it all, baby. You hear me? I can’t smell when your body shifts.
So when it happens, when you finally catch that change on yourself, I want to see it on your face.
I’ve thought about it more than I should have.
The first morning you wake up and you know. I want to see that.”
Her hand tightens at the back of my head, and when she speaks her voice is small, hoarse from crying. “Really?”
I lift my head off her belly and find her eyes. “Yes, Mara.”
Her eyes are shiny but they’ve gone soft, and she’s listening to me now. I kiss her belly again, then shift up the bed a little and kiss the rise of her breast through the fabric of her dress, one and then the other.
“I can’t wait to watch your belly swell.
” I kiss the center of her ribs. “I want to see your breasts grow heavy for our baby.” I kiss the base of her neck.
“I want to watch you start nesting in our house.” My lips move to her cheek.
“I want you to tell me the crib is in the wrong place and make me move it.”
I find her mouth. The kiss is slow this time, soft. She kisses me back but doesn’t give me much.
I break the kiss and let out a sigh pressing my forehead to hers.
“I think I’m broken, Aaron.”
Everything in me stops. I lift off her forehead and look at her. “Why do you think that?”
She sits up and I follow her. She puts her palm flat against her belly, and her eyes are wet again.
“Meekah’s right.”
My teeth lock at the name and I keep my mouth shut.
“It’s been a full year of being mated, Aaron.” Her voice is thin. “And not even a scare, nothing. No shift in my scent.” Her lip trembles. “I think I’m broken. You have a broken mate.”
“Fucking Meekah—“
“It’s not about him.” Her hand stays on her belly.
“What did he say to you?” I touch her wrist.
She shakes her head and pouts her lip, and I groan and run a hand over my face.
“It’s not you,” I say. “Mara. Nothing is wrong with you. Nothing.” Her head is already shaking.
“You’re wrong.”
“I’m not—“ I reach for her hand.
“I’m going to Wintermoon Medical,” she says, pulling her hand back.
My eyes snap up to hers.
“Tomorrow. I’m going to make an appointment. I can’t keep wondering—“
“No.” It comes out too fast. Her head tilts in response. “No, no, you, you can’t do that, baby. Not yet—“
Her brow pulls down. “Why not?”
I fall quiet for a moment. I have nothing.
“Just trust me,” I say, very quietly. “When I tell you it’s not you.”
Her tail has started to flap against the blanket behind her, slow at first, then faster. When she speaks her voice has gone dangerous. “Aaron. What are you not telling me?”
“We’ll talk about it this weekend.” I keep my voice level.
“Aaron.” Her tail cracks once, hard, against the mattress.
“We will.”
Her eyes narrow to slits. “Why can’t I make babies?”
I flinch, my whole shoulder moving with it. “We will talk about it this weekend, Mara.”
She stares at me. The next question is forming on her tongue, and I’m not ready for it. I can’t hold her eyes much longer without telling her the truth, and I’m not ready to tell her.
“I’ll go get your lesson plans.” I stand up off the bed. “And some dinner. I bet Mom just put a pot on.”
I throw a hand out and pull a portal in the air. It opens on the cafeteria.
My mother is standing by the tables. Her eyes are on me through the open portal like she’s been waiting for me to show my face.
“Mmhm,” she says.
I feel my stomach drop clean out of my body. “I’ll be right back, honey,” I manage at Mara.
I quickly step through it and close the portal so hard it snaps.
“Ma—“
“You got some nerve,” my mother says. “Coming in here right now. You’ve been ignoring me for weeks.”
“Ma—“
She huffs once, and storms past me into the kitchen.
My mother is about to kill me while my mate is in the suite about to figure it out on her own. And somewhere deep under the noise of all of it, I can feel the thing I’ve been pretending wasn’t real for the past year.
The spell I cast on myself the night I trapped her in that cabin. A block on my seed.
Mara’s voice comes back to me in pieces. I don’t want to have a baby on the community lands. She’d cried it at me right before I lost my shit and sealed her in. I want to be a teacher.
The afternoon she came to my classroom after my students cleared out and said it to me before she said anything else. I want to be a teacher.
And then I sat downstairs in that cabin after she went up to bed, and I decided without her that I was going to give her what I thought she’d asked for.
Except I wasn’t giving my mate anything. I was taking. I took her body’s choice from her the same way Eric took mine when he walked out on my mom.
But I want cubs, a houseful. I thought I was giving her peace. I thought I was taking care of her.
Goddamnit.
In the kitchen, my mother slams the oven door.