Chapter 11
Tara
Please, don’t let it be morning yet. Please, let me stay this way a little while longer.
I squeeze my eyes shut tighter than ever, silently praying like I never have before.
I spent all day yesterday wishing time would move a little faster since I can’t stand all of this waiting and worrying.
Now, I want it to freeze, because I’m in Kyran’s arms with my head on his chest, and I have never been so comfortable or so content in my entire life.
Maybe it’s because I know this can’t last much longer. Or maybe it’s because I know tonight could mark the end of my life. I don’t believe he wants to do it—I don’t think he ever actually wanted to. But I know how devoted he is to his clan.
Dammit, why do I have to wake up and immediately start thinking about this? The whole idea was to stay in my warm, drowsy bubble as long as possible. Like I can pretend my way out of facing reality.
He’s still asleep, his breathing deep and even.
I’m glad. I get the idea he hasn’t slept much the past couple of nights.
I still want what’s best for him. Does he know that?
How could he, I guess, since I’ve never actually said it out loud.
It’s not going to happen, either—I’ve been burned already, screamed at when I tried to kiss him.
I guess I can’t be making it any easier for him to inevitably let me go.
Whether letting me go means allowing me to leave or ordering my death is another story.
At least I get to see my family tonight.
Maybe for the last time. Tears sting behind my eyes and threaten to leak out from between my lashes.
There’s got to be a bigger reason for all of this, right?
Or maybe not. Maybe I’m so small and insignificant, my entire life will begin and end with nobody but my closest family caring.
He wakes with a start, jumping so suddenly it scares me. I pull back quickly, sitting up and staring down at him in the faint light of early morning. He looks around, a little panicked, before scrubbing a hand over his scruffy jaw. “Sorry. Sometimes I have bad dreams, too.”
What was it about? I can’t believe how much I want to help him.
How much I yearn for him to lay his head on my chest and pour his heart out.
I need to comfort and soothe, to promise him everything will be all right.
Here we are, in the same bed, under the same blankets, but he may as well be a million miles away.
I kind of hoped that after the day we spent yesterday—and the night we spent together—he would be a little more normal today.
Not so much like there’s a chip on his shoulder.
No such luck. “I have a couple of phone calls to make,” he announces, rolling out of bed without bothering to ask how I’m doing, pulling on jeans.
God, he is blisteringly hot. I want to touch him again so badly, to trace the ridges of muscle along his back, between his shoulders.
There wasn’t enough time for me to do everything I wanted.
“I’ll make breakfast,” I offer, and he gives me a distracted nod before leaving the bedroom.
The front door opens and shuts—I guess he’ll make his calls from the porch.
What will they be about? Killing me? Eating is the last thing I want to do now, but I need to do something to pass the time.
I’ll pull my hair out if I don’t have any sort of distraction.
By the time he comes back in, looking frustrated and grumpy as ever, I’m flipping pancakes. He frowns at them. Not the reaction I was expecting. “I don’t have pancake mix in the house.”
It’s almost kind of cute. “You don’t really need a mix if you know the right ingredients. You have the basics. That’s all you need.”
“Every day is a school day.” He pours himself a mug of the coffee I brewed before I started cooking, then drops into a chair and rakes his hair away from his forehead with both hands. “What do you think? Season two today?”
He is not seriously asking me that, is he? I mean, I appreciate it. He’s not flat out reminding me I could face my doom tonight. But, come on. Like we’re going to sit together, and binge watch a show. As if there’s anything normal about any of this.
Still, I nod and force a pleasant expression when I turn toward him with the platter of pancakes. “Sure. I have to do something, right?”
His brows pinch together before smoothing out again. He doesn’t say anything. What is there to say, I guess.
This is absurd. There’s an elephant in the room.
What are we going to do, ignore it all day?
Watch a show whose third season I might never get the chance to see?
I almost want to laugh, but I can’t seem to pull enough air into my lungs for anything like that.
Instead of trying, I set down the syrup bottle after pouring, making it thud hard enough against the table that his head snaps up.
“What are you doing tonight? What are you going to tell them?”
Slowly, he sits back in his chair, almost slumping. I’ve never seen anybody deflate like that. “There I was, thinking I could have a little peace and quiet.”
“Of all people, I think I’m the one with the right to know.
Don’t you?” He’s too busy chewing to answer.
I think he deliberately took a mouthful as an excuse not to speak.
“This is my life we’re talking about. Are you going to kill me?
Are you going to let them do it? Or are you going to let me go? ”
Unbelievable. He’s sitting there chewing slowly, deliberately, avoiding giving me an answer.
I thought alphas were supposed to be tougher than this—something tells me I would seriously, seriously regret saying that, so I’m smart enough to keep my mouth shut.
But for real. Why can’t he just come out with it?
I’m sure he wouldn’t feel any more patient than I am now if he was in my shoes.
When he sets down his knife and fork, I wish I hadn’t asked. Some questions I don’t want an answer to. I only think I do. There’s no turning back time and pretending I didn’t, though, so I square my shoulders to fake confidence I don’t feel.
His dark eyes meet mine and steal my breath before he gives me a surprise. “What do you want?”
Yeah, curveball. Was not expecting that. “Excuse me? Are you seriously asking what I want?”
His head bobs slowly, never breaking eye contact. “Do you want to go home? Or would you rather stay here, with me?”
I get the feeling somewhere in my overwhelmed mind that this is a very big deal. The fact that he would even ask me in the first place, not to mention the implication. Does this mean what I think it means?
I have to force it out, still trembling with nerves. “Does this mean you’ve changed your mind?”
“About what?”
Easy, girl. He’s lucky I don’t jam my fork in that massive arm of his. “About rejecting me. Have you changed your mind?”
His eyes narrow in what could be frustration or suspicion. I can’t tell which before he replies, “You first. I won’t say until you do.”
Fuck me. Is this really happening? Are we really tiptoeing around like this?
He continues staring at me with an intensity that freaks me out a little while I stare down at my plate, tracing shapes in the syrup.
Do I want to stay here? What if I say yes, and he tells me that’s too bad, because he doesn’t want me?
What if he’s setting me up to make a fool out of me?
I can’t believe at a time like this, I actually care about saving face.
I guess when you’ve got nothing left to lose, things like that matter.
If I stayed here, his clan would never accept me. That’s obvious.
Also obvious is a lifetime spent never seeing my family again.
I wouldn’t let them cross the border for fear of them going through what I’m going through now—only in their case, they wouldn’t have a fated mate to protect them.
I can’t do that, just like I wouldn’t be allowed to cross the border if I mated with a bear.
That’s out, too. Starting a new life with Kyran would mean saying goodbye to my family. My core. Can I really do that?
Who am I kidding? No matter what I choose, I lose. Either I spend the rest of my life with Kyran and lose part of myself by saying goodbye to my family, or I spend endless years without my fated mate. There’s no winning. I am doomed to a future where part of me is missing.
“This is what I deserve.” A soft, cynical laugh bubbles in my throat when I look at the full picture.
“What does that mean?”
I might as well tell him. He should have a full picture of who I really am before he makes his final decision. “I told you about the girl Dad died trying to protect, right? In the woods?” When he nods, I explain, “Her name is Nora. She’s my twin brother’s fated mate, as it turns out.”
“Sometimes it turns out like that,” he muses, because he still doesn’t see the whole picture.
“You see, Nora’s dad left her out there to die.
Her mom was human; she was a half-breed.
He didn’t want to have anything to do with her, since he already had a new wife and kids who were full-blooded, like him.
So after her mom died, and Nora had nowhere else to go, she came to the pack.
And he left her to die that night. She was just a little girl, all alone. ”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Do I look like I’m joking? No, I’m serious. But the thing is,” I force myself to continue, “we didn’t know that. And when she was found, her dad made up a story about how he warned her not to go into the woods and play, but she refused to listen. So…”
The shame. It burns. “Cole and I made it our mission to make her miserable from that day on. Every time we saw her at school, we singled her out. We’d hit her, call her names, get other people to laugh at her for what she did to our family.
As far as we were concerned, she might as well have killed our parents with her bare hands. ”