Chapter Thirty-Eight
Ryan
My wolf pushes against my threadbare restraint, trying to force me to open the door rather than stand here listening to Maya practicing those breathing techniques.
But she needs to ground herself. I’ve observed her doing it whenever she is stressed.
My touch works better, but I don’t want to force that on her right now.
My wolf doesn’t agree. He wants to wrench the door open, pull her into our arms, and never let her go.
I should have told her sooner. Not that first night, when it was all up in the air and I lost my shit before I could even get the full story.
I didn’t have any confirmation it was more than just a coincidence that a pregnant tiger shifter broke away from the keepers around the same time Maya was born.
But I’ve spoken with Caleb and Katie, and Caleb emailed me copies of the relevant reports. The chances of it being a coincidence got lower and lower the more I read.
Seconds turn to minutes, and Maya remains outside. She’s still there; I can hear her breathing. It’s the only thing that stops me from yanking open the door and dropping to my knees to beg her forgiveness. But this isn’t about me.
Eventually, the door handle descends, and Maya walks in.
Her beautiful features are pinched tightly together.
Anger radiates from her; I can smell it emanating from her pores.
She’s not shouting or screaming. She’s bottling the anger up, bottling everything up like how she used to lock her tiger away.
“Explain. Now,” she orders, her tone harsh and unforgiving.
“I will,” I agree, nodding and taking a small step toward her. “Can we sit?”
“No. I’m fine right here. Tell me everything. What do you know and when did you learn whatever it is?”
I can’t stop myself from wincing under her glare. This isn’t my submissive or my therapist. It’s not the vibrant female I’ve spent the past week with, watching her come more and more into herself. The Maya standing before me is a stranger. She’s harsh and cold. And it’s my fault.
“I didn’t want to say anything until I knew for sure.”
“Just tell me,” she demands.
My wolf pushes forward, trying to get out. He doesn’t care about any of this. All he cares about is keeping her safe and putting his mark on my mate's neck. But that’s never going to happen if I can’t get her human side to understand I was trying to protect her.
“Caleb Cooper, the alpha of the Iron Fang pack, called me the night I brought you to Lunar Eclipse when you were with Sofia and Emily.”
“The pack where Jackson’s sister and the other omegas are?”
“Yeah, that one. I had called him when I first suspected you were some kind of cat shifter to ask if he knew anything about other species. He and his brothers traveled a lot searching for their sister after she was taken, and he has more experience outside of wolf packs than I do. He didn’t have anything to share with me at the time, but he has been working with Katie to trawl through the records from the Keepers. ”
Maya’s heart rate ratchets up, and I can’t hold myself back from wrapping my arms around her.
She doesn’t allow me to comfort her, though, pushing me away as soon as I make contact.
My wolf snarls and claws at me, desperate to be the one to make it better for her and not realizing that pressing her right now will make everything worse.
“Don’t,” she says, holding up a hand before doing that breathing thing again. “Don’t pull that fated bond bullshit on me. Don’t mess with my head. Just tell me the fucking truth for once.”
My wolf whimpers at the insinuation I’m using the bond against her. As if I’m not trying to use it to help her.
“They found records of cat shifters who escaped from years ago. One was a tiger; she was pregnant when she got out, and when they found her again months later… she wasn’t pregnant, but there was no cub.”
Maya walks to the couch and sinks into it, staring into space. “You said you didn’t want to say anything until you were sure? Are you sure now?”
I sit beside her, angling my body to face her even if she won’t look at me.
“It seemed like too much of a coincidence for it not to be true. Tiger shifters are rare, and the dates line up with how old you are, but shifters don’t abandon their young, so it makes sense that your mother would have only done so if she had no other choice.
After looking at all the reports Caleb sent over, I’m sure this is where you came from. ”
“I don’t understand,” Maya whispers, her voice cracking before she clears her throat. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I was going to. I just hadn’t yet.”
Maya nods, but she still won’t look at me. My hands shake with the effort of holding my wolf back. I don’t trust him right now. We’re all too emotional. Too prone to making bad decisions in the heat of the moment.
“How were they recaptured?”
“The Keepers had a way of faking the mate bond to make it possible to ensure pregnancy, and I guess it also helped them with tracking the females down. It’s pretty easy to find your mate through a completed mate bond if they aren’t too far away.
It’s harder when it’s incomplete, so it took a lot longer. ”
“I don’t understand what half of this means,” Maya says with a sigh, shaking her head before continuing.
“Why wouldn’t she have run far enough away that they couldn’t have found her?
Emily told me the mate bond can’t be traced if there’s a large enough distance.
That’s why she ran from Aidan before the bond was in place. ”
Maya stares into space as she talks, trying to process things that no one should have to. She wasn’t around when we rescued the omegas. She didn’t see what we did. Everything she has heard is secondhand; she couldn’t possibly understand how bad things were for them.
“I’m not sure,” I tell her honestly, rubbing the back of my neck. “Emily had a head start by leaving before she turned twenty-one; these shifters didn’t have that. They had to keep running, knowing the organization would be coming for them.”
“And babies would have slowed them down?” she asks, tears rimming her eyes that have me desperate to make it better.
I should have told her more about the Keepers and what they did sooner. I should have fed her this information slowly instead of overloading her with everything all at once. My wolf whimpers and scratches to be let out, to comfort her and take away her pain.
“I don’t think that was it. I had Caleb scan and email the documents related to the shifters who escaped, but it’s not clear.
If she had rejected the mate bond before the escape, she probably would have been able to stay gone, but…
” I trail off, not wanting to say it out loud.
This final part of the puzzle I’ve been putting together.
“But what?” Maya asks, staring at me intensely.
I swallow roughly while my wolf snarls at me, trying to stop me from telling her things we both know will hurt her.
“But severing a mate bond is a traumatic experience for the body. It can kill. If she had rejected the bond while pregnant, it would most likely have killed the cub. She had a choice to make, and she chose you.”
Maya flinches as if my words are a harsh slap across her face. She has wanted to know about her origins her entire life, and now that she’s learning the truth, I can’t imagine how painful this is for her.
“And my biological father, he wasn’t her fated mate?”
“No, the records are pretty clear on that,” I tell her.
I take a deep breath, trying to steady myself to break the news of her conception to Maya.
This is going to break her heart, and my own chest aches at the thought of delivering such a harsh reality.
My fists clench as I try to stop myself from reaching out to her.
The fact that her father is already dead is the only thing stopping my wolf from tearing out of here to avenge my mate.
I don’t want to tell her. But Maya wants the truth, and it’s not fair for me to keep it from her. For me to decide what she can handle.
“The Keepers were a trafficking ring who used the shifters they kidnapped in two different ways: as part of their torture and rape dens or as part of a... breeding program. The tiger was in the breeding program before her escape. After that, she was moved to the dens.”
Maya’s face pales, and she slumps back in the seat.
Her soft lips are lightly parted, her eyes gaze at nothing, a distant expression painting her beautiful face.
I creep closer to her until I can place my palm on her knee.
She doesn’t brush me off or push me away this time, but I’m not sure if that’s a good thing.
My wolf whimpers at the idea it could be anything less than her accepting my support, but I feel how rigid Maya’s body is.
How she doesn’t gravitate toward me or melt into my arms the way she normally does.
Jackson used to do this after the attack where his mother was killed and Katie went missing but was presumed dead. He would shut down, stare off into space, and be unable to process anything happening around him.
No tears escape Maya’s lash line. Her breathing isn’t sharp and erratic anymore. She’s here, and yet she’s not present at all.
“I’m so sorry, Kitten,” I whisper, pulling her onto my lap and wrapping my arms around her small frame when I can’t hold myself back any longer.
I rub circles over her back and press kisses onto her forehead and hair as Maya remains silent and frozen against me.
Minutes pass and time stretches, becoming unclear and unimportant.
We can stay like this for as long as she needs.
“Is she alive?” Maya’s voice eventually breaks through the silence, although barely.
“No, I’m so sorry,” I tell her, even though it breaks my heart even more to keep sharing the painful truth. “She died a couple of years after you were born. She was killed during one of the events they ran.”