12. Mack
12
MACK
I can’t remember the last time I ran into a black bear.
As long as it’s not a grizzly, I’ve never been too concerned about bears. Black bears, I’ve learned in my run-ins with them, tend to be more shy. That was until this black bear interrupted mine and Aerin’s walk. Then, I lost the ability to think about anything but putting myself in front of Aerin and the bear.
It takes three steps toward me. I throw my arms around, yelling, until it stops, eyes me warily, and swings away, ambling back the way it came.
Releasing a sigh of relief, I wait until I lose sight of it, regretting sending Aerin away. She’d been worried about me, but all I’d cared about was getting her as far away from the bear as possible.
I can no longer hear her footsteps, so she’s probably at the house or close to it by now.
“Aerin?” I call out, in case she can hear me. “It’s gone now. So?—”
A scream rips through the forest.
Aerin .
It’s like someone squeezed their fist around my heart. Moving on autopilot, I sprint toward the sound. Aerin doesn’t scream often. But I know her voice.
She’s in trouble.
I track her path through the forest, skidding to a stop at the edge of a hill. It’s like the one Aerin fell down months before when she ran from me in a storm. Then, she’d been okay, limping badly but on her feet.
I see her at the bottom, on her back, head tilted to the side.
She’s not moving.
I rush down toward her, so terrified that I’ve lost her I nearly fall, slipping and sliding until I drop to my knees beside her.
She’s still breathing, thank fuck. But she is bleeding.
“Aerin, love?” I touch her cheek. It’s warm.
Her long white linen pants are stained with mud, but there’s no trace of blood on her clothes and none of her bones appear to be broken. She’s just unconscious.
The dark bruise on her jaw briefly captures my attention, as does the cut on her forehead, dribbling blood down the side of her face.
“Aerin?” I rest my ear against her chest, listening to make sure her breathing is steady.
It is.
It’s not a good idea to move someone hurt, but I need to get her inside so I can make sure she truly is okay. Adela can check her because in a former life, Adela was a nurse, so she’ll know if Aerin needs to go to a hospital or if, and I really hope this is the case, that she is okay.
I scoop Aerin into my arms, holding her close to my heart as I reassure her that I have her now and I’m getting her home.
Stone faced, worried for Aerin and the baby, I run home.
I’m upstairs in our bedroom when the sound of a car approaching the house pulls my gaze from Aerin’s face.
The second the car comes to a stop outside, I get up from the side of our bed where I was sitting and hurry downstairs. It’s not like Adela to speed. She’s always cautious above anything, but it sounds like she drove here a little faster than she usually would.
All I’ve done since I got Aerin home was call Adela, get Aerin settled in bed, covered her with a blanket before cleaning the blood from her forehead. The wound, a jagged cut that might have been caused by a rock, was already healing.
It’s been ten minutes since I called Adela, and the wound has healed completely now. Only a thin line is evidence of it, and that cut, in the next five or ten minutes, will have disappeared as well.
I swing open the door before Adela can knock.
“Is she conscious yet?” Adela asks, tucking her car keys into the pocket of her long floral skirt as she walks inside.
I shake my head as I close the door behind her. “Not yet. She’s breathing fine and she had a small cut on her head, but it’s nearly healed now. I don’t know if the baby is hurt. She fell and I?—”
Adela grips my arm and squeezes as she gives me a reassuring smile. “She’ll be fine.”
“You haven’t seen her yet.”
“Aerin is resilient, as are all shifters. She will be fine. If you want to be helpful, you can make some herbal tea. Peppermint or chamomile.”
“For you?”
“No,” she says, still smiling. “For you, so you can relax.”
I don’t return her smile. “If I hadn’t sent Aerin back to the house on her own, this wouldn’t have happened. She’d have been fine.”
When she first came to Winter Lake, I pushed her out of the path of a semi that she hadn’t seen. And because of that push, she broke her leg so badly that she needed to wear a brace to keep it straight while the bones healed.
Now this.
“You were trying to protect her. Not something you should feel guilty about.” She eyes me for a beat, then nods. “Chamomile tea. You can drink it while I check Aerin.”
There’s not enough chamomile tea in the world to relax me. Only knowing Aerin is fine will do that. “I ask myself daily why you’re not the Alpha.”
Her eyes sparkle with amusement. “I have better things to do with my time. Is she upstairs?”
I nod.
“Then I’ll get started while you make yourself some tea. I won’t need one. This won’t take long.”
Her complete confidence that this is just a small hiccup rather than the disaster I thought it was does more to relax me than any tea would. As she walks upstairs to check on Aerin, I head for the kitchen to make tea.
Adela is examining Aerin as I place a mug of hot chamomile tea on the bedside table.
I stand back from the bed so I’m not in Adela’s way, stuffing my hands in my pockets as I watch. “How is she?”
Adela continues gently probing Aerin’s head and neck. “As I thought. She’s okay. The head impact is probably the only reason she’s still unconscious. There are no lumps or swellings, which is a good sign.”
I nod. “Do you think she needs to go to the hospital?”
We stay away from hospitals in general. All shifters do. We heal too fast and can do altogether too many miraculous things that a sharp-eyed doctor doesn’t need to know. But if Aerin needs medical intervention, and it will save her and the baby, the risk will be worth it.
“She’ll be fine, Mack,” Adela says firmly.
“I know. I just…”
“Worry.” She pulls the cover back over Aerin and turns to smile at me. “Which is perfectly natural when the person we love is hurt. Tell me what happened.”
I’d already given her a quick rundown of everything that had happened, but I give her a more thorough explanation now. Including me losing my head when I saw the bear.
She perches on the edge of the bed, her expression thoughtful as she listens.
Like most things, Adela takes it all in her stride. “Hmm. I hadn’t seen one around here for some time. And it didn’t immediately run?”
I shake my head. “I know what to do and what not to do. Except this time, all I could think was to get Aerin as far away from the bear as possible, even though I knew the chance of it attacking was low.”
She nods, eyeing me for a beat. “It’s the baby.”
I blink at her. “The what?”
She passes me the mug of tea and doesn’t give me the option of refusing. Smiling, I cradle the mug to appease her.
Only after I’ve taken a sip does she explain. “You’re about to become a father. Those protective urges will be running rampant.” She cocks her head, expression still thoughtful. “I gather that plan of yours is also motivated by the need to protect.”
When I glance at Aerin, she’s still asleep, her breathing steady. I relax, relieved she’s not in pain and is as comfortable as she could be.
I drag the chair from the dressing table next to the bed and take another sip of tea before I speak. “Not just about protection. It’s something I’ve been thinking about off and on for a while.”
“Well, Gregory and Jude are delighted with the thought of being closer to Aerin and their grandchild.” She raises her eyebrow. “What has Aerin said?”
I release a sigh when I read something else in Adela’s gaze. “Yes, I know you think I should have told Aerin first, and I will, and it goes without saying that if this isn’t what she wants, then it won’t happen. We all have to want it.”
“So why haven’t you told her?”
“It was just a fragment of an idea before.”
“And then?”
“This germ of an idea turned into a concrete plan within a few days. Chris had a real estate listing he showed me. I wasn’t expecting everyone to be so excited and immediately say yes.”
“Ah, so you thought this would be a few months away and you could slowly gauge Aerin’s thoughts on it before telling her?”
I nod. “She loves this house and the forest. Has loved it from when she first arrived. That made it harder to ask her if she wants to move.”
“And instead, everyone is now galloping toward this idea of pack living, and you’re still working up how to ask Aerin if this is what she wants?” Humor warms her voice.
I grin. “Something like that. She said home was who you were with and not a place, so I think she’ll like it, and it will take time to find the perfect place, buy it, and rebuild so this probably won’t be a thing that happens for a year or maybe even more. Especially since Thumper will still be so small.”
“Ask her. You two are strangely shy about talking about things that you don’t need to be shy about.”
She’s probably right about that. I overheard Aerin talk about how she feels being an omega is tied to her sense of identity. That she doesn’t know who she is otherwise. It hurts that she didn’t think she could tell me that herself, but I understand all about the fear of opening up yourself like that.
It’s never easy, even with the people you love the most in the world. In fact, it’s harder, because their opinion matters so much more to you than anyone else.
We talk for the next several minutes, and after Adela has gone home, again reassuring me that Aerin is fine, I eat a quick meal and I draw the curtains before I get ready for bed.
It’s not even 6 yet, far too early to sleep, but I’m not going downstairs and leaving Aerin alone. She’s sleeping so deeply that she might sleep all evening. Why not get an early night?
I sent Bennett a quick text after Adela left, just to let him know what had happened with Aerin, and to tell him not to bother stopping by the house. We’re both fine.
But I know Bennett.
I would not be the least bit surprised if I found him stretched out on my garden lounger, keeping an eye on us as I watch over Aerin.
Not wanting to disturb Aerin as she sleeps, I turn out all the lights but the bedside lamp, and get myself as comfortable as I can on the hard, backless chair from Aerin’s dressing table, watching over her in case she needs me in the night.
I don’t intend to fall asleep. But between Aerin’s soft, steady breaths and the dim light in the room, all the excitement from today must have tired me out.
A slight pressure on my scalp makes me blink my eyes open. The room is darker than it was before, though the bedside lamp is still on. It must be night now.
Aerin is awake, and the pressure I felt on my scalp was her combing her fingers through my hair. “Come to bed,” she quietly orders.
“How do you feel?” I get to my feet and slide under the sheets.
“Okay, just tired.” She yawns.
“Want to change into something more comfortable?” I nod at her clothes. I was able to get her sweater off and her sneakers without waking her. But since she’s almost always wearing soft cotton or linen, all oversized or loose, she hadn’t looked uncomfortable as she slept.
She shakes her head. “This is fine.”
“Can I get you anything? Food? Water?” I keep my arms around her loose, not wanting to hurt her if she’s even a little bit tender from her fall.
She yawns so loud her jaw cracks, and I smile. “I have the thing I wanted.”
I turn out the lamp as I breathe in the sweet, fragrant scent of my mate. “Which is?”
“You. Safe. And in my arms.”
“I know exactly how you feel, love.” I kiss her hair and release the breath I feel like I’ve been holding since I saw Aerin at the bottom of that hill.
She’s okay.
Now I can relax.
“I’m glad you weren’t eaten by a bear,” she says quietly.
I smile. “Me too. What happened?”
When she releases a soft sigh, I feel the warmth of her breath against my chest. “As usual, I wasn’t looking where I was going. I thought I saw something.”
I freeze. “Something or someone?”
She sighs again. “I don’t know. At first, I thought it was the bear coming after me when it was through eating you.”
I smile as I lift my head to look at her. “Black bears don’t eat people.”
“But how was I to know?”
“I have a book downstairs. You can borrow it if you want.” I give her a searching look. “About this thing you saw…”
“It was like that time when I ran away from Shane after I threw his keys in the forest and everywhere I looked, I thought I was hearing him creep closer.” Her voice is soft, but her eyes are haunted.
“I’ll take a look in the forest. Just in case,” I offer. After Aerin screamed, I wasn’t focused on anything but the need to get to her and make sure she was okay.
“I’m probably being paranoid,” she says, holding onto me when I move to get up.
“But it doesn’t hurt to take a look just to make sure. I didn’t see anyone, hear anyone, or pick up any tracks when I found you.”
She pulls my head down. “I was being paranoid. Please don’t go anywhere tonight.”
Just the possibility that there might be someone out there is troubling, but Aerin rarely ever asks me to stay with her like this.
“Bennett could…”
“I’d rather you didn’t have Bennett and Helena trampling around in the forest, looking for something that wasn’t there. It was nothing. Just me being paranoid.”
I settle down. “Okay. I’ll have a look early tomorrow. Just to make sure.”
“You won’t find anything,” she assures me.
“But I’ll sleep easier after.”
I’ll shift and take a good long sniff and walk around tomorrow, early. But for now, I wrap my arms a little tighter around my mate and close my eyes.