Chapter 25
TWENTY-FIVE
We dropped Tia off at her place first, which I'm sure was deliberate on Malcolm's part. My place was closer and really, it'd made sense to drop me first, but I think he wanted to talk. In fact, I knew he wanted to. I think Tia was glad too. The idea of being alone with Malcolm would have put the fear of god in her, so good all round, I guessed.
He pulled up outside my block of flats and cut the engine. This time my mother wasn't at the balcony waiting for me. No, she'd have been at work again already. Having come home, slept and then headed back out.
"Is everything alright?" I asked. He was going to ask me about showing up at his door, asking for a mating. If Tia hadn’t been with me, I’m sure he would’ve asked then and there.
"What's going on, Raven?" Malcolm's voice was low, concerned. "Why the sudden request to mate?"
I narrowed my eyes at him, the rebellious side of me wanting to lash out and just say this was how it was, and it's what I wanted. I was already ready to give him the reason. We knew what we were doing and all the other stuff people like my mum would argue ... but the part of me that respected Malcolm as an alpha held back.
"I just want to be with Tia," I said.
His nostrils flared and those green eyes searched mine. "Do you remember when I said to you not so long ago, about letting your heart make decisions and not listening to your head?"
"I know what I'm doing."
"Do you? You're only seventeen. I get it. Okay? This is the first person of your own kind that you've come across. She's young, she's attractive--why wouldn't you go after that? But you can have a relationship with someone without tying yourself down to them, without signing your life away to them. If you go for a mating, and this turns out to be something you don't want, it's one heck of a thing to have to buy your way out. You know this, right?"
I nodded. "Yes." I couldn't tell him about the baby, because that would pretty much upend our plans. Part of me was surprised he hadn't sensed it. It was one of the things I'd worried about but not told Tia, but then maybe she wasn't far enough along for him to pick it up. I’d heard shifters could sense pregnancy early on, sometimes right from conception, but maybe Malcolm hadn’t been close enough to Tia to pick it up
It felt a little bit like betrayal to not tell him because I had a secret and it'd change everything. But it had to be this way.
"I'll put the forms through if this is what you truly want, because in the eyes of the law, there is no reason for me to stop you," Malcolm continued. "Like you say, you're about to turn eighteen, and she's not that far behind you. I'm sure all the tests will come back fine too and that you can mate and have children, but as a father of a teenage boy, rather than alpha--"
"I know what you're going to say. I know you think it is a mistake."
"I do," he said bluntly.
I didn't expect him to be so blunt about it, and it kind of shocked me, but okay. I pushed through that. "This feels right to me."
"I'm sure it does. I've been your age too. You might not believe it, but I made many mistakes in my time. Luckily for me, those mistakes were not big ones and they didn't cost me more than the odd sense of pride at the time. But with this ... if it turns out to be a mistake."
"It won't be."
"You can't be sure."
I shrugged at him and I'm sure it infuriated him. "I'll never know if I don't give it a chance."
"I just want you to really think about it. You've got a lot to lose."
"But I've got a lot to gain, too."
"Yes, but you have your whole life ahead of you to make those decisions. You could go and join the Sentinels. If Tia is serious about you, she could wait and you and her can mate when you get back. Two years of waiting for someone is a good test of loyalty. You two haven't been together all that long. Don't sign away part of your life based on the things you think you know now. I know you think you have it all figured out. I know we've talked about this, and I know it's all going to fall on deaf ears, but I'd not be able to live with myself if I at least didn't try. Okay? Because I've known you for a long time, and I don't just want you to make a mistake and then regret it. Not something like this that has a huge impact."
He held his hand up before I could speak. "It's not the rest of your life. Do your two years, finish and come out of the Sentinels and then mate. You can pay for the mating, then. And it isn't only this, your mother has done a lot for you, she has given up a lot. You're going to have a huge falling out over this."
"My mother and I would fall out over anything," I said.
He leant back, resting his elbow on the door, chin in his hand as he studied me a moment. "Your mother gave up a lot so you could have this life."
I didn't mean to roll my eyes, but it just happened automatically. I had heard this story off my mother so many times and it might have had some weight to it once, but when you hear something again and again and again, it kind of loses all credence.
"I know. She's told me before."
He sighed. The first actual sign of any emotion. "One day you'll understand what it means. Because I know you know, and I know you're probably sick of hearing her tell you, but when you have a child of your own, you make sacrifices. And you do it because you invest your life in that person you so wholly believe in, that you think your life is worth giving up for. The girl you took for me earlier ..."
"Anika."
"She doesn't have a choice. She has to give up her life. I mean, I suppose she does have a choice, if she really wanted to, and she could give up the child, but in the grand scheme of it all, having her child means so many of her choices have been taken from her. You have choices right now. You can choose to wait. If Tia is serious, ask her to wait until you come out. It isn't like you're going to get the chance to cosy down with her before you do anyway. Moon night is just a few days away, and then you leave for your training and won't be back for two years. Two years is a long time when you're a young panther on their own."
"But I want you to think about this, okay? Both of you really think about it. Wait. I can file your forms first thing in the morning and it will be approved and you'll be able to mate on the next moon night. I don't see a problem with it. No one will have any objections. But, if you come to me and tell me you're going to wait, I won't submit them. You've got until about eleven in the morning tomorrow and then, as per your request, I am duty-bound to do as you asked."
That was the thing with this. Even if he disagreed with the mating, even if he was against it for whatever reasons, because obviously this mating wouldn't get a vote from him, there were so many council members that they'd not care. They'd approve it, because to them, Tia and I were just shifters on their roster and nothing else. As long as all the tests came back right, then it really didn't matter.
We had to take tests--blood tests--it was to make sure that we were both fertile, that this mating would one day equal a pregnancy or two. They wanted to make sure that neither of us carried any genetic issues that would mean our children came out deformed. In our world, it was all about carrying on the next line and the one after, because the humans culled enough. They kept our numbers clipped as best they could. Hell, if they had it their way, we'd all be extinct. Not just shifters, but every last other who ever took a breath. So we battled it.
"I don't need to wait," I said, my voice firm with conviction. "I want you to file the papers."
He stared at me for a long moment, not saying a thing. I could see he wanted to--a tick working along his jaw gave him away enough that even though I couldn't feel a single emotion coming off him, it was very clear on his face. His eyes bored into mine, searching for any hint of doubt.
In the end, he nodded, his shoulders sagging slightly. "As you wish."
"Thank you." As I opened the door to get out, Malcolm turned the key and started the car's engine, but before I could escape, he said to me, his voice low and heavy with meaning:
"Just remember that your mother--for all she has done in her life, as much as you don't understand it--it's been for you. You might be mating and you might have a lot of things going on, but when things get heated between your mother and you, don't walk away. We can all say the worst things in heated moments and think we mean them. But those words can linger, and they can hurt, and they can stay with us forever. So when you tell your mother, know that when she disapproves, it is for the same reasons as I have. She's just going to be a lot louder than I am."