Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
CATE
When Ogram addressed Grüsh outside the hospital room, I was sure Grüsh had overheard my conversation with Hope. I knew he wouldn’t react in front of them, but I expected something once we were alone. Even if that something was simply him walking away without saying a word.
Holding my hand and refusing to let it go, telling me that he hasn’t stopped loving me, and how I hurt him by cutting him out of my life…I didn’t expect any of that.
Maybe he didn’t hear Hope’s question or my answer, my secret, and his questions about the past are just the culmination of old wounds, rekindled chemistry, and opportunity for closure.
It’d be good for both of us. Especially if he truly intends to be around his family on any sort of regular basis, because they’re my family too.
Not by blood, but that doesn’t make it any less real or important.
Our futures are connected now. Just not the way I wanted.
His heavy footsteps on the staircase echo in the quiet building.
He hasn’t touched me since releasing my hand so I could unlock the door, but he’s so close behind me that his warmth and masculine, leathery scent wrap around me like an embrace.
He maintains the closeness while following me down the hall to my apartment.
Inside, he takes a few steps, looking around at the main living room and kitchen area with its industrial high ceiling, big windows full of plants, and original wood wide-plank floor. All the same as the last time he was in here. Even the furniture is the same.
I’ve never been able to let go of things I love.
“Want to sit? Stand? Have something to drink?” I’m already moving toward the refrigerator as the questions bubble out.
I shouldn’t be nervous in my own home. Or with him.
“I’m having wine, but I’m going to put it in a juice glass because I’m not generally a day-drinker, and I don’t want any judgment. ”
His green lips curve into a smile that pushes his thick tusk teeth higher up his sculpted cheeks, making him even more attractive, impossible as that should be.
“No judgment here. I’ll sit, and I’ll join you for a glass of fermented grape juice.
” He settles on my couch, looking as if he belongs there, the same as all the times he sat there before.
“Did this change come with being a world-famous rock star? You never used to consume alcohol.”
“Still don’t, as a rule.”
The second tumbler sits on the island in front of me, but I pause pouring and meet his gaze. “Don’t break your rules on my account. I’m comfortable going solo.”
One of his dark eyebrows rises. “Some things are more enjoyable when they’re shared with another person, don’t you think?”
One sexy innuendo from Grüsh and my body switches from stressed-out to sizzle.
The flare of his nostrils tells me he knows it, too.
Damn him. And damn me for being putty in his strong, green, talented hands.
Six years apart and all the effort I put into building walls around myself is no match for our chemistry. Our connection.
“Decided against wine?” he asks when I take another empty cup from the cupboard, cap the wine and return it to the fridge, then fill two glasses with cucumber water from a pitcher.
“It’s hard enough to concentrate around you.” I roll my eyes when his twinkle while his chest expands beyond its usual impressive broadness. “Tone down the smug or you might get this water in shower form.”
His deep rumble of amusement sounds natural and at home in this space.
When we were together before integration, he would come and go from my apartment under the cover of darkness, sometimes staying for stretches of days at a time without leaving.
I’d work downstairs in the bar during the evening, but all the other hours were spent together.
Talking, cooking, eating, watching TV, cuddling, sleeping, making music of the literal and nonliteral kind.
Couple things. No amount of time together ever felt like too much. I thought it, we, would last forever.
His attention stays on me as I cross the space toward him. “Thank you,” he says as I hand off his glass, the brief grazing of fingers sending another wave of warmth through me. Even as he brings the tumbler to his lips and tips it to take a mouthful, his eyes remain locked on my face.
Taking the chair on the opposite side of the coffee table, I swallow half my drink—the cool water having zero effect on my internal heat—before cradling my glass between both hands.
My carefully cultivated control has abandoned me.
Giving in to the infinite spark between us would be so easy.
Definitely more enjoyable than continuing the conversation he started at the hospital.
But it needs finishing. If not now, then later.
And the more intimacy we share before the inevitable end, the more painful that ending will be.
“If you loved me so much, why did you stay away all this time? Why did it take your brother getting married for you to come back?”
All traces of amusement fade from his face.
“You shut me out of your life without warning or explanation. Ignored all my attempts at communication for three years. You were never someone to play games, so eventually, I took your actions the way I assumed you intended—seriously. Is that not what you wanted?”
Gripping the glass tightly, I take a drink to wash down the ball emotions lodged in my throat. “It was for the best.”
“For you, maybe.”
“Not for me, Grüsh. For you.”
He leans forward, sets his glass on a coaster. Stares into my eyes as if he’ll find answers there that he’s not getting from my lips. Releasing a long breath, he sits back, pushing his fingers through the section of thick, longer hair on the top of his head.
I’ve spent six years focused on my pain, my losses.
In doing so, I denied him real closure. “The way I ended things wasn’t fair to you.
I know that now, and I’m sorry. I didn’t want to hold you back.
I wanted you to have every amazing thing imaginable in your life, and that wouldn’t have been possible if I stayed in the picture. ”
“Because going after a career in the industry meant I’d want a life of wild times and meaningless moments?
” A disgusted huff pushes through the thin line his lips have formed.
“You knew me better than anyone, Cate. You knew I wasn’t interested in any of that shit.
I’ve only ever wanted two things out of life—my music and my mate. ”
Mate. The word is like a dagger to my heart.
It’s the reason I did what I did. I abandon my seat and walk to the kitchen, willing the tears currently threatening to break through the dam to retreat.
Filling my glass doesn’t take enough time to pull myself together.
My vision is still blurry when I close the refrigerator door. I can’t face him like this.
His footsteps on the old wood floor punctuate the silence. Then he’s standing behind me, gently massaging my shoulders. “My tone was frustration, not anger. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“I know.”
Warmth from his hands seeps through the thin fabric of my shirt, and when he slides his palms down my arms, I force myself to turn and look up at him.
“Before integration, long before I met Ogram, you told me about his near-desperate yearning to find his mate, and how your parents had taught you both to follow the urge to travel because it would be instinct guiding you to your true mate. You talked about your younger brother’s frustration at not having the desire to leave the area.
In hindsight, that makes sense because Ogram had to be in Harmony Glen for Hope’s arrival.
He didn’t have to go out and find his true mate; he just had to wait for her.
But it was never lost on me that you wanted to leave. ”
His strong brow descends, a frown tugging at his green lips. “Because I dreamed of an opportunity to share music with an audience. Not to find my true mate.”
“It could have been both.”
“It wasn’t. If I’d had an overwhelming urge to leave because my mate was out there somewhere, I wouldn’t have stayed in the area; I would’ve followed it in secret, just like my father did when he was young, just like Ogram would have.
The difference between Ogram and I was that not having that urge to find my mate didn’t bother me.
Then I met you and I understood why my brother wanted to find his mate, because I’d found mine. Or, more accurately, she’d found me.”
My heart wants it to be true. So badly. “I can’t be your mate.”
“I used to believe that. Rutting with you, even when your scent indicated you were fertile, I never experienced breeding urges, as my father explained were part of the rut when I reached maturity. I was taught that procreation is innately tied to troll mating, so I convinced myself you couldn’t be my true mate if my mind wasn’t filled with thoughts of impregnating you.
I assumed trolls and humans weren’t genetically compatible that way. ”
I don’t respond. I can’t. If I speak, the last thread of self-control I’m clinging to will snap. All I manage is a nod.
“When Ogram called with the good news that he’d found his mate, I told him a human couldn’t be his true mate.”
A grimace breaks across my face before I can stop it.
“I was an asshole, yes. Another regret.”
“I’m sure he understood.”
Grüsh nods. “Fortunately, my brother is as generous with his forgiveness as he is with everything else.”
I have to wrap my arms around my waist to prevent reaching for him. “We all make mistakes.”
“My biggest mistake was with you,” he says, staring into my soul with those dark eyes I missed so much in the years he was gone. “I shouldn’t have let you go.”
“You didn’t. I let you go.”
“I should’ve done more. Come back sooner. I can’t undo the past, but I’m damn sure going to do whatever I can to change what happens from here.”
Hoping for a future with him is a recipe for more heartbreak. Yet here I stand, desperately wanting to combine ingredients and get cooking.
“In that call, Ogram said he knew Hope was his mate the moment they met. He described it as a truth you feel in your heart, body, and soul, that it’s something you have to experience to understand.
And I did understand, because I felt it with you.
The moment we met. Every single minute we were together and all the time we spent apart.
I have literally been around the world and back, and the only pull I’ve ever felt was to you.
No amount of success with my music filled the emptiness of not having you in my life.
There has never been anyone but you. You are my true mate, Catherine.
I’ve always known it. I wish I hadn’t denied it all this time.
I should’ve trusted my heart, not a passed-down coming-of-age talk claiming reproduction is the center of the mate bond. ”
It’s everything I’ve wanted to hear since the day we met. The day I fell instantly and completely head-over-heels in love with a seven-foot-tall man of a species I didn’t know existed until that moment.
I owe him the level of honesty he gave, even if he walks out of my life for good. “I can’t give you children. That’s why I stayed behind. It’s why I didn’t answer when you contacted me.”
“The only reason children ever crossed my mind was because I didn’t have the breeding urge while rutting, and you never got pregnant.
I assumed either it wasn’t genetically possible for us, or I wasn’t fertile.
And I didn’t care. Since you never brought up having kids, I thought you didn’t care either. ”
The dam breaks and tears slide down my cheeks.
Grüsh’s arms close around me before the first tear has time to fall from my jawline. Instead, it, and all the rest currently flowing like unrestrained rivers, are absorbed by the soft fabric of his t-shirt.
“I overheard your conversation with Hope at the hospital. The baby you lost, our child,” he says, gently stroking my hair with one hand. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I didn’t just lose a baby, I found out I’d never be able to give you any because of my misshapen uterus.
We’d never talked about having a family, but I always figured we would someday, after you had a chance to establish yourself in the music business.
If I’d told you I had a miscarriage, you might’ve felt obligated to stay.
Not just in town—with me. I wanted you to have everything, including finding your true mate and starting a family one day. ”
“I would’ve stayed because I love you, Cate.
I would’ve stayed because I wanted to support you, support us, for however long we needed.
Leaving to pursue music could’ve waited.
Or happened some other way. If having a child was important to you, then it would have been important to me too, and integration would’ve given us the opportunity to adopt.
” His broad chest sinks beneath my cheek as he releases a long, heavy breath.
“If I’d listened to my heart and soul, told you that you’re my mate instead of convincing myself you couldn’t be, we wouldn’t have lost six years together.
You shouldn’t have gone through that alone. ”
“Well, what doesn’t kill you makes you an emotionally closed-off workaholic entrepreneur with a thriving bar,” I say with a half sob, half snort.
His amused grunt vibrates beneath my ear. “And a grumpy, antisocial, multi-Platinum songwriter.”
Giving in to the peace our honesty has created, I wrap my arms around his waist, tilt my head back and rest my chin on his chest so I can look up at him. “Now that all our heartbreak and frustration are out in the open, what are you going to write songs about?”
“Second chances. New beginnings. Watching sunsets with the person you love until it sets for the last time.”
Fresh tears well in my eyes, blurring the view of my favorite face in the whole world. “Love songs.”
“Life songs.” His fingertips gently brush the moisture from my cheeks. “The life I want to share with you.”
Being in his arms, looking into his eyes, has always felt like being in a cocoon. Safe, warm, private. But cocoons are temporary. We can’t stay in it forever. We always have to leave it behind and brave the real world with its challenges and obstacles.
Not yet, though. Not yet.