Chapter 19
NINETEEN
Shay lay in bed, staring at the sweet, sleeping face of her daughter, who rested on her chest. It was surreal that Leah was here now.
After nearly nine months of more struggling, fear, and anxiety than Shay could’ve ever imagined possible, after all the pain of the last day—the worst physical pain she’d ever experienced—she had this baby.
This little person. All of it had been worth it.
Even now, the memory of that pain was fading, unimportant compared to the love she felt for her daughter.
She’d spent a few more hours in the infirmary after Leah’s birth.
There’d been a little more work for Shay to do; she hadn’t realized that the baby wasn’t the only thing that had to be pushed out, but she’d happily never think about the aftermath again.
Sam and Urgand had cleaned Leah, fitted her with the cutest, tiniest diaper, and swaddled her in a soft blanket.
Shay had been cleaned up, too, before she and Leah were scanned.
To her immense relief, everything came up perfectly normal and healthy.
Finally, she’d fed her baby and got some sleep.
Now she was back in the room she shared with Drakkal, enjoying the comfort and privacy—the former helped by the spectacular pain suppressants running through her system, which Urgand had guaranteed would not affect Leah through Shay’s breastmilk.
Leah had fallen asleep again after another feeding and a diaper change, but Shay wasn’t ready for more sleep yet.
She was tired, that was for sure—it felt like she’d strained every damned part of her body, right down to her eyeballs—but that was physical exhaustion.
Mentally, she just wanted to stare at this beautiful wonder in her arms.
As she brushed her thumb over Leah’s soft, dark hair, tears stung Shay’s eyes. Had her mother felt this deep, immediate bond, this unconditional, undeniable love for Shay when she was born?
Shay knew the answer to that. Audrey Collins had felt it, even when Shay was at her most difficult, even though Shay had hurt her time and time again. Her mother had still loved her. Shay blinked, and warm tears slid down her cheeks.
“Grandma would have loved you, Leah,” she whispered, but even those quiet words were a struggle to get past the tightness in her throat. She sniffled as more tears fell. “I wish I could tell her how sorry I am. How wrong I was to blame her. So, so very wrong.”
“We all have our regrets, kiraia,” Drakkal murmured from beside her.
Shay turned her head toward him. He was sprawled on his belly with his arms wrapped around a smushed pillow and his face turned toward her. Though his eyes were half-lidded, they were as bright and alert as ever. His tail swept over her leg slowly.
Lifting her hand, Shay wiped the tears from her cheeks. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“You didn’t. I’ve been awake for a while. I liked hearing you hum while you fed Leah.”
Shay wrinkled her nose, but her cheeks warmed, and her heart fluttered at his words. “So, you were spying on me?”
Drakkal made a sound that was half chuckle and half snort, scooted closer to her, and propped himself up.
He rubbed his cheek against Shay’s neck and shoulder.
“Making up for your mistakes isn’t about what you say, Shay.
It’s about what you do. Even if you can’t tell her, you can show her spirit that you’ve changed.
That you’ve learned from your mistakes.”
She smiled, closed her eyes, and tilted her head to allow him more access, reaching up to absently stroke his mane.
“I’ve tried to do the right thing. After she died…
I tried to leave that life of crime behind.
I didn’t want to do it anymore, couldn’t do it anymore, not after…
” She drew in a deep breath and released it slowly, willing away the stinging in her eyes.
“But I couldn’t cut myself off from everyone I used to associate with right away.
That makes them real suspicious, you know?
And Anthony…he just happened to be there at the right time, at the exact moment that I needed someone, and—”
Drakkal’s low growl reverberated through her.
Shay chuckled. “Sorry. Life with him was shit, anyway. I don’t know why I didn’t just walk away, why I didn’t just move on.
It’s not like me to put up with that. I guess I was just desperate to not be alone, you know?
Somehow, I didn’t even realize at the time that he was dragging me back down into that life I wanted to leave behind.
” She sank her fingers deeper into his mane and turned her face toward him until she was able to look into one of his eyes.
“Then I found out I was pregnant. And when he told me to just get rid of it, enough was enough. I realized that I was being so, so stupid. I left him, left everything I’d known, and started new.
I lived in a shithole of an apartment, worked two jobs that paid under the table and didn’t require background checks because I wanted a better life.
I needed a better life…for her. For Leah.
“Do you think my mom was proud of me then? Because I thought about her. Every day, hoping that she was seeing me, listening, knowing that I was trying to make up for all the fucked-up shit I did.”
“I think that even when she wasn’t proud, she loved you,” Drakkal replied gently, lifting a hand to cradle her face. “Your efforts to do better wouldn’t have gone unnoticed by her.”
Shay leaned into his touch. That simple, uncomplicated contact between them was so powerful, so overwhelming, and yet so grounding; she’d never realized how much could be communicated through touch.
Having someone in her life again who cared so much was…
wonderful. She wasn’t usually the sort to get all mushy and sappy—though she could still use the pregnancy hormones as an excuse for now—but she cherished these quiet, tender moments with Drakkal.
She was learning more and more that it was okay to let her guard down with him. It was okay to be vulnerable.
“What are your regrets?” Shay pulled back to meet his gaze again and moved her hand to the side of his face. “Who was that female azhera, Drak?”
That spark of fury reignited in her belly as she remembered what the female had called herself—Drakkal’s lover.
He released a huff through his nostrils and smirked. “Not sure if I should be turned on or afraid when you make that face, kiraia.”
Shay’s brows furrowed. “What face?”
“You look like you want to rip something to shreds. Don’t know if it’s a threat…or a promise.”
She arched a brow and gave his cheek fur a gentle tug. “Guess it’ll depend on what you tell me.”
“Should I go stand on the other side of the room first?”
Shay scowled. “You’re not making this any better. Aren’t you supposed to like, I don’t know, calm your mate down when she gets all jealous and stuff? Not rile her. Especially after she just had a baby.”
The humor on Drakkal’s face faded, giving way to something more solemn—but his eyes maintained their loving light. “Told you she wasn’t important, and she’s not. Not anymore. But…I won’t lie about who she was to me a long, long time ago. You willing to hear me out before you kill me?”
Sighing, Shay let her head rest on the pillow, keeping face turned toward Drakkal, and stroked his cheek with her thumb.
“I’m not going to kill you. You’re too big for me to dispose of the body by myself.
” She smirked, but it faded quickly. She drew her hand from him to settle it gently upon her sleeping baby.
“Won’t be able to help my mad jealousies, though, considering she was your lover and all. ”
His expression darkened. “Lover isn’t the right word.
Vanya never loved anything apart from herself.
I think… You’ve shared a lot of your past with me, Shay, and I haven’t really told you anything.
I need to tell the story from the beginning, so you understand.
So I can understand…because I don’t think I’ve had the chance to truly put it all behind me until you came along. ”
“So, start from the beginning. I want to know, Drakkal. The good, the bad, everything. It’s not going to change how I feel about you now.”
He nodded and lay down, rolling onto his back.
His eyes swung up toward the ceiling, but they had a far-off gleam, as though he were looking well beyond the physical.
“I was born on Jakora, the azheran homeworld. Big cities everywhere, billions of people…kind like how Sam describes your Earth. And it never sat well with me. My parents were historians, basically, so I spent my youth learning about the culture and traditions of my people, our history, and I felt like we’d strayed so far from what we were. I wanted something different.
“I met Vanya a year before reaching my majority.
She seemed to feel the same as me—she wanted a simpler life, a life more in touch with the roots of our people.
We wanted to know what it was like to live off the bounties of nature, to hunt and fish and survive, to make things with our own hands.
She was…beautiful, confident, strong. A huntress even then. Everything I thought I wanted.
“I fell for her. For a long time”—his brows fell low, and his lips turned down in a deep frown—“I even thought I loved her.”
Shay pressed her lips together and lifted a hand away from Leah, curling it into a tight fist at her side. She turned away from Drakkal to look at the peaceful face of her baby. It calmed some of the violent impulses inside Shay.
Everyone has a past, Shay. Get over it. Drakkal didn’t go bat shit crazy when you mentioned your ex, who you created a baby with.
Not that she was angry with Drakkal—she just wanted to knock a few teeth out of that bitch Vanya’s smug face. Shay was sure Drakkal had to suppress similar thoughts when her ex came up.