Page 58 of Raven

We signed the forms and handed them back. Malcolm extended his hand. "I'll hold these for a week before filing. It'll give you both time to reconsider."

I retreated to Tia's side, reaching for her hand. She didn't reciprocate. Squaring my shoulders and puffing out my chest, I nodded. "Thanks, but we don't need it. You can file them."

Another pause from him. "Allow me to give you both a ride home. Curfew is almost upon us."

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.

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