Page 62 of Raven

"Easy, Mum," I said. "Just breathe for a minute, alright?"

She sucked in the air, trying to get her breath back. I watched the numbers on the machine, her levels, low, lower than they should be, but rising slowly. After a few moments, when the numbers were almost where they needed to be, she said, "I sold the car." And before I could respond, she added, "We don't use it. You have the bike."

"But the car. You ..."

"I don't want to talk about this now. It's finished. It's fine. It's done. Your debt to the humans is paid off. Now you can join the Sentinels and not lose half of your earnings to this."

Honestly, I didn't know what to say. When my mother didn't want to talk about things, we didn't. "Why are you so keen on me joining the Sentinels? I thought ..." With all her shielding my life, all the control. "Why?"

She was slow to move and respond. I think if I wasn't there, she'd have drifted back to sleep, and maybe I should have gone home and left things. Let her heal and get better. "Because it's the better choice," she said. "Because if you're part of the Sentinels, you're safe."

"I'm safe by going to war?"

She turned her head slightly so she could meet my gaze. "It's hard for me, Raven. You've literally been my whole life for more than half of it and I know you're becoming a man and I have to take the brakes off sometimes and let you live your life, and I'm trying. I really am. But I want you safe, and I ..."

"Safe from what, though? What is it you're hiding me from?"

Her eyes, though tired and pained, held a depth of worry I'd rarely seen. It was unsettling, seeing my strong, fierce mother looking so ... vulnerable. She seemed to be wrestling with something, weighing her words carefully.

"It doesn't matter. There are things that you can't understand."

"Maybe I could if you shared them, maybe--"

She raised her hand. "Enough now."

I ground my jaw and stared at her. The door slamming on this conversation like it always did. There were times when I felt like I could get through to her, when I could ask and maybe she'd actually tell me, and then she'd slam the door shut and no, nothing. I got up out of my seat and walked around herbed. There were no windows in this place, nothing to look at and enjoy the scenery. I stuffed my hands in my pockets. "Tia's pregnant," I said. I leant against the wall, head back.

I could feel my mother staring at me, feeling every single ounce of weight in it as she did. The woman, who, for my entire life had managed to hide her emotions from me, let them go right then, like a dam crumbling. I was so flooded with them, I had to keep myself still or they'd knock me sideways. So much spilt out of her at once, that the thread of it threatened to choke me, and in a way, I wasn't sure what it was I was feeling and what was hers.

"I'm sorry," I said when I managed to catch my breath. "I ..."

She didn't say anything to me. She didn't need to and maybe it was worse because with the healing and the effects of the Lycanthrocyte, her healing was doing so much better. The bruises were going, the gash sealing, but they were still there, grotesque in all their glory.

"I know you're disappointed in me. I didn't mean for this to happen."

"The baby is yours, I assume?" Her tone was clipped.

"Yes."

My mother took off her oxygen mask and pushed herself up on the bed. Her face was a mix of emotions—anger, disappointment, worry—all fighting for dominance. She winced as she moved, but her eyes never left mine.

"Do you have any idea what you've done? The consequences this could have?" I opened my mouth to respond, but she cut me off. "How could you be so fucking stupid?"

I stared at my mother, her words slamming into me. I knew this would be her reaction. I'd tried to brace myself for it, but it didn't make it easier. I fought to keep my voice calm and controlled, to talk to her like a man who knew what he was doing."I asked Malcolm for permission to mate," I said, mywords coming out steadier than I felt. "I've signed up for the Sentinels, and I've petitioned the council for the mating."

My mother's eyes flashed with anger. "You told him about the baby?"

"No. I know it's against the rules, but Tia and I decided if we mate now, we can play with the dates." Even to my own ears, I sounded pathetic—a child seeking permission.

"After everything we've been through, after everything ..." She couldn't even finish the sentence.

"But I don't know what we've been through. I ask, and you keep your secrets and don't tell me. I don't even know what it is we're running from. We are running from something, right? That's what all this is. I try to figure it out, but you won't speak. I don't know what you're afraid of or why. And this ... I know I'm only seventeen, but this feels like a chance for me to have a normal life."

My mother swung her legs around, sitting on the edge of the bed. Her face contorted with pain, but her eyes blazed with determination. "You speak of things you have no idea about. You are seventeen. You are not the age to be making all these decisions."

"I'm about to be eighteen. What are you doing?"

She shuffled on the bed, clearly trying to get up. "Going home," she snapped. "I swear, I dig you out of one mess, and you throw yourself into another. Do you have a death wish?"

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