Page 108 of Mated
I nod, or try to. But my fucking throat tightens and I can’t fucking breathe. Nisha scoots into my front, rubbing her hands over my chest as a low sympathetic sound spills from her body.
“It was a fucking shit show,” I mutter. “Her parents flipped out and tried to have me removed from the hospital. Isabelle wanted me there. Wanted me with her. And I couldn’t leave her, track?”
Nisha remains silent as her small hands soothe the man as much as the beast. I wrap my arms around her and she leans against my chest, holding me just as tight.
“They had to do an emergency c-section. Said there was a complication,” I continue. “They wouldn’t let me in with her. Wouldn’t allow me in the room. I waited for hours for someone to tell me something. Anything.”
“No one came. No doctors. No nurses.” I can still see the damn too bright corridor with the small green chairs every time I close my eyes. I can hear the quiet of the clock on the wall and the blood roaring in my ears.
“Isabelle delivered my son and I never knew. Never got to see him.” Every inch of my body shakes and my hands convulse. “With my blood, the baby should have survived. Should have been strong. Fierce. Even without shifting, he should have been able to make it.”
Something hot flows down my face, but I barely feel it. “It wasn’t until the security guards asked me to leave that I knew. Knew that our baby didn’t make it. And I knew Isabelle blamed me.”
I close my eyes. “She had every right to. If I was human, maybe …”
Nisha sits up fast and my eyes jerk open as her small hands grip my face. “Tanner. No,” she says fiercely. “It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t Isabelle’s fault. Sometimes that just happens. It fucking sucks and it breaks your fucking heart. But I have delivered more than my share of preemies in the back of a squad or in a civilian whip. Some survive. Some don’t. But it wasn’t your fault, do you understand?”
I stare at her.
Her hands tighten. “Answer me.”
“Nisha—”
“No,” she says again. “I’m sorry you lost your son. I can’t begin to understand what you have endured since then. That …” Her head shakes. “But it wasn’t your fault.”
Her heartbeat is steady in my ears. Sure.
I slide my hand into her hair. “Thank you.” It seems paltry. Insubstantial.
“I have blamed myself for years. Blamed my beast and even the pack.” My head shakes. “That night I left the hospital and left Fallen Ridge at the same time. I never returned. Never told anyone goodbye. I took the money in my wallet and just fucking left.”
“I knew Callus would take the pack. Knew he would lead them because I couldn’t. And I spent weeks on a fucking bender, wallowing in grief until I wound up in Lock Lake with my hands cuffed to a chair and a black eye from a fight with a vampire captain.”
My lips curve at the memory. “Ruin took me to Marcus and Marcus offered me life in the coven. A life with a family that wasn’t my own but that would eventually become mine.” I sigh. “I’ve been third in command for two years. Theta to one of the best men I’ve ever had the honor of knowing. Gage is like my fucking brother, and even Horan and now Caine are like pack.” That reality makes me swallow hard. “They are my fucking family.”
She scours my face. “You deserve to have family, Tanner. It wasn’t your fault. And I will say that as many times as I have to in order for you to get it through your fucking thick ass head.”
We watch each other and her words hang in the silence like a promise.
My eyes dart over her face and I can’t fathom the need. The want to have her with me. Like this. As often as I can fucking manage.
My beast rolls through me, and I know what he wants.
He wants her just as much as I do.
Mate.
The title leaves me quaking and my palms slick.
It’s a forever kind of deal. Shifters only mate once and unless she dies …
That thought makes my heart stop fucking beating, and I suddenly understand the pain Ruin felt weeks ago when Lilah died. It’s fucking consuming.
I’d kill to stop it. To protect her.
Fuck.
I grip her face in my hands and kiss her as hard as I dare. Inside my gut fucking clenches and my cock fucking drips. But it’s more than lust. It’s the start of something that I have no real experience with.
