Chapter Twenty Seven-Curse and Cure

When five o’clock came, I heard the garage door open. My heart raced, and I shook away the nerves from my fingers.

I’d spent the better part of the day thinking of how to say things without it coming to a fight, and I hoped I could make everything come out right. It isn’t my nature to be apologetic or forgiving, so I was still rehearsing my pitch as I heard the doorknob jiggle under Logan’s fingers.

The door to the kitchen opened, and I came around the table to face them. I wore a short black dress and nothing else. It had been nearly a week for me too, and every inch of me ached for them.

Whereas Logan’s eyes never left my body, Jacob licked his lips and as his eyes swept over the table. I swore to them I’d never be the domestic goddess they’d hoped for, but I did my best to make the table look nice. I even lit candles, and in Jacob’s clear blue eyes, you could see every flicker. “You made us dinner.”

I tucked my hair behind my ears as I glanced back over my shoulder and shrugged. “Well, I ordered you dinner.” Logan’s stare burned through me, and in a second, I was ready to run into his arms. “I just, I want to start over or get past this or whatever we have to do to make things less awful round here. I can’t go on like this.”

My throat burned with the memory of everything I said to them, and I swallowed it down. At that moment I said them, I meant every word. But looking at them now, I couldn’t remember why. “I know what I said to you, but it’s not true.” My hand covered my heart as I moved closer to Logan. “I could never hate you.”

My body struggled to fight the mark they gave me, but their venom sat right over my heart, holding it hostage. “I feel you here, and it’s” —my fingers balled into fists as the spirits inside me tried to lash out at him, but the Lycans’ grip on my chest made it impossible — “Oh, what is this? It’s like I can’t even breathe unless I’m near you.”

His hands rubbed at my arms, and he dipped his knees to look into my eyes. “I’m sorry, Tess.”

I nodded, and I collapsed into his chest. I was beaten. I succumbed to the Alpha’s dominant bloodline, and it was the most crushing but liberating defeat. He finally forced this independent woman to admit she needed someone for something. “Just make it stop.”

His arm wrapped around me, and it was like the sun was gracing my skin for the first time in years. The track of the path his hand took across my body was hot and made me tingle. And like he had every cure at his fingertips, they moved through my back and eased the ache in my chest.

He was my curse and cure. My love and hate.

After the last of the wine filled my glass, I hummed through my smile at Logan. “I think you’re trying to get me drunk.”

He smiled and set the wine of the island behind him. “A little.”

Jacob’s fingers tapped on mine, and his head rested on his other fist. “We have to settle some things, and we should do it now.”

His finger lifted from my hand and flicked between him and Logan. “We want kids, Tessa. Lots of them.”

I blew through my lips and pressed my back into the chair. “I’m not the mother type. I’ve never even held a baby before.”

Logan’s hands steepled in front of his chin. “It doesn’t have to happen today, but we need to know that it’s going to happen someday.”

I fanned my face with the newspaper Logan brought home with him as my anxiety crept up on me. “This is just all…” the paper slapped to the table. “It’s too much. I don’t know how to be all this for you both. I’m doing my best, but you have to give me some time.” I took a long drink of wine and shook my head. “If we get through a year. If we can get to that point and still like each other, I’ll think about it. But I can’t tell you today that I want that. I’m sorry.”

A hand rubbed at Logan’s forehead. “I don’t understand what the problem is. Do you think that we won’t take care of you?”

I had about a million reasons why I thought having a baby was a terrible idea, and not one of them was about the twins. I tried to breathe my way out of the panic attack they were pushing me into, but I needed to move.

The chair creaked across the floor, and I paced between the table and the door. “Logan, it’s not about you.” My hand met my chest. “It’s me.” My finger twirled around my face like a tornado. “All this normal makes you boys feel safe and secure, but I just feel like I’m drowning, and no one will even try to pull me out of the water. You just keep trying to push me back in.”

Jacob met me at the kitchen island and pulled me into his chest, and kissed my forehead. “No one wants you to feel like that. We don’t want to spend our lives chasing after you either. We just need to know that we’re all working towards the same thing. We want a big family like the one we grew up in.”

I pushed him back. They were always overpowering me, and it had to stop if there was ever going to be a moment of peace. “You two aren’t listening to me. I’m not saying I won’t give that to you someday. I don’t know how I’m going to feel tomorrow, much less a year from now, but right now, I don’t.” I turned to face the wall and grabbed at the burn in my throat. “I’m not just some baby-making machine; I’m just me. Why can’t you two just be happy with me for now? Just me?”

I didn’t need to turn around to know he was behind me. I could be blind and deaf in a room full of people, and I could find Logan in a heartbeat. He encircled me with his arms, and the panic was gone. His body commanded me to respond, and I had no choice but to obey him. “You’re enough, Tess.”

He turned me to face him and spoke to me, all of me, and I understood then why he was the Alpha. It wasn’t just a title they gave their firstborn. He knew how to rule us all. “If you could never give us an heir. If it was just us forever, it would be enough.” His eyes were full of tears when he pressed his lips to mine. “I want children so much I can taste it, but I need you. I can’t live without you.”

The drug-induced coma I’d kept myself in for nearly a week was lifted, and every impulse inside me was alive as he breathed his words across my face.

He heard me. Not just my words, he understood that I wanted to be loved without conditions, and it lit the fire again.

I freed myself of his hold and rushed out of the kitchen as my finger bent to them over and over. “Last one there has to watch.”