Chapter Forty Four-I Did

In the darkness of sleep, the pitter-patter of rain poked through my slumber, and my eyes fluttered open. The light was a dim yellow-brown, and I recognized I was on the soft brown leather couch in our living room.

The air around me was heavy, and I heard the ice clink in his glass as Logan set it on the side table and cleared his throat.

The whole floor shifted under his weight, and his shadow moved between me and the light before he kneeled beside me. He tugged the blanket up to my chin, and his fingertips caressed my jaw. “How are you feeling?”

My mouth was a desert, and I licked my lips as I tried to swallow. “I’m okay.”

My elbow pressed into the couch to lift me, and his arm was around me. “Let me help you.”

“I’m fine.” I pushed him away, and when I remembered what happened, I balled his shirt in my hand. “Jacob. How’s Jacob?”

His eyes pinched shut, and his forehead pressed into mine. The atmosphere changed as his back pulsed up and down in the little bit of light coming from the lamp in the corner. Our bond was severed, but it didn’t matter. I could feel the pain in every sob against my skin. “No. Logan. He can’t be.”

Just a few hours earlier, he was inside me. I could still smell his blood in my hair. I was covered in him, and the essence of his life was still thick on me. But my neck was wet with the truth, and Logan held me so tight I could barely breathe. “No. My bag. Logan, my bag. I can save him.”

His lips moved back and forth across my cheek. Even though he’d lost the other half of him, he used his mouth to cover me in kisses and comfort me. “There’s nothing in that bag that can change things. He’s just gone, Sweetheart.”

I don’t know for sure if either of them were my mates or if I even believe that those things exist, but I’d grown to love them both. Never in the nearly year we were together did I ever tell either of them I loved them without some hint of sarcasm or a joke attached to it, and Teddy was right. There’s nothing more painful than regret.

Sweet Jacob had been led astray by me from his family. He cut all ties from them for a life of sin with me, and the weight of it sitting on my chest was unbearable. I had to confess and free myself from it. “Baby, I’m so sorry.”

While he shivered in pain against me, I pressed my lips to his forehead. “Logan, he loved you so much. “

His face turned up to meet me, and a smirk came to his lips as he sighed and shook his head at me. I know it sounded like a horrible thing to say, but these Lycan believe the old texts their ancestors made for them and follow them to the letter. It was all he had left to hold on to. “I know you don’t believe in the religion, Tessa. But the Fates believes in us, and it was meant to be this way for a reason. My brother’s on a new path somewhere, and I’m happy for him, and I’m not afraid of going on without him.”

His shaking hand moved down my body and rested on my belly. “Because part of him will always be right here with us.” When I realized what he meant, my eyes closed, and I felt my whole body shrinking. “He always was the better man, and I’d be honored to be the father of his child.”

No matter how hard I tried to break this family’s hold on me, something always dragged me back. It’s true, I never wanted to be a mother, and I was no less convinced I’d be any good at it now.

I know he was disappointed in the horror of my expression, but his hands wrapped around my cheeks, and he looked into my eyes. “I know that bite I gave you is worn off. I don’t know how you did it or why, but I can’t read you anymore. Can’t see your thoughts. But I know you love me. I knew it the first night we were together. I can smell it dripping from your skin.”

His teary eyes finally spilled over. “Just say it. Just once.”

There would always be a part of me that felt ugly for telling the truth. I know the hero complex in him thought he was freeing me by forcing me to submit. But every time I said it, my guilty conscience grew a little more. “I love you. From the minute I saw you standing by the fire looking at me.”

His finger rubbed the space on my finger where the ring meant to bind us once sat. “I’ve made about a million different kinds of mistakes with you. I love my brother, but I just should have left with you that day you asked me to.”

He gasped as his eyes rolled to the ceiling, and I could feel it. I could see it on his face.

When Teddy shut off our connection, it was like I was lost in the ocean. I was alone in the world for the first time since I was born, and it was a different kind of emptiness and fear. “I lost so many people today. Our town is just destroyed. I tried so hard to keep everyone safe, and it was for nothing. I could have walked away with you, and it wouldn’t have made a difference here. But I’d still have you.”

That was the minute the light snapped on in my head, and I understood everything. The world is changing, and it no longer welcomes our kind. It was rejecting us, and these people were helpless to hunters. But I was built for this kind of vengeance.

It’s not my nature to be nurturing and loving. I’m a killer. And that’s what this pack needs. My brother was right; I could change things. And I did.