Chapter 6

Since Shane came to our room, which was really only my room three times a week, I guess it has to be recent. If I was a couple of months along, there’s no way I wouldn’t have known it before I left.

Even if I’d somehow overlooked it, one of the pack would’ve noticed my scent changing. I’m sure I only missed it when I was running because every day meant being somewhere new, with unfamiliar scents and smells. That and my desperate fear distracting me that Shane or his father were only one step behind me, ready to drag me back to a place I’d have no hope of leaving again.

Soon I’ll start showing, and then eventually they’ll be a child which brings with it another fear. A deeper one that never leaves me. At twenty- two and being a rare type of shifter, I’ve never had to fend for myself before since I went straight from my father’s pack to Shane’s.

I need to find a way to support us both. If I can’t, then I’m going to have to go back to Shane and that’s something I swore I would never do. Not when every time I look at him, all I’ll see is him fucking Bree. Or the bite on her neck.

It would kill me if I had to go back to a life that was slowly crushing me to death.

But if I don’t find some way to survive, I’ll have no choice. This baby means I can’t afford to only think of myself. Not anymore.

Having to tell Mack I needed help to use the bathroom was one of the most humiliating things I’ve ever had to do.

For hours, I hoped the urge would go away. I thought if I didn’t think about it, then magically, I would no longer need to go.

After hour two, I realized I’m not one of those people who can ignore the urge to go for a long time. I just can’t.

Thankfully, I didn’t have to shout down the stairs. Mack came in to see if I wanted lunch since I’d slept right from the semi accident the previous day through breakfast that morning.

While it was a relief to find out five or more days hadn’t passed without my knowing it, I was busy working up the courage to tell him I needed to use the bathroom because I didn’t think I could get up on my own.

As I stare at my reflection in the bathroom mirror, I watch the deep blush spilling over my cheeks and down my neck in remembered embarrassment.

At first, I refused Mack’s offer of carrying me, telling him I just needed someone to lean on. He didn’t fight me, just helped me rise from the bed, but the second I put any pressure on my leg, the pain had my eyes filling with tears as I sucked in a sharp breath.

“Please, let me carry you.” There was no demand in his voice, no look in his eyes that told me he thought I was being stupid for refusing his help. Just a soft offer to ease my pain, and one I could deny if I wanted.

It was the very opposite of how an alpha would have spoken to me.

If it’d been Shane or my father, I doubt they’d have cared enough to offer to carry me. My father would’ve told me to stop being stupid and do what I was told as he stalked away and left his beta to deal with me. Shane would’ve just ignored my pain, pretending he didn’t see me. 

I doubt he’d have even gotten anyone to help me, either.

So, at Mack’s gentle offer, I blinked back my tears and agreed.

He didn’t rush me. He asked me if I was ready, and when I nodded that I was, he curved an arm around my waist, slid the other under my knees, and then he lifted.

Other than the brief agonizing pain that came from bending my leg, there was nothing. He lifted me so easily, so smoothly, and didn’t jar me at all as he carried me out of the bedroom and down a cream carpeted hallway to a spotless bathroom opposite.

Although Mack isn’t built like the big guy—the alpha, Bennett, I felt the coiled strength in his ropy lean muscles and I knew he was every bit as strong as Bennett was. He could even have been stronger.

It’d felt nice being in his arms. And, of course, being closer to him meant I could inhale more of his scent. That or run a hand through his tousled dark brown hair, which looked soft and inviting. So, even though I wanted to press closer for a longer sniff or a touch, I didn’t.

Having an attraction to a shifter who saved me from certain death is one thing, but acting on it is another thing entirely. I can’t imagine any guy would appreciate a pregnant girl who still carries the scent of her mate burrowing close.

You’d have wound up on the floor before you knew what’d happened. So don’t mistake kindness with something else, Aerin. Just concentrate on getting well and getting out of town.

Even though it’s been a week since I was last with Shane, Mack couldn’t have failed to pick up his scent on me. A week is nothing to a shifter’s nose.

I scrubbed my body in a motel shower for what felt like hours after I’d left Shane. I think that’s all I did in the first motel I stopped at. Just focused on getting clean and washing away my past.

It was a waste of time. I knew it, but that didn’t stop me from trying, anyway.

The moment he bit me and we joined as mates, his scent and mine created a new scent. A soul-deep connection. As long as I’m still mated to him, any shifter who comes within sniffing distance would know, just as Bennett and Mack did, that I have a mate.