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Chapter 173
Kennedy
As I wake, I realize several things at once. First, it’s like there’s a tight hold on my mind, like the entire pack is holding on to me. Second, Echo is silent. And third, for the first time that I can remember, Quirin’s mind is open to me.
‘You’re awake,‘ his voice floats into my mind.
‘What’s going on?‘ I ask, shifting and realizing that I feel still.
What do you remember?‘ he asks softly.
I try to focus my mind, try to remember what happened. I was captured. I was injured. I ran … “Echo!” I say out loud, terrified that I’ve lost my wolf.
“Shhh. I’m right here,” Quirin says from beside me. “Raif, your family, and the pack all have a tight hold on Echo. No one is letting her go. We’re all giving her the strength she needs to heal. Your mom says she exhausted herself and that you were both very weak…
He stops and I turn to look at him. He looks awful. His eyes are red–rimmed and haunted looking, his face has at least a day’s worth of growth on it, and his clothes are wrinkled as if he’s been sleeping in them.
“How long have I been unconscious?” I ask.
“Two days.”
I reach my hand out to him. He takes it quickly and pulls it to his lips. Then, more gently than anyone who knows my mate would believe, he lifts me out of bed and into his lap, careful of the wires coming out of me.
“You scared me Little Pu… Little Mate.”
I smile at him, snuggling against him. “You can call me Little Pup. I sort of feel like one right now.”
His eyes are intent on mine. “I can’t though, can I? You’ve been keeping secrets from me.” I can see the hurt in his eyes, but my mind doesn’t want to work. Why can’t he call me Little Pup?
“Is this because I yelled at you? I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings…” I begin, but he shakes his head.
“That’s not why, Kennedy.”
I frown, forcing my mind to focus and understand what he’s trying to tell me. Keeping secrets? What secret… and then it hits me. My hands fly to my stomach.
“Are they okay? Is our pup okay?” I ask. If something was wrong with our pup and Echo was silent, I could have lost him or her.
“Your mother has been working overtime to make sure that she saves the three most important beings in my life – you, Echo, and our pup. You, however, are in so much trouble for keeping this from me.”
“I didn’t mean to. It all happened in the middle of everything else. I actually planned to tell you the night we were supposed to talk. That’s what I wanted to talk about. It’s why I went to the overhang. I wasn’t sure how you’d feel about me being pregnant so soon and with the problems between us, but I wasn’t going to keep it from you. I would never hide your child from you, Quirin, no matter how upset or angry I am with you.”
I realize that I can feel the worry inside his mind. His fear wasn’t that I would keep our child from him. He thought I was planning to leave him.
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Chapter 173
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“I would never leave you. You are my mate, my love, my life. I was angry with you, yes. I want things to change, definitely. I don’t want what happened to Christy to happen to anyone ever again. But I would never leave you.”
He presses his lips to my head and wraps his arms more tightly around me. “Thank you for that.”
I lean against him, frowning when he doesn’t close off the mind link. Curious, I begin to enter his mind, wondering why he’s suddenly so willing to keep the link open. I feel his body tense, but rather than shutting his mind down, he opens it wide for me, giving me free access to him.
I feel tears prick in my eyes. It feels like acceptance, acceptance of me and our bond.
‘It was never about not accepting you, Little Mate. It was about protecting you. But a wise man recently reminded me that I tend to underestimate you and that your light, your inner beauty, is so much stronger than my darkness, he says in my mind.
“You talked to my dad?” I’m so surprised that I ask out loud as I sit up to look at him.
“Yes, I did.”
I look at him a moment and realizing that he’s not going to shut me out, I snuggle against him, smiling when Raif begins purring at me. I tentatively begin going through his conversation with my father, gasping when I get to the most painful part of that conversation for him.
You saw him kill your father?‘ I can feel him wanting to close his mind, wanting to protect me from that information, but he fights to keep it open.
I follow the thread of that thought to original one, the one he’s buried deep in his psyche, the one where thirteen–year–old Quirin watched my father kill his. In his mind, I wrap my arms around that teenage boy and hold him, rocking him to help ease the pain of what he saw. Then, I open my mind, letting my love for Quirin flow into his mind.
I feel his body jerk, hear his gasp of surprise, but I don’t stop. My powerful mate can take everything that I give him and it’s time for him to feel the power of my love for him.
“Fuck, Kennedy,” he gasps, his head pressed against mine. I reach up, cupping his face in my hand as I continue to pour my love into him. I let my love spread through him, filling him, touching every part of his mind.
“You’re going to wear yourself out,” he says, panting as if we’ve just made love for hours.
“Loving you has never taken any energy on my part, Quirin. It’s like breathing. It just comes naturally.”
He pulls his head back and gently leans in to kiss me. ‘I love you so much,‘ he says in the mind link.
“Do you know when you stole my heart?” he asks out loud when we pull apart.
I smile, liking this side of Quirin. “My eighteenth birthday?”
He shakes his head. “It was long before then.”
“It was?”
“Mmhmm. You were a little pup, and I didn’t know that we would be mates. I just thought maybe your father had some witch in his bloodlines and that you had bewitched me,” he says, making me laugh as he runs his nose against mine.
“Try again,” he says, watching me as I think.
I think back to all the times that I saw Quirin over the years. It wasn’t often, only on special occasions, usually my birthdays or Henry’s. And then it hits me.
“That night in the garden? Henry’s eighteenth birthday?” I ask.
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“That’s the one. The one where you came searching for me. You were so small, but so confident. And fearless. You’ve always
been fearless.”
“I wouldn’t say I’m fearless. I’ve just never been afraid of you, Quirin.”
He looks at me, stroking my cheek. “Alphas quake in their shoes at my ferocity, Kennedy. Even Henry was taken aback at the level of violence that I used when I killed Jasper. But not you. You’ve never once shown an ounce of fear towards me.”
“You’ve never given me a reason to be afraid of you,” I say softly, watching him. “Tell me about Jasper.”
I watch as his face transforms from the gentle man who loves me to the frightening man that other Alphas fear.
“He hurt you. He tried to take you from me. No one will ever take you from me. If I had known that you were carrying our pup… well, he might still be alive, suffering for what he did.”
“There was another Alpha,” I tell him.
“Brogan. Henry killed him.”
“How did Jasper know how to get to me?” I ask.
“It had to be Slater and that’s what I wanted to talk to you about that night. I was going to warn you that he’d gotten away. I think it was Terrance that didn’t lock the cell properly that night, but when I realized his mate was having a rough labor, I couldn’t really blame him. The other guards should have checked and they obviously didn’t. They got extra patrols to remind them that when we have a person in our cells, you can never be too cautious.”
“So where is Slater?” I ask.
“I don’t know. I have warriors out looking for him now.”
“Oh, I bet they love that. Out hunting one of their own for me,” I say, knowing that they will probably hate me even more than they already do because of this.
Quirin tilts his head at me. “They volunteered, Kennedy.”
That surprises me. “Volunteered? Why?”
He begins stroking my cheek again. “Don’t you feel it? The change in the pack? They’re all worried about you. They all wanted to know that you were safe. When you first came in, every warrior and omega not on shift was in that waiting room. Now, there’s always a steady stream of them and there’s probably even more since they will have felt you waking up. They wanted you to know that they love you and I told them you’d be proud of them for how they helped search for you while also protecting the pack.”
I stare at him, shocked.
“The pack has fallen in love with you, Kennedy, just as I have. They want to please you, make you happy, and we all want to be the kind of pack that you’re proud of. That includes me. But I’ll need your help. I don’t know much about being a family, but I want to learn. I want to make sure that our pups never wonder what family should feel like. Will you help me? Will you help our pack become a pack that you can proud to call yours?”
“I love you so much,” I say, feeling my emotions welling up in my eyes. “Of course I will help our pack to become the family that it should be.”
“Good. Now get some rest. You need to get stronger so Echo can come back. I’ll be right here when you wake up.”
He shifts me in his arms so I can snuggle against him more comfortably. When I’m settled, he kisses my head, his arms securely wrapped around me.
“I’m surprised you didn’t ask me how I knew you were pregnant,” he says softly, his lips still pressed against my head.
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“Oh, I know how you found out. My mother mumbled it, didn’t she?” I ask. I know my mother well. I’ve worked with her for years. The woman can’t keep a secret to save her life.
My mate’s body begins bouncing with his laughter. “She didn’t even realize she’d said it.”
“She never does
“Get some sleep. When you wake up again, it will be time to eat. Your mom has been giving you all kinds of stuff in your IV, but you and our pup need something more solid in your system.”
I’m still tired enough that Raif’s purring and my mate’s warmth put me back to sleep very quickly.
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