“Charity?” His throat closed up. Son of a bitch, this overload of emotion was more than aggravation.
“She’s conceived,” she said a bit too loudly. “I figured it would happen soon.”
He watched her questioningly as her lips quirked somberly. “Too many changes in her body too quickly.” She shrugged. “Let’s hope conception eases her inability to be touched. We’ll have to watch this closely, Aiden.” He could see her fears, her worries. He nodded shortly, clenching his jaw against his own fears. “We’ll be leaving here soon. Find out what they need in the way of medical supplies so we can get those together. We may have more need of them than we could imagine right now. We have to keep her safe.” And there lay his greatest fear.
“Yes we do,” she sighed tiredly. “Her safety, Aiden, must become the Pack’s ultimate goal. I’ll be done quickly. I had already anticipated your order. I’ve found at times, you Breeds can be highly predictable.”
“And I’ve found they can be highly irritating.” Aiden turned in surprise at the sound of Charity’s voice.
She stood in the entrance to the room, dressed and ready to fight. Her face was flushed, her eyes glittering with anger.
“When were you going to tell me?” she asked him with a tone of forced patience as the rest of the occupants turned to watch the confrontation.
He grinned. He could see the telltale emotion in her gaze, the love she thought she kept so carefully hidden from him. He shrugged negligently.
“When were you going to tell me?” He tried to keep his voice stern. “Do you think I’m unaware of the fact that you suspected this before the attack that you were ovulating? Come, Charity, I may be male, but I’m hardly stupid.”
Her face flushed. “I wasn’t certain.”
“Of course you were,” Nikki jumped into the fray. “Otherwise you wouldn’t have been so reticent over the exam I wanted to perform. Really, Charity, all you had to do was say something.” Her voice was smoothly mocking.
Charity frowned at her friend fiercely as she crossed her arms over her chest.
“Perhaps I was waiting for more than a damned mating,” she bit out furiously, though he could hear the hurt behind her words as she speared him with another look. “I didn’t say I accepted that submission stuff either, Aiden,” she bit out. “You say I’m your mate. I don’t.”
He chuckled then. He paid little attention to the men who watched him or their interest in the confrontation as he moved quickly to her. He caught her around her waist, pulling her flush against his body, allowing her to feel the erection that had not yet truly eased.
“I say you are my heart,” he said clearly. “And if you remember correctly, I told you this before either of us suspected the change, Charity.”
She frowned. “Someone has to be, because it’s clear you don’t have one,” she sniped trying to pull away from him.
He shook his head, more than a little confused as he stared down at her.
“I love you, Charity, what more do you want?” He frowned as she suddenly stilled in his arms.
“You what?” she whispered faintly. “Say it again.”
He smiled down at her, amused, so filled with his love for her that at times he wondered how he could hold it all.
“I love you, mate,” he growled as he lowered his head until his nose touched hers. “See what is as plain as the nose on your face. You are my heart, Charity. My soul. My mate.”
As slow as the dawn, as gentle as a summer morning her smile washed across her face, though she tried to narrow her eyes in intimidation, nothing could still the joy he saw spreading through her.
“Fine. I guess I’ll let you be my mate then.” She went to push away from him.
“I don’t think so.” He pulled her back. “I expect a bit more than that after making me declare myself in front of Coyotes.” He was more than aware of snickers sounding behind him.
She peeked over his shoulder, a smile tugging at her lips as she returned her gaze to him.
“Yeah, they are kind of amused,” she said softly. “But their day will come.”
“That wasn’t what I’m waiting for.” His hand slid to her rear as he patted it warningly. “Surely you have more to say?”
“Well,” she drawled. “I would tell you how much I love you, but right now that hand patting my ass is a little too arrogant. Rein it in.”
His brow arched. She filled him with joy, but he could tell it would be no small matter to keep the upper hand with her. His hand tightened on the tempting curve of her buttock as he lifted her closer. She gasped as his thigh pressed against the soft mound of her pussy. He could feel her heat, and then he could smell it. Natural, needy, a heady scent that went to his head faster than any drug.
“I love you,” she breathed out, suddenly serious, her eyes moist with emotion, velvet soft with feeling. “I always have, Aiden.”
His arms tightened her around her, his head lowering to catch her lips in a kiss that seared his soul. It was no more than his lips to her lips as his eyes stared into hers. No more than the meeting of souls.
In that moment Aiden knew that the gift of her love, given so long before, was all that had driven him. Unknowingly, instinctively, he had known that only she could light the bleak dark corners of who and what he was. And she filled it, lighting it with such emotion and such need, it nearly drove him to his knees.
“We have an audience,” she whispered against his lips.
“Fuck ‘em,” he grunted as his hands smoothed up her back, his heart glorying in her, in the many gifts she had given him.
“No.” She laughed then, joy spreading through her face. “Fuck me instead. Later. Maybe on a beanbag again?”
“You liked the beanbag,” he murmured as his body tightened at the thought. Keeping his arm around her, he turned quickly to face the snickering group watching him. “Well, Rey, it’s been informative. But it’s time for us to go. Get your lists together, visit when you can.” He drew Charity to the tunnel as she laughed behind him. “Hawke, assign someone here and get your ass to the jeep or I’m leaving without you.”
It was time to go home. But damned if he knew where he was going to find another beanbag on such short notice. Maybe he could improvise, he thought. Surely there was something similar.
Epilogue
They had locked her into a room by herself. A steel enclosed room. No doors. No windows. There was no view out, but the large two-way mirror provided a view in. What Hawke saw bit at his soul.
The woman was slender, compact, staring silently from the fold-down cot she lay on. Her big blue eyes glittered with moisture but no tears had fallen in the hours she had been confined there. Resignation and acceptance lay over her like a cloak of pain.
He had come to the small, dark room to watch her as soon as he returned to the compound. He needed to see her to reaffirm to himself that the decision he was faced with could be carried out.
The Army hadn’t been notified of her betrayal. That was Faith’s job and after one long searching look when he had asked her to delay the message, she had nodded her agreement. Now he stood here, merely watching, unable to step past the door at the end of the long room and give her the go ahead to do so.
Was it a difference in how he was trained, he wondered? He hadn’t experienced the unjust cruelties that many of the other Breeds had faced. He had been created, observed, tested and trained by professionals. By men and women who understood that the true answers came from caring treatment. It hadn’t been enough for him. The assignments he had been sent on were bloody, vicious, and he had been expected to perform with a lack of mercy.
He had done as he was ordered but always with an eye on the best opportunity to escape. When the time came he had gladly taken it. But he didn’t hold the bitter, painful memories of abuse such as Wolfe, Jacob and the other Breeds held. He understood it. He accepted it. He knew their lives hung in the balance of world opinion at the moment, and that tide could change any day. He was willing to give his life for those who had adopted him. He was willing to fight for their greater freedom. But he wasn’t willing to kill his mate.