Happiness is Earned (Second Chances Book 3), page 67
What started out as the most beautiful and exciting thing, has morphed into this terrifying worry. I’m barely beginning to learn that I’m good enough for my mates. But to learn I’m already failing my children? It’s incomprehensible.
“Holy fuck,” Malachi whispers, shaking his head. “Two kids?”
“Two cubs,” Atticus adds, sounding full of pride.
“Two cubs,” Cevon echoes, his words sounding completely off.
“Come here, pretty girl,” Micah murmurs, pulling me into his arms, not caring about the jelly on my stomach. “I’ve got you.”
“What’s wrong?” Orson asks, looking at me in surprise. “Why are you upset?”
“Are you worried about what the doctor was saying?” Malachi asks, rubbing my back, as I bury my head into my wrong-smelling but beautifully loving mate.
“We can’t help you if we don’t know the issue, baby girl,” Fin murmurs. “Talk to us.”
I push away from Micah slightly, tears still pouring down my cheeks. I can’t look at him—at any of them—so I keep my focus on the hole in the faded t-shirt that my mate is wearing.
“I’m defective.”
“What the actual fuck?” Cevon snarls, rounding the table in a fury. He cups my cheek with his large palm, and tilts my head up so that I’m looking at him. I can see the fury in his dark eyes, the swirling dark green and blue captivating me in a dangerous way. “Do not ever say something like that about yourself.”
“Especially when you know the cost,” Fin adds, squeezing my ass. The angle is awkward with me resting on Micah’s lap but still.
“We talked around you a lot just there, didn’t we?” Micah asks, and I nod miserably. “Do you have any questions?’
“Not really.”
“But you’ve got some negative feelings about yourself?” Fin asks as Cevon steps back. There’s still a look of pure fire on his face, but he’s content to let someone else take the lead.
“A little.”
“Then, let’s talk them out,” Atty says slowly. He seems a little out of his depth, but when I peer through the bond properly, it’s disappointment he feels.
He’s so excited and I’m ruining it.
“I’m okay,” I say, shaking my head. “Let’s go home. I want to put a photo on the fridge.”
“That’s an amazing place to put it!” Fin says, with a grin.
“Only because you’re constantly in there,” Voss teases.
There’s a knock at the door, and the nurse comes in to take my bloods. I clean up after the scan, and after arranging our next appointment we leave.
Somehow I end up in Fin’s car with Cevon and Micah, but I don’t complain. It’s obvious why that is.
“Talk, or I’ll pull over into the first parking space I can find and spank you,” Fin says.
“Oh, that’s a sight I’d love to see,” Cevon says, with a grin.
“I just… we’re having twins, which is already something we need to monitor since we’ve got such a low success rate at carrying them both to term.”
“At least it’s only twins, and not like… quadruplets,” Micah says, with a shrug.
I know his words were meant to be reassuring, but they’re not.
“But then we’ve got the added concerns of me and my defective state. It was already annoying when she had to adjust the bed because of my smaller size, but to sit there and have every limitation I have be aired out like that?”
“I’m sorry we did that,” Fin says, slowing down as we approach a red light. It means he can turn to face me. “Maybe next time, we have a rule where we can only ask one question each—and only after you’ve had your turn.”
“We’re all eager and excited,” Micah says. “But more than that, we’re all terrified. We can’t do much during the pregnancy, pretty girl. We can’t take the burden from you, or heal the morning sickness. We can’t do a lot, so we’re trying to overcompensate a little.”
“I love that about you all. I’m just frustrated with myself for not being good enough.”
“You do not get to doubt your worth,” Cevon says firmly. “You are my mate, Nora, but that won’t save you from my wrath of degrading something that is mine. And you are very much… mine.”
I sigh, and lean into his aggressive kiss with everything in me. The best way to soothe my fears of not being enough… is to let him show me how worthy I truly am.
“No,” Fin says, firmly, as I reach up to undo Cevon’s shirt buttons. “I cannot drive if you two are—”
“Then find that parking space,” I mutter, against Cevon’s lips.
And I don’t complain when two hands turn into six… even if the location of a deserted field isn’t the safest location to avoid being seen.
56
MICAH
“Holy fuck,” I whisper, the dragging of the u sound echoing around the empty office.
I re-read the words on the screen, double-checking and even triple-checking the photo I’ve found, looking for any signs of edits. Surely it’s not true. It can’t be.
Can it really be that simple?
Well, simple isn’t the word I’d use if this image is accurate.
Sure, it means I’ve located Lainey’s heritage and uncovered a very big secret that even she may not have known.
But it’s going to fuck my life up massively if it’s true.
“It can’t be,” I say, shaking my head. I close the document, before reopening the software. I decide to take another run through the programme again, using a different method, with the hopes that the image I’ve just seen doesn’t reemerge.
If I made a mistake, maybe that image is linked to someone else and not to Lainey.
Hell, I’ll even take a fucking error code rather than seeing that agin.
But the universe doesn’t listen to me, and the photo of the tiger spread out with her paw up on the rocks is right there in front of me, easily showing off what we’ve missed.
Fuck!
“Hey,” Nora says, peeking her head through the doorway.
“Hey, pretty girl,” I say, not even turning to look at her. I hear her come in on soft footsteps, and she presses a kiss to the hollow of my neck.
“Are you okay, Romeo?”
I nod, minimising the screen, before turning my head to look up at her. I give her a soft smile, loving the sleepy look about her. We had a very fun night last night in the field, which was continued later that night between Voss, Nora and me.
Breakfast this morning went well, and Nora aired her fears with the group. Every single one of us reiterated how she’s not a failure, and there’s not a single thing about her that we find lacking.
I hate that she feels that way, but I hope with time and continued reassurance, she’ll realise we mean it.
Her long brown hair is tied up in a messy knot thing on the top of her head, and her tanned skin is quite radiant. Is this a pregnancy glow, or something else? I don’t know, but I love it.
Her smile seems to thin the longer I look at her, and with a power that she shouldn’t be allowed to possess, she reads my very fucking soul.
“You’re nervous,” she murmurs, trailing her finger down my cheek, still standing to the side of me. “What’s going on, Romeo?”
“Something bad,” I say, with a sigh. I spin around on the chair, and she wraps her arms around her midriff. Immediately she internalises the action. Before I can say a word though, she moves forward and scrutinises the screen,. Even if I hadn’t minimised it, she’d have no clue what she was meant to be looking for.
Nobody but a tiger, or someone intimate with their lore, would.
“Can you do me a favour pretty girl?” I ask, and she nods slowly. There’s a tension in her shoulders, and I hate it. I hate that this is touching her—especially in her current state. “I need you to grab Kai for me. I need to talk to him about this.”
Nora nods, and disappears without another question. It’s one of the things I love most about her. She’s so fucking intuitive. She can sense my anxiety through the bond, smell the depths of the panic, but she’s happy to step back and let Kai be the one I confide in.
She just genuinely wants to make sure that everything is okay, and I love her for it.
I hope one of the others can help keep her reassured until we share with the group.
I need to tell Malachi before we tell them. His reaction is not going to be good.
Every minute that I wait causes my heart to beat faster, the pit in my stomach to grow larger. My hands are trembling, and the sweat dripping down my back is disgusting and uncomfortable.
But I can’t move until I talk to him.
His footsteps are so much louder than Nora’s were, the steps echoing in time with the pounding in my skull. His eyes rake over my face, and there’s a good fifteen crinkles in his giant forehead, as he crouches down in front of me.
“What’s going on?” he asks, an almost tender note to his voice.
“It’s, it’s, fuck—” I stutter, shaking my head. I push away from the desk, getting out of the chair.
“Fuck, Micah, what is going on?” he demands, angrily. I glance towards the door and without even looking at it, Kai slams it shut. He’s not fucking around right now. There’s no time for delicacy.
“I’ve discovered a little bit more about Lainey.” I bite my lip, and start pacing the room, unable to admit what I’ve found.
Verbalising it will make it real.
“So why are you telling me in a super secret meeting?” he asks. “Nora’s fucking beside herself with worry, and based on the way you’re acting, I can see why.”
“It’s… you need to know.”
“Atticus needs to know too. We should all be on the same page with this,” he says, giving me a weird look.
“She’s a tiger,” I say, and he nods. There’s a forced patience to his demeanour, but I can feel his tiger just underneath his skin.
My brother’s not impressed with how slow I’m acting, but I can’t just drop this news into his lap. He’s going to freak.
“I remember,” he says, raising his bushy brows. “She was apparently brutalised by our kind, and hates me—us—because of it.” I shake my head, the nausea bubbling away, and he frowns. “What’s that look for?”
“That might be what she claims,” I say, slowly. “But it’s not the truth.”
“What do you mean?” Kai asks, gesturing to my seat. “Look, stop pacing. You’re getting yourself so fucking worked up. Take a seat, and drink this.”
He thrusts a bottle of apple juice at me from my mini fridge, and I drop into my seat and grab it. My hands are shaking, and Kai crouches down in front of me, undoing the bottle, and holds my hand steady.
“If you’ve found something,” he says gently. “You need to tell me, so that we can figure it out. Nothing is too big an issue for us to solve together.”
If I weren’t so panicked, I’d enjoy teasing him for that comment. But I am and I can barely focus.
“Micah, spit it out,” Kai snarls, injecting his tone with the dominance from his tiger.
I know it’s only worry for me that’s causing him to lose his temper, but he’ll definitely need to work on that for when the pup is born.
“I think Lainey might be our cousin.” The words tumble out of my mouth in a rush. I didn’t try to fight the command from Kai, and he’s far more dominant than I, so we easily gave him what he wanted.
“You what?” He falls onto his ass, looking up at me with a comical look of shock.
“I think Lainey was our cousin,” I repeat. Now that it’s out there, the panic within me has settled a little. The adrenaline is slowly diminishing away, and I just feel empty.
“That’s not fucking possible,” Kai roars, jumping to his feet.
“How not?”
I’m the calm to the storm that’s raging inside of him. Our roles have changed and where I was the emotional one only moments ago, Kai’s now taken that and levelled it up.
He’s angry, furious, but most of all he’s betrayed.
“It’s just not,” he says, shaking his head. “We’d have sensed it when we were around her. Scented the familial ties. The threads between us. She doesn’t smell like anybody we know. We can’t be related to her.”
I was barely around her for longer than five minutes at a time, and remember very little about her—never mind her scent. But, even still, his argument is weak.
“We don’t sense that,” I say, slowly. “Not as a smell. We need the bond.”
“We’d have known.” He’s defeated now, his shoulders hunching over, a tortured look on his face.
“Our animals don’t recognise our parents, Kai. They’re not going to recognise her.”
And even if we did recognise our parents, and have a bond towards them—she definitely doesn’t have one towards our own.
Malachi tries one last time, shaking his head. “It’s impossible.”
“It’s not,” I say. “I think it’s the truth.”
“Who were her parents?” Kai says, angrily. “Which side of the family is she on?”
“She’s on mum’s side,” I say.
“Are you sure?” he demands. “Are you sure it’s not your dad? There’s no way I’m related to that conniving–”
“I’m sure.”
He groans, flopping down on the other chair, hanging his head down low between his knees. “Any other family secrets you want to drop in my lap whilst you’re at it?”
I bite my lip, before shrugging. I’ve held onto this secret since like a week after his colours changed. “I know who your father is, Malachi.”
“Of course you do,” he groans, sitting up straight. He analyses my face, his light blue eyes meet my own, and he sighs. There’s a hardness to his face, a shield being formed around his heart, and I’m not sure if he can take it.
“But that’s a drama for another day,” I say, reaching out to pat his leg and he nods slowly.
“Where’s your proof?” Malachi asks, almost hesitantly. “Can I see it?”
I scoot back towards my desk, and maximise the screen I was on before Nora started looking. The photo on the screen is one of a tiger. It’s not anything special, not really. She’s the same colour as me, her stripes a little thinner, and her frame smaller.
It’s clear that this is a female tiger, and that’s all most others would notice.
But as tigers we’ve got two gifts from our parents. Our colouring comes from our father’s line, and will match to one of the three colourings of our kind. But there’s one way that shifters variate from wild tigers.
Our paw prints contain our tribe, and they come directly from our mother’s line.
In any other photo, I’d not have a single clue who this woman is, or who she came from.
But laying here, with her paws so clearly on display… it’s hard to ignore.
Because even if we doubt it.
All I needed to do was shut, and compare.
“I don’t fucking believe it,” Malachi whispers, edging closer to the screen. “Can you zoom in?”
I nod, and do exactly that, before pushing my chair away and shifting into my tiger. I believe it without the real life comparison, but Malachi doesn’t.
I put my paw into his lap, and he lifts it just a little. I purr, and he sighs before placing my paw back down.
“She’s definitely on our mother’s side.” Shaking his head, he sits back in his chair, and gestures for me to shift.
“I’ve got some ideas about who her parents could be,” I say, before cringing. “But I think we’re going to need their help for this one.”
“No.”
“You don’t need to talk to them—” I start.
“No.”
“Kai, they’re the only ones we can trust—”
He snarls, the sound so loud and filled with pain that it shakes me to my very core. His eyes are dark, a shadow across his face, and he firmly shakes his head.
“I said no. I want nothing from those abusive cunts.” And with the betrayed putrid scent filling the air, and a broken whisper, he adds, “And I thought you didn’t either.”
He turns and storms out of the room, his footsteps shaking the entire house.
I sigh, sitting back down as I hear him snapping at whoever just asked if he’s okay.
“You good, baby M?” Cevon asks, appearing in the doorway.
I look up at him with tears in my eyes, and I’m sent back to the day all those years ago when he rescued Kai and me from our home.
“I’ll send Nora up,” he says gently, and I nod. “I’ve got Malachi.”
Then he’s gone.
I knew the reaction would be explosive.
I just didn’t think he’d brand me a traitor in the process.
57
MALACHI
“You think you might be related to my dead mate,” Cevon says, slowly. He’s slowly dragging the words out, his eyes constantly flicking between my brother and I, and it’s pissing me off.
My tiger is as unhappy with the situation as I am—maybe even more so—and I’m tempted to shift and rip Cevon’s arm off just to expel some of this frustration.
“Yes,” Micah replies, fidgeting with the hem of his shirt.
I wish I could comfort him but I can’t. I can barely see him past the tinge of red in my eyes. I’m furious, my whole body trembling with pent up rage and adrenaline.
That run wasn’t enough to calm me down.
Nothing is ever going to be enough as long as they’re still alive.
Nora takes Micah’s hand in hers, and rests her head on his shoulder. She’s a little tense, but her presence is a soothing balm on my brother’s soul.
I just wish it worked for me too.
I’m long past being soothed.
“I don’t understand,” Cevon says, his bushy brows drawing together as he looks at Micah properly this time. Now that the weight of his beady eyes are off me, I’ve lost some of the pressure from my chest. “How is that even possible?”
