by T. S. Joyce
Jason’s dark eyebrows raised, and he took a step back, leaned against a tree of his own. “Fuck.”
“It’s bad, right?”
Jason nodded.
Beaston scrubbed his hands over his face and stared off into the quiet woods. “What do I do?”
“Talk to her, man. You have to figure out how you can fix what’s wrong.”
“She’ll leave me.”
“You’re wrong,” Jason said, shaking his head. “Aviana loves you. Anyone with eyes can see it, but this is part of the gig. You can’t run away when a woman needs to talk. I know talking isn’t your strong suit, but women are softer and need that. They need you to listen.”
“Has she said anything?”
“To me?”
Beaston nodded, desperation, not the cold, making him shuffle his weight from side to side.
Jason dropped his gaze to his snow-covered bare feet.
“Jason,” Beaston barked out.
“Not to me, but to Georgia. Aviana mentioned she wanted to celebrate the Christmas holiday big for you, but that you won’t have anything to do with it. I get it, man. The holidays weren’t awesome for you growing up alone, but Aviana was raised with a family. Maybe the holiday is really important to her, and you aren’t compromising? I don’t know. I’m not that good at this kind of girl shit.”
But what Jason was saying made perfect sense. Ana had mentioned the Christmas Eve party at Sammy’s that the crew was going to, and he’d balked. She’d mentioned putting stockings on the fireplace, but he’d told her he didn’t want their den decorated. She hadn’t made a fuss, but he hadn’t compromised at all, and his mate was more timid about stating her wants than the other Gray Back females.
He felt like grit. Without meaning to, he’d pushed his shit onto Ana and stripped the season of its fun for her. That had to be it.
Beaston pushed off the tree and nodded his head slowly. He could fix this, and Ana would be okay. She would be happy again. “What kind of stuff do you do for Christmas?”
“Do you remember anything from…you know…before?”
Beaston swallowed a growl at the mention of the before. Before his parents died? Hell no. He’s pushed as much of his first eight years out of his mind to spare himself from what-ifs. Survivors didn’t look back. They looked forward. “No,” he said in a growly voice. Jason wasn’t prying, though. He was being a good friend. The best. He was good. Good to his bones.
“You need to decorate a tree, man.”
“Decorate how?” Beaston asked, palms up in confusion.
“I don’t know. Put shiny shit on the branches. I’m taking Georgia out tomorrow to cut one down. And put stockings up on the mantel. And you could take Aviana to Sammy’s for that Christmas Eve party. Get dressed up for her or something. Dude, cover your dick before it snaps off. It’s cold as fuck out here.”
Beaston looked down and shook his head. Fine. He put his hands back over his dick. He wouldn’t point out that Jason was being a total pussy, or that he’d survived much colder winters than this in nothing but threadbare clothes. He wouldn’t repay Jason’s kindness with insults. That’s not what friends did. Instead, he ducked his head once and took a few more steps away from the tree so he could Change into his bear again. But right before he did, he hesitated. Manners. “Uh, thank you.”
Jason huffed a surprised laugh. “Anytime.”
Chapter Three
It was late when Aviana slid out from the passenger’s side of Willa’s silver pickup truck with her bags of presents in hand. Her legs were stiff from the long drive from Saratoga for last minute holiday shopping, but she was grateful she’d gotten it all done. Because she’d made a list of presents for everyone, the shopping was actually easier than she’d thought it would be this late in the season. The art supplies for Beaston’s present had been the hardest to find.
Willa walked around the front of her truck, smacked Aviana stoutly on the ass, and said, “See you on the flip side,” before she rushed into her mate, Matt’s, waiting arms.
Aviana’s cheeks heated as she watched them kiss as if they hadn’t seen each other in years. Ripping her gaze away from the adoring pair, she made her way past the semi-circle of singlewide trailers, around the sprawling porch the boys had built off the side of 1010, and through the woods toward home.
Home. Aviana sighed. Home wasn’t a place. Home was Beaston.
Her boots crunched with every step she took through the snow. The trailer was lit up from the inside, glowing and inviting. Beaston had been chopping a lot of wood lately, and that should’ve been her first clue that she wasn’t hiding her regret well enough. He’d sold most of the wood he’d chopped over spring and summer to the wood-burning cabins that dotted the wilderness around Damon’s mountains, but already, the entire front of the trailer was stacked high with cords of wood again. He chopped when his bear was unsettled.
Aviana pulled a long steadying breath of cold mountain air into her lungs and exhaled slowly before she climbed the stairs and pushed the door open. She stomped her boots on the newly cleaned stairs and stepped into the house where she promptly froze.
Beaston required a special sort of den. One that looked like the treehouse he’d built himself as a child. His bedroom was normal, but in the living room, he had lined the walls with tree bark and covered the single lamp with orange fabric to make it look like the glow of late evening sunlight. But Beaston had been doing some rearranging, and she was baffled by what she saw.
He’d cut the top off a young birch tree, leaned it into the corner, and hung blue beer cans from the sparse branches. It took up half the room, and on the mantel, over a decorative fireplace, was hung at least ten of his socks.
Beaston stood abruptly from the table and pulled his hands behind his back, but not before she saw what he held. It was the holly branch with the ornament she’d given him that first Christmas after his parents had passed.
“I’ve been an asshole,” Beaston murmured, his blazing eyes on her snow boots.
“I assure you, you have not.”
“I have. You wanted to celebrate Christmas, and I said no.” He ghosted a glance to the tree and then back to her. “We can go to the party at Sammy’s, too.”
“I don’t understand,” she whispered, closing the door with a quiet snick behind her. “I thought you didn’t want to celebrate because it hurt to think about.”
“It was selfish.”
“Why do you have the holly sprig, Beaston?” she asked low as something awful dawned on her.
“I was trying to remember the before.”
“Oh, Beaston,” Aviana sighed. She’d done this, pushed him to scratch at memories he’d buried for a reason. “The problem between us…it’s not because of you or the holiday. It’s because of me.”
“No,” he said, canting his head. He still wouldn’t lift his eyes from her boots. “No, no, no, I decorated, and we’ll go to the Christmas Eve party, and everything will be okay.”
“Ask me what I want for Christmas,” she whispered, hating herself.
He lifted his eyes to hers, then dropped them again. “Whatever you want, you can have it. I’ll take care of you.”
“Ask me.”
“What do you want?”
“A family.”
Beaston shook his head for a long time. He swallowed audibly before he whispered, “Anything but that.”
Aviana dropped the bags of gifts and covered her mouth as her face crumpled. Leaning her back against the door, she blinked hard to clear the tears from her vision. “I know you’re scared—”
“I’m not scared! It’s just not something I’m willing to put you at risk for.”
“But I’ll be fine. Gia had her baby just fine, and Clara will, too.”
“No!” Easton growled out, lifting his furious gaze to hers and holding it. “If Gia died, that would be on Creed, and I was pissed when I found out he’d got her with a baby. Clara’s safety is on Damon. Your safety is on me.”
/> “But it’s not like with your mother—”
“How do you know?” Power cracked along his words, and the hairs rose on the back of Aviana’s neck. “I watched her, Ana. You weren’t there in that room. I won’t put a baby in you. I won’t hurt you like that.”
“You already did.” Her words came out as wisps from her tightening throat.
“What?”
“The distance between us was never your fault. It was mine.” Warm tears streaking down her cheeks, she shrugged her jacket to the floor and lifted the hem of her shirt over her head. Clad in her bra and jeans, she turned to the side, cradling her slightly rounded stomach.
“No.” Easton eased away until his back was against the wall. “You’re on medicine so I don’t hurt you.”
“I stopped taking it, and you aren’t hurting me.”
“Why, Ana?”
“Because I want a baby with you! I have since we were kids, Beaston. I want what Creed and Gia have. What Damon and Clara are going to have. I want a baby who looks like you. I watch you care for little Rowan, and I know how amazing you will be as a daddy, but you won’t even have a conversation about it with me.”
“Because I want you to live, Ana!”
“I want to be a mother.”
“Chhh,” Beaston said, hooking his hands on his hips and giving her his back. “You did this. I can’t…I’m going to…no words…” He inhaled a shaky breath. “Fuck.”
She could see it in his tear-rimmed eyes when he dragged his gaze over his shoulder to her. It was the same look of betrayal he’d given her when she’d admitted he was his raven all those months ago. That look stole her breath from her lungs.
It was plain as the pain on his face he was going to run now. He never risked a Change too close to her, and right now, even with her dull raven senses, Beaston smelled like fur.
“I love you,” she rushed out, because he should know that before he left.
“You loved me too much,” he murmured. “I can’t lose you.”
“You won’t.”
He made a single, disbelieving clicking sound behind his teeth and strode out the back door and into the night.
The slamming door rattled the trailer, and the pieces of Aviana that had been holding together by a thread broke apart. With a sob, she slid her back down the door and cradled her stomach. He’d decorated their den because he’d thought his lack of interest in the holiday was to blame, but it wasn’t.
The disappointment in his eyes was all on her.
Chapter Four
Beaston hit the gas on another straightaway and gripped the steering wheel of his old Chevy tighter at the image of his mate cradling the tiny swell of her belly. She’d looked so fucking beautiful, bared for him in her bra and jeans. She’d been hiding her body lately, and now it made sense. It all made sense. She wasn’t avoiding the Change into her raven because she was unhappy. She couldn’t Change because of the pregnancy. And she hadn’t been angry with him or unhappy with their pairing. She’d been afraid to tell him he’d put a baby inside her.
Feeling caged, Beaston rolled down his window and let the cold winter air in.
She’d looked so hurt by his reaction. So hurt. Tears from his beautiful Ana, and those were his fault, too.
His headlights landed on Creed, standing in the middle of the snowy road with his hands out. “Stop!”
Beaston narrowed his eyes and swerved around him. “Piss off, alpha,” he called through the open window as he passed.
A shadow covered the moon, and the wind kicked up to hurricane strength. “Shit,” he muttered as he slammed on the brakes. A line of fire blasted across the road an instant later, and that little number could be blamed on the Gray Backs’ resident dragon shifter, Damon.
Beaston got out and slammed the door. “What?” His voice echoed over the mountains.
Creed sauntered toward him, his pitch-colored eyes narrowed. “I said to stop. That was an order.” He yanked the tailgate of Beaston’s truck down and jammed his finger at it. “Sit down.” The order in his voice couldn’t be ignored this time.
The trucked creaked under his weight as Beaston sat on the tailgate and waited. He could hear Damon crunching through the snow on two legs again, zipping up his fly, because the dragon didn’t like to Change without an extra set of clothes, apparently. Beaston wanted to bleed everything.
“Aviana was worried about you—”
“Yeah, well the feeling is mutual—”
“Novak, shut up! I’m here to help you.” Creed hooked his hands on his hips and jerked his chin toward Damon, whose eyes had gone silver with elongated reptilian pupils. “We both are.”
“Can you hurry up and save me then, alpha? I have somewhere to be.”
“Where, down in Saratoga? Picking fights with townies? You can’t do that shit, Beaston.”
“I wasn’t going to pick fights—”
“Horseshit,” Creed said.
“I wasn’t going to pick fights with townies! Can’t you see? I’m better now. I’m trying. I didn’t want to fight with the Gray Backs. I didn’t want to Change and avoid this. I’m going to Saratoga to meet Kong.”
“Wait, what?” Creed asked, leaning against the truck.
“Yeah. Kong. He fixed you when you were an idiot with Gia. He has good advice. I already called him, and he said come over.”
Creed’s face went slack. If he’d been in the right mood, his alpha’s dumbfounded expression would’ve cracked Beaston’s face into a smile, but right now, he was pissed and trying not to Change. Already, his arms were tingling with the urge. “She’s pregnant, Creed.” Beaston swallowed hard and ran his hands roughly over his hair. “Ana’s pregnant.”
“I know. She told us. Hey,” Creed said low, gripping his shoulder and shaking him slowly. “It’s a good thing.”
“She stopped taking her medicine.”
“Can you blame her?” Damon asked, sitting beside him on the tailgate. “Every time you hold Rowan, you don’t see what we do because you’re too busy staring at that baby girl. But Aviana watches you two with this smile like nothing else exists in the world. And anytime she’s around Clara, she’s got her hand on her stomach, talking to our baby. Aviana is a nurturer, Beaston. She is. And she’s given you the greatest compliment a woman can give a man.”
Beaston shrugged a shoulder up to his ear and frowned. “What’s that?”
“She chose you to have a baby with. She chose you.”
“But what if it hurts her?”
“Man, I know it’s scary,” Creed said, “but you can’t talk like that to her. Aviana is the one carrying that baby, and you’re going to put your fears on her. I can tell you what Kong told me when I freaked out about Gia. He said, ‘You know what your woman is doing right now? She’s growing a child. Your child, and it’s fuckin’ hard work, and it’s emotional, and she’s struggling and feeling sick.’ He said my kid had a heartbeat, and I hadn’t thought about that before, and maybe you haven’t thought about it either. You have a baby, Beaston. Your own baby because Aviana decided to give you one. That’s how much she loves you. How many times has she brought up starting a family?”
Beaston shook his head and stared out at the dark woods beside the road.
“How many?”
With a sigh, Beaston muttered, “Thirty times. Maybe more.”
“And how many times did you shut that conversation down?”
Beaston pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes to ward off the headache that was building there. “All of them. Fuck.” He’d screwed up. This was not only taking Christmas away from her, but worse—his own fear was making her unhappy.
Damon clapped him on the back and gripped his shoulder. “Congratulations are in order. You’re going to be a father, Beaston. You’re going to have your very own little Gray Back.”
Beaston huffed a laugh and tossed his head back so he could see the moon and stars. Him. A father. Didn’t that beat all? If he could ignore the fact that Ana sti
ll had to get his child to air and survive the process, it was actually nice to think about. But still… “She should’ve told me.”
Creed leaned back on his locked arms and followed Beaston’s gaze to the stars. “Yeah well, we could all tell something was wrong with her. She’s probably beat herself up worse than anything you could say to her. Any other couple, I’d say she handled it wrong, but Aviana knows how to manage you better than anyone. And man, you do need management. You found a mate tougher than leather, and she doesn’t even know it. If she felt she had to do this on her own, she must really want that baby with you. And you, my friend,” Creed said, arching his gaze to Beaston, “should be proud of your woman for going after what she really wants. She came after you the same way. Tenacious. Nothing was going to stop her from claiming you. A timid little raven shifter, scared of bears, smelling terrified as hell, and she marched right up and asked me for you. Count your blessings, man. If you’re lucky, your kid will be as tough as your mate.”
****
A twig snapped in the woods that stood between the trailer and the rest of the park. Aviana gasped and wiped her damp lashes with the back of her hand. When she looked up, Beaston was there, long legs splayed, head canted, and his arms crossed over his chest. His eyes glowed like an animal’s in the full moonlight.
“You should be inside where it’s warm,” he said in a gravelly voice.
“I was waiting for you. I was scared you wouldn’t come back.”
Beaston’s breath steamed in front of him as he sighed. “Ana, I’ll always come back to you. You hold my heart.” He shook his head and clenched his jaw once in the moonlight. “I can’t live without my heart.”
He should’ve been frozen out in this weather wearing only his dark gray thermal sweater and jeans. No hat, no gloves, no jacket, yet Beaston looked completely at home in the elements. That he was so strong and adaptable was a result of the life he’d led. She loved him all the more for what he had survived.
