Chapter Seven: Aaron
By Monday, I’m feeling a little better about things. I can admit to myself I love Michelle but that’s life. It’s going to hurt but I’m strong and I have the strength of my pack within me. I’ll withstand this heartache and I’ll move on. And if I’m very lucky, someday my pack will find me a mate.
Michelle and I haven’t texted all weekend but I promise myself to have a conversation with her. I owe her an apology and an explanation for that ridiculous text. Even if I can’t explain it away by blaming it on my wolf, I suppose I can say I was flustered and let foolish impulses take over. I’ll just have to eat crow.
I even make a point to pick up a latte and a bagel for Michelle on the way to work. It’s her favorite Starbucks order. I know she’s gotten to work because her office door is open and her computer’s powered up, but when I arrive, she’s not around. I leave the latte and bagel on her desk and loiter near her office, waiting, and trying not to look like I’m waiting.
Eventually I ask Claire, one of the admis, if she’s seen Michelle.
“Oh yeah.” Claire grimaces. “Think she’s not feeling well. She ran for the bathroom, looked like she was in a hurry.”
That doesn’t sound good, but it could be any number of things and probably more information than I need. I go back to my office, intending to talk to her later. Around ten, I take a break, and find Michelle back in her office, glaring at her computer. I lean in her doorway, feeling a little sheepish, but I nod and smile smoothly.
“Good morning,” I say. “I think we should probably talk.”
“Oh.” Michelle looks up at me and I suppose I’ve become accustomed to her beaming grins and generally bright and cheerful expressions when she sees me. She doesn’t look happy to see me at all this morning, not that I blame her. “Hey. Yeah, alright. I’m just…” She winces and waves a hand. I guess she’s sick but she doesn’t look it. She looks as beautiful as ever and, in fact, I think she’s got a glow about her that she didn’t have before. Curious.
I close the door behind me and slip my hands in my pockets and try to look contrite.
“I need to apologize,” I say, “for treating you the way I did on Friday. With the text. I was uncertain about things, how things might change. And it made me act like a complete idiot. Michelle, I am so sorry.”
I watch Michelle’s expression shift from perturbed to tragic. I can tell she was hoping I’d say I’d changed my mind, and that we could be together. My heart feels like it’s cracking in two as I watch her gather herself and mask her emotions.
“I understand,” she says cooly. “We all do foolish things sometimes. Like sleeping with a co-worker for example.”
“I don’t regret that,” I say firmly.
“Maybe I do,” she says, her eyes on her computer.
She doesn’t tell me to go and I don’t move. We appear to be in the middle of a kind of stand-off. I can see her eyes welling up and the way her throat bobs as she swallows a lump. I see one tear escape and want so badly to go to her and kiss it away and hold her til we both feel better.
“I’m in love with you,” I say.
What the fuck, Aaron.
She looks up, her eyes wide, and I feel like my stomach is falling through the floor, through the air conditioning ducts, and down several stories all the way to the street. Clearly my sanity has flown the coop, gone sailing out the window and drifted into the foggy woods of Quinton, Washington.
Too late now. No take backs.
Be mine, I think to myself, even as I know it’s impossible.
“I try not to be,” I say now, the words fighting their way out of me, pawing at me from the inside as much as the wolf does when it needs to shift. “I can’t tell you why it’s impossible. And it kills me. Every day it’s killed me. For so long, Michelle, I’ve wanted you. Not just in my bed. I’ve wanted to hold you and hear your jokes and your thoughts and the throaty way you laugh that turns me on. I love you. And I’ve always been so responsible and strong. I’ve always been the man I was raised to be. But you do something to me, Michelle. You make me a lovestruck idiot. And none of this is fair. I shouldn’t even be telling you any of this because I can’t ever tell you why we can’t happen. But I’m a lovestruck idiot - which is why I can’t seem to stop talking right now-”
“I love you too,” Michelle whispers.
The way my heart surges at her words is surprising to me. In my family, I’m not generally known as the emotional one. Xander has a temper, but he’s good at controlling it. Micah can’t mask a damn thing he feels and Mason is the most sensitive of us. With me, it’s always just been the wolf that brings my emotions out and I can usually contain it; possessiveness, fierceness, anger, euphoria. I don’t know if Michelle speaks to my wolf or if it’s just the human side and its love for her that makes me want to put it on the table, but now I can’t seem to stop.
“I...” I lick my lips. “Come to lunch with me.”
Michelle titters, shaking her head. “Aaron…”
“Just to talk,” I say.
“You tell me we can’t be together and you can’t tell me why-”
“I know…”
“I thought it was about work,” she says, shaking her head. “I understood when it was about work.”
“If it was about work, I’d just work somewhere else,” I say easily.
Michelle looks up, seemingly shocked at that. “You’d do something like that for me?” She says wonderingly.
“Of course, I would,” I say. It’s not even a question. In fact, in the back of my head the excuse of work felt weak because of course I would move heaven and earth to be with Michelle with as strongly as I now know I feel about her.
Would you? A part of me says. I tell that part of me to shut the hell up. Moving heaven and earth would still be easier than bringing a human mate into the clan.
“Alright. Lunch.” She smiles softly at me and I get up and make for the door because if I stay any longer I might lose control and end up kissing her right here in the office.
“Alright.” I take one last look and flash on her legs wrapped around me as I thrusted into her, the way her body fit perfectly with mine. But all I say is, “See you at noon.”
This time I take Michelle somewhere more casual, but not as casual as a dive bar. We go to a nice sit down place that caters to business people on lunch. It’s above street level which means there’s a nice view of the mountains. The fog is rolling in again. When we’re seated, I find myself staring at it and wishing everything could be as simple as when I’m out there running through the woods with my brothers, not caring about anything but the wind through my thick fur and the scent of my prey.
“Can you tell me anything?” Michelle says with pleading eyes.
My hands clench and unclench under the table. “I can tell you that none of it is your fault,” I say. “And I can tell you that if I could change things, I would.”
Michelle rolls her eyes and pinches the bridge of her nose. I can hardly blame her for her irritation. “What? Are you in witness protection?”
“No, I say, chuckling. “Nothing so thrilling.”
Well, not to me anyway. FBI witness protection does sound a lot more thrilling to me than being a wolf shifter, but I suppose that’s because I’m used to it.
“Wow.” She smiles sadly, fidgeting with her napkin. “Luna warned me and I thought she was being ridiculous. But she was right all along.”
“About what?” I say, sitting up a little.
“Your family wouldn’t accept me,” she says softly. “I don’t live in a cave, Aaron. I know who the Tremblays are. The Tremblay Company and all that. I know we haven’t talked about it much but that estate, those grounds with the lawns and the mansion. Of course, you’d have to bring home some nice uppercrust girl. And who am I? Just another working class kid from Seattle who worked her way up to something respectable. I guess that doesn’t mean much to somebody with a legacy to protect.” She laughs bitterly, si
tting back in her seat, and follows my gaze out the window.
I hardly know what to say to that because the thing is, she’s not totally off base. Technically, her assumption is correct. My family would not accept her, just not for the reasons she thinks. If she was some scrappy, poor orphaned shifter kid from the wrong side of the tracks, both Xander and my parents would still welcome her with open arms. While we Tremblays enjoy a certain status within the pack, it really has nothing to do with the money. It’s about the history of our pack and our place within the clan going back generations. What do shifters care about money? Half of our true selves are the wolves. Wolves don’t care about mansions. It’s just a perk of our human lives.
“You’re not denying it,” she says, because I haven’t spoken.
“It’s not exactly that,” I say. “My family...isn’t like other families.”
“What are you? Inbred? Do you marry your cousins or something?” Michelle cracks.
“Now you’re just being mean,” I say, raising an eyebrow.
“I’m sorry.” She nods. “But you’re not giving me much here.” She squeezes her eyes shut and leans back again. “Ugh…god, I don’t feel good.”
“No?” I gaze at her, concerned. “Claire told me you didn’t feel well.”
“I haven’t felt well for days,” she mutters. “I-I don’t think I can eat, Aaron. Sorry.”
We haven’t even ordered lunch yet. We’ve just been sipping iced teas and making each other sad and pissed off by turns.
“That’s fine. Listen, I know how this sounds because of my stupid text on Friday but I really think you should go home if you’re feeling this ill, Michelle. I’ll drive you home myself.”
“Yes, maybe…” She looks uncertain and then sighs, giving in. “Sure. Yeah, I think it’s just a stomach bug but I should sleep it off. Get some rest.”
“Yes,” I say. “Rest. We’ll go. Let me help you…” I rise and, well trained to be a gentleman, help her to her feet. With my arm around her waist, my nose suddenly picks up what it somehow missed until now.
I must’ve been horribly distracted because this musky scent is strong and unmistakable. I’ve smelled this scent before with other women in the clan, if not my own pack. Even if I hadn’t, the wolf knows exactly what it is and an extreme desire to protect Michelle from all harm wells up within me.
Michelle is pregnant with my pup.
How this is possible, I have no idea. I’m not mistaken about her being human. If she were a shifter, I would have smelled that on her too.
The thing is, humans don’t get pregnant by shifter men. It just doesn’t happen. My brain feels like it’s short-circuiting and all I can do is stand there, staring at Michelle, trying to get my head around this.
I escort Michelle to my car and when I shut her door, I take a deep breath. The thing is, I can’t say anything to Michelle. There’s no reasonable way to explain that I know she’s pregnant just by smelling her and more than that, I can tell that she’s pregnant with a pup. There’s no mistaking that either. She’s pregnant with my pup.
Despite everything I find myself smiling and I cover my mouth, composing myself.
Michelle probably doesn’t even know she’s pregnant. Unless she can sense it somehow? I’ve heard shifter women can tell right away just as men can smell it. They know by the feel of their own bodies pretty quickly. I don’t know how it would work with human women and how would I know after all?
This is not supposed to be possible.
In the car, I smile tightly. We didn’t exactly leave things in a great place. Though I suppose there’s a kind of understanding between us. She seems to accept that there’s some good reason we can’t be together but that I can’t tell her what that is.
Or at least we did have an understanding.
She’s going to have my pup. Should she decide to, that is. That changes everything. My heart swells in my chest as I drive her, trying to act as if everything is normal. But nothing is normal. If Michelle is going to give birth to a shifter child, which it would presumably be, we could certainly be together. Such an impossibility would seal her destiny as my mate.
My mate, my bride, my wife, my Michelle.
“What on earth are you smiling about?” Michelle says, just as I pull up to her apartment building. She’s smiling back, I suppose the little bit of joy I’m feeling must be contagious.
“I um…” I shake my head. It’s insane to me that I might know and she might not. “I’m smiling because if nothing else, I’m glad you know that I love you. And I’m glad to know that you love me.”
“I’m glad to know that too,” she whispers.
We nearly kiss but both of us seem to think better of it. It physically pains me to watch her walk inside. She’s going to have my pup! I need to protect her, to make sure she’s well fed and warm. I have an urgent need to nest and make sure she’s safe.
“Fuck,” I mutter, and whip out my phone as I stay parked there a minute.
I know I need to talk to one of my brothers but I’m certainly not starting with Xander. I need to do what both Micah and I do when some shit goes down and we don’t want to tell Xander yet.
We tell Mason.
Mason, the sensitive one, is also pretty wise. And he’s good at talking us down when something is wrong, figuring out our next move.
Bro, I text Mason. 911.
Mason immediately texts back, What is it???
Michelle is pregnant with my pup??? I smelled it!
Mason doesn’t respond for a minute and it feels like a year.
Finally he texts back: Get over here now.
I speed over to Mason’s place. He has a nice condo and lives nearest the estate of any of us. His place overlooks the woods just behind it. It’s a little further from the city, but Mason’s always liked the quiet and he shifts at will more often the rest of us. I think he likes being so close to the woods. He mostly works at home, managing investments. He handles investments for the entire clan and oversees a staff that works remotely with human clients.
Mason’s place is very zen and kind of industrial with hardwood floors and things like railroad spikes for decoration on sparsely decorated walls. He says he likes things ‘earthy’. When I walk in he meets me right at the door, and hands me a Coke. I’ve already texted work that I need the afternoon off. I hope this chaos gets managed soon, whatever happens, I don’t like being so unsteady with work.
“What did you do?” Mason says. That really brings home what an emergency this is. Mason is never so abrupt.
“I didn’t do anything,” I say firmly, following him to his living room. “I mean we had sex. We did that. But how is this possible?”
“I don’t know.” Mason shakes his head, plopping down on his couch. As always, his laptop is open on the coffee table. “You’re absolutely positive that was the scent?”
“Mason,” I say, narrowing my eyes.
“Right. I know. Can’t mistake that for anything else,” he mutters.
“Well, what does this mean?” I say.
“I don’t know,” Mason says slowly. “I mean it’s unprecedented, Aaron. You know you’re going to have to tell Xander, eventually.”
“I know, I know,” I say. I’m not particularly looking forward to it. “Not yet though. Can you do some research though maybe? Figure out how this could have happened? What it might mean?”
“Yeah. Of course, bro.” Mason rises and squeezes my shoulder. “I’m here for ya. We’ll get through this, okay? Who knows, right? This could be great news. Aren’t you pretty crazy about this girl?”
“Yeah, but…” I blink at Mason. “You really think there’s a chance we could be together? Even though she’s human?”
“I mean…” Mason raised his hands, shrugging. “She is having your pup. That’s gotta mean something.”
“God,” I mutter. “That’d be great.”
“I hope it works out for you,” Mason says, and ushers me in the direction of the kitchen. “Li
sten, you’re stressed out, man. Come in, have some food. Did you eat?”
I was supposed to eat and I didn’t because Michelle was feeling sick. Now I’m worried she might not be eating enough. I make a note internally to text her and makes sure she eats dinner. Soon she’s going to have to know she’s pregnant if she doesn’t already.
I’m going to have a pup, I think to myself.
It’s difficult not to feel happy about it.
Chapter Eight: Michelle
“You keep getting sick.” Luna frowns at me. She crouches down next to the couch where I’m curled up under a throw, hypnotized by Instagram.
“Not all day,” I say, blinking up at her. “But mornings and afternoons yeah.”
“Mornings?” Luna says darkly. “Michelle…”
“Oh. Pfft.” I wave a hand dismissively. “I know what you’re thinking. You’re nuts. If I was pregnant it could only possibly be from Aaron and that just happened. You don’t get morning sickness that quickly. It takes like a month at least.”
“You sure you guys didn’t…? Before Thursday?” Luna raises an eyebrow.
“What do you mean am I sure?” I say with a snort. “I think I’d know. If I was pregnant it could only be from Aaron from Thursday which is possible, we weren’t careful enough. But that can’t be why I’m sick.”
“I don’t like it.” Luna frowns at me and rests the back of her hand on my forehead. “You’re not warm. I don’t think you were hungover either. And you’re still eating like a horse. I think we should go to the doctor.”
“Ugh.” I roll my eyes at her. “Lunaaa. Come on-”
“No, you come on,” she says, shaking her head. “We’re going to the doctor’s. I’m calling right now, see if I can get you in. Where’s the number?”
I love my roommate and friend, I love her dearly. But when she’s protective, she’s like a terrier. She does not let go. I get the sense that Aaron is the same way. At least I would be used to it, if Aaron and I were ever in a real relationship. I feel a pang thinking of that again. I’ve been vegged out on the couch distracting myself with my phone and some music, trying not to think about Aaron’s weird behavior. He can’t be with me, but he can’t tell me why. I’ve settled on the idea that his family won’t approve of me, just like Luna thought. I’m just having a little trouble being angry at Aaron about not fighting for us. He seems truly as miserable about it as I do. I know that when he told me loved me, he was telling the truth. I could see the love in his eyes, and it’s not something you can fake. I can’t imagine what could be keeping us apart then that’s so important. I’m hoping he can find it in him to confide in me though.
Aaron's Mate Page 6
