Page 67 of Awakening His Mate

I pull back just enough to grip her face between my hands, stopping her before she unravels.

“And we both will in time,” I tell her, whispering. “Trying to fill in the blanks, imagining what might have happened, doesn’t help. Nothing is certain. We might have a pup, but we also might not. Fertility rates among our kind are low. There’s every chance that any cycles we may have had didn’t work.”

Dove pulls back just enough so she can peer up at me, her eyes wide. “You’re right.” She tries to smile, but it’s weak and wobbly.

“Was that why you freed Ayden?”

She glances over her shoulder toward the boy, who is still on his knees with Cade hovering over him.

“This has to end, Jackson. I can’t keep holding on to the past. I don’t expect you to understand, but I’m done hiding. I want to fight. I want to make the Order and their hunters suffer for what they’re doing.”

The resolve in her voice doesn’t surprise me. My girl is strong and stubborn. I use the pad of my thumb to swipe away the tear careening down her cheek. Seeing her so distressed breaks my heart.

“I know. I want it to end too.” But the thought of her fighting and in danger makes me want to kill someone.

“Don’t tell me I can’t do it,” she snaps. Clearly, I don’t have a very good poker face.

“I’m not going to tell you anything. You’re a grown woman, capable of making your own decisions, but if you do this, you’re not going alone. Wherever you go, I’m with you.”

Relief swims in her eyes, her shoulders relaxing. Did she fear I’d let her go without me?

Never. Going. To. Happen.

“Callum can help you recover your memories,” Ayden says, drawing everyone’s attention.

Cade tightens his grip on the boy’s shoulder, making him wince. Ayden shoots him a dark glare, one that promises violence when he is finally free.

“Yeah, you're a regular Boy Scout,” Sawyer mutters. “Offering solutions to problems that aren’t your business.”

Ayden glares at him. “Has anyone ever told you that you have deeply ingrained trust issues?”

“Oh, I trust people. I trust my mate, my pack. The girls. I have a whole circle of people who have earned my respect. You and your little group haven’t earned anything yet.”

“If we wanted you dead and the girls in our control, we wouldn’t have come in small numbers,” Ayden sneers. “We’d have attacked you properly and ripped your mates from you.”

That was the wrong thing to say. Sawyer snarls, stepping toward him as his possessiveness flares to life. Dove twists out of my hold before I can stop her and inserts herself between Sawyer and Ayden.

“Stop it, both of you!” I brace as she speaks, ready to fight if anyone so much as twitches in my girl’s direction. “Fighting among ourselves is pointless. Sawyer, please stop pouring gasoline on the fire. Ayden, don’t rile him up.”

“I can’t do that, Dove,” Sawyer says. “You know how much I love to watch shit burn.”

“Sawyer, enough.” This time it’s Roux who speaks, and her mate finally backs down.

“You can’t blame anyone for being suspicious,” Cade says.

“But he’s just a boy.”

“We both know that’s not all he is,” Halle says.

Dove snaps her gaze toward the red-headed tau female. “You’re also a hybrid, Halle. How easily you forget what it’s like to be hunted because of your DNA.”

A flush works through Halle's cheeks even as she steels her spine. “It’s not the same, Dove. I wasn’t trying to kill anyone.”

“Neither was I!” Ayden snaps, earning a hard squeeze from Cade. “Let’s not forget that the only people who died were from my group.”

His words leave a sticky, ugly feeling in my veins, a reminder that just because I’m the hero of my story doesn’t mean I’m not the villain of someone else’s.

“You came at us,” Sawyer says.

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