Page 43 of Possessive Mate

“Are you pregnant, Elena?” Hanson asked, making the breath catch in her throat. “Is it mine?”

The sheer absurdity of his suggesting it could be anyone else's made her bite. “I don't know. Maybe. Of course it's yours, you idiot!”

“Oh! Elena!”

She watched the shock turn to excitement on his face as he moved closer. He seemed about to embrace her, to tell her how wonderful it was, but she raised her hands to brace him away from her. Too defensively, she hissed, “Don't get excited. It's not for certain.”

The excitement died on Hanson's face. “You…the idea doesn't excite you?”

The hurt that spread across his face, his hands dropping to his sides, was agonizing for Elena. She remembered all too well how excited she and Jason had been that day when she had told him.

Shaking her head, she struggled to speak past the lump in her throat. Her voice was barely audible as she said, “No, I'm petrified.”

The tears brimmed her eyes now and she fought them back hard.

“Because it's mine?” Hanson asked, his tone cold, accusing.

Elena's tears started to fall then. She took a half-step toward him, about to throw herself into his arms. Then she thought better of it. She couldn't be vulnerable right now. She had to be strong. She had to make it through this part.

“That would be the wonderful part,” she said through gritted teeth, trying desperately not to cry.

It was Hanson who closed the distance between them. For once, she barely noticed his nakedness, only his warmth. She wanted so desperately to fall into his arms and forget everything, to act like this was her first time on this rodeo.

“I…um…Hanson, this isn't my first time…” Elena struggled to speak, placing her hands on her stomach. She was almost certain she felt an odd heaviness, a fluttering inside her, and it terrified her.

It was clear he hadn't quite realized her trauma when he growled, “Oh right. You already have a mate. If this pup is mine, what exactly do you intend to do about him? I won't share you, Elena. I simply won't.”

His words bit her deep and she closed her eyes, speaking through a clenched jaw, “Had a mate.”

“I beg your pardon?” Hanson still sounded angry, as if the realization hadn't come to him yet. But it seemed to suddenly, and before she knew it, the tension around them softened and she was in his arms.

“Fuck, Elena, what happened? Where is your pup now?”

Elena flinched. Nothing but ash. She thought of the babe she had birthed only to wrap it in a white shroud and send it into the flames beneath a waning moon. Just as she had done with Jason when the moon had been waxing the following month.

“I…I don't want to talk about—” she cut herself off. Enough was enough. She had held onto this for far too long. It was eating her up inside, one questioning look at time.

Pulling back just enough to turn her head up and look him in the eye, she spoke with a quivering bottom lip, “I…I miscarried.”

The horror washed over Hanson's expression in phases. First came shock, then disbelief, and finally outright horror. That's when the sympathy set in. That was the worst part of it all, how everybody pitied her. But their pity would not bring her beautiful baby boy back into her arms.

“Elena, I'm so sorry,” Hanson said, pulling her close, holding her head to his chest. It was only then she realized she was crying. She wept openly for her son for the first time since she laid him on the pyre for all her old pack to watch.

“I…umm…I almost died during the birth, and my mate lost it. I recovered physically, but neither of us were ever the same after that,” Elena explained, realizing that now she had begun, she couldn't stop. “Jason got worse and worse and I just, well, I went into myself. I couldn't help him because I couldn't help myself.”

She wept and wept until she finally found her voice again. “He became rebellious, violent and unpredictable. He fought anyone he could. Sometimes, I think the physical pain was easier for him than the emotional kind.”

“It's easier to fight a physical opponent than an invisible one,” Hanson said gently, stroking the back of her head as if he wished to comfort her, as if it didn’t matter that she was crying her heart out over another man and the pup she had borne him.

“Yes, well,” Elena sniffled. “One day he challenged the wrong opponent. He challenged our alpha and he lost. He died of his injuries, and I guess you could say the rest is history.”

Her story at an end, her tears dried up, she pulled away from Hanson and looked him dead in the eye. “I can't go through that again. I won't.”

Time seemed to stand still. Hanson looked at her with a mixture of sympathy, understanding and love. All of which made Elena feel as if she wanted to burst into tears all over again.

Then, he said firmly, “You won't.”

Frustration bit into her and she clenched her jaw, her hands tightening into fists. “How can you be so sure?”

---