Page 22 of Chased Bear

What I really wanted was for him to be mine forever, but not out of a sense of duty. I wanted him to pick me above all others, and I wanted fate to send him his knot already. Until it filled completely and tied us together, there would always be doubt between us.

I’d gone and fallen in love with the stupid jackass who had a stick up his ass. He was the order to my chaos, the organization to my mess, and I didn’t want to be without him. I knew better going in, but I couldn’t help it. How we fit together, I’d never know, but it worked. At least from my perspective it did.

He’d never see it that way, though. At least he gave no indication he would.

Just this morning, he went and had a meal with Finnegan again. The two of them would probably announce that they were pursuing their mating arrangement. He’d been upfront and honest with me about it. He didn’t love him, and they weren’t even really friends. But politics were politics and his duty was to the pack. He was only mine until they decided that they were going to do this thing and agree to the mating others were pushing them toward.

It sucked for everyone. Finnegan didn’t love Aydan. And that wasn’t me speaking out of jealousy. It was fact. The omega was so in love with Patrick you’d have to be completely oblivious tomiss it. Patrick was completely oblivious. It would be amusing if it wasn’t messing with my future.

That wasn’t fair to Finnegan. He seemed nice enough, and I knew full well this possible arrangement was his way of smoothing things out when everything went to shit with his brother because Zane and Corey got together. The situation still sucked because the end result was that I was going to be a single father.

Fuck.

I took a deep breath in through my nose and out through my mouth.

And again.

And again.

I could do this.

I could figure this out.

We could co-parent. That was a thing people did. I wasn’t going to ruin things for Aydan just because he was stubborn. I wasn’t going to mess up his perfectly ordered life or the den’s political calm.

The people of this den relied on him, and I was chaos. Totally fucking chaos. Not really, but compared to him I was, and he’dsaid it multiple times. At first it felt like he was slinging it as an insult, but lately, it was almost with reverence. Or I was trying

I got out of bed, went to the kitchen, and made the tea that I needed to mix my potion in. Apparently, it was going to make me sleepy which was good. I needed the reprieve from all the crap running through my mind.

Once brewed, I took it to my room, mixed it up with the smelly stuff Rissa gave me, and took a drink. It wasn’t as bad-tasting as I had expected, but it wasn’t my favorite thing either. I decided to guzzle the rest down. It was hot and burned going down, but I wanted it over with.

I laid my head down, folded the covers over me, and closed my eyes. Hopefully, whatever sleepiness this induced would hit me sooner rather than later, because right now, my mind was going a mile a minute, thinking about how this was all going to work, how I was going to raise a child, how I was going to tell Aydan that this happened—especially since I had just lied to him. Of course, he probably didn’t want me to blurt out in front of Rissa that we were expecting. At least that’s what I told myself.

Either way, it was a problem for tomorrow. I closed my eyes and let sleep take me.

It was the creak of the door and the snick of the lock that woke me.

“Aydan?” I said, opening my eyes. The room was dark.

“Hey,” he said. “I didn’t mean to wake you. I just came to check that you were okay. It was so quiet when I got home.”

“What time is it?” My head was foggy and for all I knew I’d just fallen asleep.

“Just about midnight.”

“Did you stay up late doing paperwork again?” I worked hard to pull myself from sleep. If he was in here, he probably wanted to tell me something. Sure, he was checking on me, but it felt like more than that.

He laughed. “I had to catch up. I didn’t have a chaotic bear distracting me the whole time. I got a lot done.”

Chaos. That was what I was, and that was what I would always be to Aydan.

He sat on the bed and put a hand on my hip. “Hey, you okay? Is the potion working? Is it making you too tired? I can call Rissa.”

I shook my head. “I’m fine.” I breathed in deeply, and that’s when his scent hit me. All the scents—amber and cardamon were there, but mostly it was the cinnamon and oranges that hit me hard, and by hard, I meant hard everywhere.

Holy shit. The potion was working. My nose was working.

Aydan was my mate. How could that be? He hadn’t knotted. But my bear was insisting, and it felt right, so it had to be.

---