Page 57 of Hunted

AERIN

It’s the next day after we spoke with Ivy and Connall. I’ve been quiet most of the morning and Bennett came over after lunch so he could talk with Mack.

Helena wasn’t feeling well, so she went to spend time with Adela and get some of her magical ginger tea to help with her nausea.

Outside, in the backyard, I suck in a deep breath and release it on a long exhalation.

Mack hadn’t wanted me to come outside at all, probably because he knew I wouldn’t be coming out here to do anything but overthink and worry about things I don’t have the power to change. But I needed peace, I needed quiet, and I needed time to mourn the loss of my powers in the garden.

I’ve been clinging to the belief that Ivy would tell me that my powers being in a flux was a pregnancy thing. That this was a normal thing to happen to omegas, and I think that’s why a part of me wasn’t eager to ask her about it in case she told me that this was something else.

Now she’s confirmed a fear that’s been growing inside me for weeks: something is really, truly wrong with me. Maybe something permanent.

My powers were like a lit candle in a wind, occasionally there, blowing out for a bit, but I knew it was still there. Ifeltlike it was still there.

And now?

Nothing.

I rest my hand on my belly. “Is this you, Thumper?” I ask quietly. “I’m really hoping it is.”

Of course, there’s no response. I never believed I would get one from my unborn baby. But I keep grappling for a reason this is happening and I can’t think of one.

Is this because I’m a powerful omega and Shane is a powerful alpha? His dad, Iain, seemed to think we would have a baby that would be even more powerful. So did Nolan Lonergan, the former Alpha of the Lonergan Pack.

I know I shouldn’t live my life according to labels. That it’s not healthy. Adela is right when she says it’s important to live in the moment, and so is Mack, when he said this might be a period of my life where my body is too busy growing a human to focus on being an omega.

But when being an omega is all you know how to be, it’s hard to tell yourself that labels don’t matter.

I study the white plastic lounger near the bottom of the garden, and then I turn to look in the direction where I once heard a man talking to his horse. He was comforting the horse as he brushed it.

I shouldn’t have been able to hear him from here. Our closest neighbor is so far away that Mack hadn’t hidden his surprise when I told him what I’d overheard. I’d been reluctant to admit at the time that I’d been trying to eavesdrop on his and Bennett’s conversation, but he hadn’t cared.

He’d been proud and amazed that I could do such a thing.

That’sthe Aerin I want to be again.

Yes, I’m excited about being a mom and for Mack to be a dad, but I don’t want to lose who I was before, either.

I briefly recall that weird sensation I had after we came face to face with a black bear. The more time that passes, the more convinced I am that I didn’t see anything at all. So if I wanted to go lay down on that lounger and spend the next several minutes trying to get my powers to work again, now would be the perfect time to do it.

I don’t want to let go of old Aerin without trying to fight for her.

Stiffening my spine, and hoping I’m not setting myself up for more frustration, I walk down the garden and get myself settled on the lounger before resting my hands on my chest and closing my eyes.

Mack said that I should take a more relaxed approach to my powers and maybe he’s right.

I’ve been reaching and fumbling and struggling to force it to do what I want. And maybe that’s why. I never reached for it before. It was just there. Maybe I need to let it come to me.

It’s like plunging my hand into sand.

Nothing is there.

And for the first time since my powers started flickering like a candle in a wind, I worry that the candle has gone out and I will never be able to light it again. That I will forever be the omega who could once do things no one else could, but then all that power just… fizzled out.

But I refuse to give up.

I remember the last time I overheard the man with the horse over a distance I shouldn’t have. That feeling of my body not being important anymore.

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