Page 29 of Beginning Fate

“You take care of this girl. I mean it. She's spent her whole life caring for others. It's about time she’s taken care of.”

I nodded. “That's the plan.”

I hated to see them go, but I knew they had important lives back in their Pack now. I was proud as shit to even know them and count them as family, part of the brotherhood.

The rest of the guys said goodbye to us as they left to return to the house and hang out. I could have gone with them, but there was no way I could force myself to leave my girl voluntarily. She was going to have to be the one to put up boundaries if she needed them because as far as I was concerned, she was mine and I would take every second I could to be with her.

“I guess they all know, huh?”

“Know what?” I asked.

She sighed. “That we're mating.”

“I guess so. Does that bother you? I mean, I didn't say anything to them. Damon has this sort of Alpha detector that alerts him to mating males in the area or something like that. He sounded pretty convincing so I'm pretty sure he wasn't bullshitting me. And the others, well, I guess they just noticed. Sorry.”

She shrugged. “It is what it is. Nothing we can really do to stop it, right?”

“Right. I guess? To be honest, I don’t really know. I've watched friends go through it, but it's just not really what I imagined.”

She turned worried eyes up at me.

I reached out and brushed a strand of hair behind her ear.

“They always made it seem so stressful and yet this feels as easy as breathing.”

We stood there staring at each other until Kylie ran over and linked her arm through Lauren's and dragged her away, following the others out of the building. I did the only thing I could think to do—I followed behind her like a lost puppy dog.

Lauren

Chapter 8

It was weird how close I felt to Denny, like I could confide anything to him. I don't know what possessed me to open up to his friends like that. Maybe it was a Pack Mother thing that caused me to tell her my story even knowing the rest of the table was listening.

I didn't need sympathy in my life. I may have been young, but it had always been my choice to protect Kylie and myself. She wasn't a burden or anything. She was an incredible person that I had the privilege of helping raise. I'd never once resented doing what I'd done. Family takes care of each other. That's just what we do.

People look at us and think I was the one that gave everything up for her, but they don't know how much it helped me as well. Losing our parents so suddenly would have destroyed me if I hadn't had my little sister to focus on. Sure, I was terrified. What kid wouldn't be? But I'd channeled all of that into making sure she got the care she needed.

Who would I even be without her?

I didn't know. I probably would have been a troubled kid with a lot of anger inside if I were being honest with myself. I'd had to dispel my anger over the years knowing it wasn’t healthy for Kylie. But if I’d been left all alone in this world, I had no doubt my anger would have consumed me.

I was a far better person because of her.

But people never looked at things that way. When they look at Kylie, they see someone lacking because she can't hearand if she tries to speak it comes out a little different. They easily dismiss her when they shouldn't. It pisses me off.

When she asked to go to Gallaudet University, I'd gotten scared. I could feel her pulling away from me. She'd been fighting shifting, claiming it made her feel scared. Wolves relied on their hearing and she was deaf. That did make her more vulnerable, but I knew if she just spent more time in her fur that she would learn to adapt just as she had in human form.

But even more than that, she adjusted better to the deaf community than her own Pack. I thought if she was immersed into the shifter community in the same way she had been immersed into the deaf community for high school that she would have a better life experience. She couldn't ignore her animal instincts forever.

Driving across the country had been taxing. She was angry with me, and I knew it. Ultimately, it hadn't been entirely my decision. Our Alpha had made the final choice for her, taking that burden from me. But that didn't mean Kylie wasn't aware of where I stood on the issue.

I was just relieved to see her happy here. We'd been so lucky to fall into this group where these kids were ready to embrace her.

And then there was Denny. He wasn’t fighting this bond between us. Instead, he was embracing it. It made me nervous because I had no idea what to expect. When he touched me, it was a mix of warmth and comfort but also a jolting excitement of awareness. I liked it. It made me curious for more.

I was so out of my element.

His arm had still been around me when Kylie linked hers through mine and pulled me away from him.

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