“What?”

“Get out, Max. If you aren’t going to tell me about this, then I don’t want you here.”

“We need to talk—”

“Yeah, we do. We need to talk about why a witch cursed you and why you kept it a secret from me! It was bad enough that you let another woman cause doubts between us, and now you want to hide whatever you did to this witch from me?”

Maximus just stared at me, and it made the anger grow inside me. I looked away from him, and when he tried to reach for me, I growled.

“Don’t touch me, Max. Get out of here. Like I said before, when you are ready to talk about everything and address the issues we have so I can feel comfortable being your mate again, then come find me. Until then, get out.”

34

Maximus

I gripped the rail of the bed and roared. Why did she keep throwing me out? I can’t even recall what caused Zephyrine to curse me. If it was because I didn’t choose her as my mate, then that was something I couldn’t apologize for. Zephyrine wasn’t my fated mate, and I wanted to find the person who completed my soul.

Kylie turned away from me, and it took all my control not to yank her back toward me and gather her in my arms. I could see how hurt she felt right now, and it was killing me. The mistakes I made before seemed to be happening all over again. I was hurting her without even meaning to, and I didn’t know if I could stop it from happening again.

What the hell was wrong with me? Why could I recall only bits and pieces of what happened between Zephyrine and me? The moment I stepped foot into the clinic and saw Kylie, everything Iplanned to say about the curse vanished. Yet, I knew I had been thinking nonstop about Zephyrine ever since I found out that her curse was the cause of all this.

Was Zephyrine making it so I wouldn’t remember?

She could be trying to ruin this for me even now. The curse could have morphed into making me forget the details of what happened between us, and then I would lose Kylie for good.

I couldn’t let that happen.

I needed Kylie like I needed air. Even now, as I saw her recoiling away from me as my anger billowed out, I wanted to drop to my knees again and beg her for forgiveness. But she wouldn’t look at me. The anger I felt from her was due to how I kept this from her. Truth be told, I just didn’t remember.

If I wanted this to work out, I needed to respect my mate’s wishes and walk out the door. I wasn’t going to go far. Somehow, the rogues around here let me buy out the nearby cabin so I could stay here and work this out.

While going back to my cabin, I felt my lycan pace inside me. Neither of us wanted to leave our mate and pup behind. She would be unguarded, and who knew what any of these rogues would do if they found out she was the fated mate of the king? That would be a rare opportunity for them to get back at the person who had been keeping them from thriving.

Well, here I understood that things needed to change. Once I was back in the kingdom, I needed to do everything I could to help these people. If they didn’t want to become part of thekingdom, I could understand that. But I could be the king my father always wanted me to be by helping them.

At least I would show my mate I was serious about changing my ways. But I also needed her to understand how I would do anything to make up for what I had done. She might have kicked me out today, but maybe I needed to go back and show her I wasn’t going to stop.

I needed to fight for her.

***

This time, when I went back, the head nurse nodded as I passed by the desk. She knew who I was and what I was doing here. That at least made it easier for me not to have to fight my way in.

My lycan would remain on edge until I could fix everything between Kylie and me, which also meant that I would be on edge until that happened.

I knocked on the door and waited for Kylie to say, “Come in.” I didn’t hear her say it, so I let myself in. It was still relatively early in the morning, so I should have been surprised to see her still asleep. But I looked around the room and noticed the bundle of blankets inside a bassinet in the corner. I walked over and peered inside to find him looking up at me.

Oh my god, was he beautiful. I couldn’t believe this little one was mine. His face was perfectly round, and his big blue eyes stared up at me the same way his mother’s did nearly a year ago.

He started to roll around, and I could hear him fussing. I looked over at Kylie and saw that she was still asleep. She must have been doing this all on her own, and I didn’t want her to wake up to a fussy baby.

I needed to be a dad.

I was unsure how my mate would feel about me touching our son before we worked through our problems. I was hesitant to pick him up. With a gentle voice, I started to speak to him with soothing words about how I was his daddy.

The baby stopped fidgeting and looked up at me.

I reached down into the bassinet and did my best to pick him up without jostling him. The way he looked at me felt like he was fascinated with me. I gave him a smile, and he reached up with his tiny hands toward my face. I lowered my face close to his, and while rubbing my nose against his, I felt his hands touching my stubble. The smile that broke out on my face nearly made it hurt. I don’t think I had ever smiled this hard in my life before.