Page 43 of Mating Mia
Jace appears at my other side, his hair catching the dappled sunlight that filters through the canopy above. “You okay there, babe? We can take a break if you need one.”
“I’m fine,” I say, even though my back has been aching dully for the past hour. Nothing unusual for nine months pregnant, I tell myself—just the usual discomfort of carrying around a bowling ball in my abdomen.
Kane’s eyes narrow as he studies my face. “You look flushed.”
“It’s warm out here,” I counter, forcing a smile. “And in case you haven’t noticed, I’m hauling around an extra thirty pounds.”
He doesn’t look convinced, but he drops it, his attention caught by Finn’s low whistle from up ahead.
“Found something,” Finn calls, crouching down beside a massive oak tree whose roots create a natural barrier across what used to be the path.
We pick our way toward him, Kane practically lifting me over the largest roots. My belly tightens suddenly, a band of pressure squeezing across my lower abdomen.
I freeze, waiting for it to pass, keeping my expression neutral even as alarm bells ring in my head. That wasn't a Braxton Hicks contraction.
That was the real thing.
Not now, I silently plead with my body. Not when we’re so close.
The pressure eases, and I continue forward, pretending nothing happened. When we reach Finn, he’s holding something small and metal in his palm.
“What is it?” I ask, momentarily distracted from my body’s warning signals.
“A pin, I think,” Finn says, turning it over carefully. “Or what’s left of one.”
The object is faded and dirt-encrusted. It’s about the size of a half-dollar, rounded on one side, with what looks like the remnants of a pin on the back. As Finn wipes away some of the dirt, I can make out the faint outline of a cartoon character—a wolf wearing a hat.
I reach for the pin with trembling fingers. It’s such a small thing, but it feels monumental in my palm—a tangible link to the night I entered this world. My throat tightens as I trace the faded outline of the wolf with my thumb.
Another contraction grips me, stronger this time, and I have to bite my lip to keep from gasping. I shift my weight, hoping the movement masks my discomfort.
It passes after about thirty seconds, leaving me slightly out of breath.
“Ah, interesting,” Kane says, moving a few feet away and kneeling. “There’s more.”
He’s pointing to what looks like scraps of fabric caught in the brambles. Finn reaches carefully through the thorns and extracts a small piece of pink cloth, frayed and discolored from years of exposure to the elements.
“Oh wow,” he observes, holding the two items side by side.
“It’s a trail,” I whisper excitedly, almost forgetting about the contractions. “She left a trail.”
It seems impossible—cloth surviving rain, wind, and animal scavengers for over twenty years. But these brambles are thick, protected by a canopy of trees. And maybe there were more pieces over the years that washed away, leaving just these few fragments to guide us.
“There’s more,” Jace points, already moving deeper into the woods.
Sure enough, about thirty feet further, another scrap of pink fabric flutters from a thorn bush, this one larger than the first. It appears to have been torn from a sleeve or collar—the edge has a neat hem that couldn’t have occurred naturally.
“She was leaving breadcrumbs,” Kane says, wonder coloring his deep voice. “Marking her path in case she needed to come back. Or maybe for you to find, Mia.”
The possibility that my mother planned for this moment—that she hoped someday I might follow her trail sends a rush of emotion through me so powerful I have to blink back tears.
My moment of sentiment is cut short by another contraction, this one sharp enough that I can’t fully disguise my reaction. I grip Kane’s arm tightly, trying to pass it off as excitement rather than pain.
“We should keep going,” I say quickly as the contraction eases. “Follow the trail while we can still see it.”
The alphas exchange glances, and for a horrible moment, I think they’re going to insist we turn back. But then Finn nods,apparently interpreting my urgency as eagerness rather than fear that we’ll run out of time.
We continue deeper into the forest, following the sporadic trail of pink scraps. The path grows steeper, the forest floor giving way to rockier terrain as we begin to climb. Each step becomes more challenging for me, my balance thrown off by my enormous belly, my body betraying me with contractions that are coming faster now—every fifteen minutes by my estimate.
