Page 69 of The Witch's Shifter
“Morning,” he says, holding out a steaming cup.
“Morning.”
I look him up and down. Despite his rumpled hair and sleepy eyes, he looks no worse for wear, though he was so exhausted when we got back to the cottage last night that he fell onto the couch still fully dressed, excluding his boots. Aurora likes tidy floors, and boot prints are a surefire way to be on the receiving end of a scowl and a quick rebuke. I’ll admit, sometimes I wear my boots inside just to see her face turn red and watch the furrow form between her brows. It’s just too cute.
“No Aurora yet?” he asks.
“No.” My gaze slides toward the kitchen window. The sun is finally rising, and with it, some of the chill will leave the air, though each day grows colder as we march onward toward winter.
Alden’s hand falls upon my shoulder. “She’ll be fine,” he assures me.
One of my brows arches. “How do you know?”
“Because...” With a sigh, he drops into one of the kitchen chairs. At his back, the fire crackles. “Faolan cares for her, just like we do. Might have a funny way of showing it, butI suppose that’s just who he is.” He shrugs and scratches his scruffy beard. Then his dark eyes home in on me. “Why does it bother you so much? Aurora being with him?”
My chest squeezes. I want to tell him that he’s wrong, that it doesn’t bother me, but I’d just look like a fool; he can see clearly how Aurora’s absence—and Faolan’s presence—upsets me.
I lean back against the kitchen counter and take a sip of tea. It’s surprisingly good—Alden’s herb mixing has improved considerably since our first awkward tea together in this tiny kitchen.
“At first, I thought it was just because he’s a shifter,” I say, not meeting Alden’s eyes. “And that’s part of it, certainly. I’ve seen too many conflicts with shifters to not be wary of them. But I think it’s that... that she’s pregnant with my child. I’m terrified they’ll both be hurt, that something will happen and I won’t be there to interfere. That it’ll all be my fault...”
In my mind, I see Lucy slipping through the ice when it fractured beneath her tiny feet, hear the splash and then the deafening silence that followed. If I hadn’t taken her out on the ice that day, she’d probably still be here, and my entire life would be different.
It’s hard not to blame myself, even all these years later. And I don’t know how I’d survive if I let another loved one slip through my fingers the way Lucy did out on the pond that day.
Alden lets out a thoughtful sound while I stare into the flickering fire. After a moment, he says, “Makes sense. I feel similarly, even though the child isn’t mine. But just like we hadto trust her when it came to the three of us, we have to trust her with him too. I don’t think she’d have kept him around if he were a danger to any of us—especially to that child. Aurora sees people in a way many of us don’t.”
While Alden sips his tea and yawns again, I study him. He seems so confident, so sure that everything is going to be okay. And it eases my worries, if only a bit.
It he trusts the shifter, perhaps I can come to as well.
Gripping my mug, I remember Niamh’s words. “Strength doesn’t mean you’ve never failed, have never fallen,” she said. “It’s in how you rise and continue on afterward.”
Maybe that’s what I need to do. I need to rise, to pick myself up and dust myself off. And then I need to put one foot in front of the other, continuing onward, choosing not to become trapped in a past I can do nothing to change. Don’t I owe Aurorathat? Don’t I owemyselfthat?
A pattering of paws announces Harrison’s presence before he trots into the kitchen. He was still asleep at the foot of the bed when I got up.
“Good morning,” Alden and I say in unison.
Harrison looks up at us, arches his back in a big stretch, and then slips out the cat door and into the sunlight only now starting to shine over the tall green pines. When I turn to glance over my shoulder and out the kitchen window, my heart squeezes.
Because there, stepping from the shadowed tree line, is Aurora, a naked Faolan beside her.
Chapter 35
Faolan
THE FIRST ONE OUT OF the cottage is the cat, followed closely by Rowan, then Alden. Aurora scoops Harrison into her arms and whispers lovingly into his hair while the men make their way toward us. Given the looks on their faces and the way they wrap Aurora in their arms when they reach us, one might think I’d stolen her away for the whole of summer and not just one night.
And here I thoughtIwas the one who didn’t like to share.
While Alden speaks with Aurora, the knight meets my eyes, and if I were still in my wolf form, the hackles on my neck would surely have risen. But instead of taunting me or giving me one of those looks that tells me just how badly he wishes I would leave and never come back, he nods. It looks strained, but it’s something.
And I force myself to nod back.
I can be cordial. I’ll prove to Aurora that I can be part of this family—part ofherfamily.
But then Alden tips his head, one hand rising to Aurora’s neck to push her hair away from her shoulder. He tenses, asking, “What... is that?”
