Page 84 of Shifter's Secret Baby

Dubiously, I looked at him, waiting for him to deny it, but he didn’t. He couldn’t meet my eyes, and I instead turned my attention back toward Rachel.

“What curse? What will happen?”

“He rejected a fae who was in love with him—”

“I didn’t reject her,” Ash interjected.

“You might as well have,” Rachel went on. “And she gave him the option of remaining with her or staying unmated for two millennia. Your boy here chose the latter.”

I gawked at him.

“Why?” I demanded. “Why would you choose not to love anyone for two thousand years?”

Ash grimaced. “I was young, and I wasn’t interested in love. I had just been turned, so I didn’t know I was immortal,” he admitted.

I glanced back at Rachel. “Does he die if he falls in love?”

“No. You do,” Rachel replied flatly. “And unless we can find a fae in her bloodline to undo the curse, he’s bound to it for the next twenty years.”

My eyes grew wide, hands splayed protectively over my womb. If not for our baby, would I have thrown caution into the wind and tempted the curse?

“I know what you’re thinking,” Ash told me, rejoining my side to take my hand. “And the answer is no.”

I shook my head sorrowfully.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I had no idea.”

“No one did,” Ash growled, eying Rachel with annoyance. “It wasn’t something I wanted to be broadcasted.”

He inhaled and drew my hands to his lips, a surge of electricity bolting through me. I’d missed him so much, it had physically pained me.

“It’s all right, Briar,” he told me softly. Through my peripheral vision, I saw Rachel rise and quietly excuse herself from the room, giving us privacy for the first time since I had arrived at the estate. “I won’t let anything happen to you or the baby. I promise.”

“How can you promise that?” I whispered. “You know how life is for single mothers here. Someone will try to kidnap the baby or me. I’ll be ridiculed—”

“You’ll stay here, at the estate,” he interrupted. “I’ll set you up in your own wing, and every need you and the child have will be attended to. You will have security everywhere you go. You will be safe.”

I stared at him, sensing that there was a giant caveat coming.

“But?”

He exhaled deeply.

“But you will need to stay away from me. Both of you. I will need you to stay out of my way for at least twenty years to ensure that the curse is broken. I can’t commit my love to you.”

The terms tore my heart in two, a genuine rip searing through me.

“It’s the only way to ensure your safety, Briar. I can’t think of any other way that this can work.”

He was right, of course, giving me a perfectly viable option, a secure and proper life for my child and me, but what kind of life would it be? My daughter would grow up under the same roof as her father without ever knowing him, and I would be in the same house as my mate, unable to share a bed with him.

Oh, gods. Is he my mate?

A strange warmth settled around my heart, which quickly grew to the feeling of an explosion of fire burrowing through my chest as I yelped, hand falling to my heart. The connection was intense, as if an invisible force reached across time and space to connect us in the most beautiful and primal way known to our kind. A love so deep that it was all-consuming.

My heart was a well of love, and it continued to expand to the point I thought it would burst. The warmth continued to spread up my neck, into my temples, and down my arms and legs, reaching every inch of my body and soul.

Ash’s eyes widened. Was he feeling this, too? A warm glowing arch erupted through the skin under our breastbones as we raised our heads in unison to gape at one another in shock.

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