Chapter One Hundred and Twenty-Six

Havermouth, Present Time

In the car, Heath did not immediately start the engine, and Aislen watched him curiously. He sat with his hands on the steering wheel, staring at the dash, a muscle twisting in the corner of his jaw. “Sometimes,” he said slowly. “A small decision has a weighty consequence on your life. You were…” He gestured with a hand and then closed the fingers into a fist, before bringing it down to his lap.

“We could not tell you about us,” he tried again. “Five years ago. It was my job to…” He closed his eyes and drew in a breath through his nose, picking his words as carefully as walking on black ice. “To convince the pack that you were not a risk. Every time that I thought I had made progress, you would pull the rug out from under me. I was young, hot headed, headstrong and… And I was scared,” he admitted. “Of what would happen to the Triquetra if I failed, of what bringing a human into the pack would mean…”

“After you left us that Sunday in front of half the town, and half the pack, I needed to do something quickly,” he flicked a look at her, his grey eyes catching the light and showing the oily shimmer of his wolf. “To prove that I had it under control. I needed to make you want to be with us. And I knew that Charlotte had a crush on me. I used her. I didn’t even think about her, except as the means to convince you to come back to us willingly by making you jealous and insecure, by showing you what you could lose...”

She swallowed hard, feeling raw, tears prickling. She fought them back fiercely. “You were successful.”

“Not without consequence,” he replied. “One small decision, and five years later it has had severe consequence on Rhett and Charlotte, and for what? When we were called before the pack, I was taken aside by August, and he told me that you had accepted a scholarship for Rideten. I was… furious. With him, with you. He and Abigail told me then that if I was patient, if you returned, the pack would accept you. And… I began to realize that what seemed to be a betrayal might actually be a solution. I was prepared to let you go, because you had already come back once, and I thought that meant you would come back again.”

Aislen felt a tear slip down her cheek. "The phone call..."

“Yeah, the phone call." He grimaced. "We were forbidden from going after you, and pride stopped me from breaking the rules, like Cameron and Rhett wanted to. When your father died, and the paperwork was handled by my law firm, it was… a second chance. A second chance to claim you. Five years of repressed frustration and hurt was behind me… and I fucked it up again. I let my pride and anger, my resentment that you left us behind so easily, and that you didn't come back like I told you to do, affect my decisions.”

She closed her eyes. “I couldn’t.”

“Why? What prevented you?”

She blew out a breath and shook her head. “So many reasons. I didn’t want to come back and find that you had replaced me. And…” She groaned out her pain. “Other reasons.”

“Did you meet someone else?” He wondered.

“No. Oh, god, no,” she laughed sourly. “No. No, I…” She gestured helplessly. “Well, I guess…” She grimaced. “Charlotte and I have a lot more in common than you would think. I guess that’s why I wanted to see her for myself. It's like... like looking in the mirror, in a weird way.”

“What do you have in common?” He was baffled.

“It doesn’t matter,” she sighed. “Let’s get going.”

“No,” he shook his head. “No more half answers and evading the truth, Aislen. You are the Secret Keeper, but the only secrets that you keep are your own.”

She looked out the window, fighting for control. “I couldn’t come back to Havermouth, Heath, because I was pregnant and hiding it.”

There was a long moment as he absorbed the words, and then he opened the car door and got out, closing the door behind him. She watched as he walked several meters away from the car and bent over, bracing his hands on his knees. His cry was no less brutal, and anguished for the metal, glass, and distance, and it was the same cry that her heart had made when she had stared at the positive test.

After several long minutes, he returned to the door, hesitating for a moment with his hand on the handle, composing himself, before opening it and sliding into the seat. His eyes were red. “Where is the baby, Aislen?” He asked, his voice hoarse. “Child… It would be a child now. Where is it?”

“Mmm,” she shook her head.

“Aislen… Where is the child? This isn’t about… It will be a werewolf,” he told her, his voice cracking. “It needs to be brought to the pack.”

She swallowed the thick lump in her throat. “You don’t have to worry about that, Heath,” she said softly. “Do you need me to drive?”

“I can fucking drive,” he said through his teeth. “Aislen, this isn’t…” He inhaled heavily. “No wonder you were so aggressive about it when Rhett told you… I thought it was just because Charlotte’s baby was Rhett’s, but it wasn’t that. It was because you weren’t the only mother of our children. Did you… adopt it out? We can access those records, even if they’re sealed. That isn’t a problem. We can place the child within the pack if you don’t want to raise it yourself…”

“You’re going to make me say it,” she said thickly. “For fuck sake, Heath.”

He realized. “You had an abortion.”

“Close,” she said. “I miscarried at five months. She was born sleeping. I assumed that the Triquetra would have moved on with someone else by then, and then the loss… Well, I never intended to return to Havermouth. I was angry at you, at the Triquetra, for how you treated me, for not coming after me, for leaving me to deal with the pregnancy and loss on my own… And I…” She shook her head, the tears winning.

“There was no one else,” he reached out and took her hand. “You were our mate. Except for Charlotte, something which none of us enjoyed, there was no one else, Aislen, once we met you. It was you, or just us. I am…” He squeezed her hand. “I am sorry that you have spent the past five years thinking that, and I’m sorry that you went through that pregnancy and miscarriage alone.”

“I wasn’t alone,” she told him. “I had friends. They supported me through it.”

“Well, I am glad that you had them.” He took a handkerchief from his pocket and offered it to her. “We have a long way to go with this,” he said, as she wiped up her tears. “Talen is right. There can be no claiming as mates until we build trust between us. But we want to, Aislen,” his eyes met hers. “I want to. The question is: do you?”

She worried her bottom lip with her teeth, fretfully folding and refolding the handkerchief. “Yes,” she whispered finally, and felt as if a weight had been lifted from her shoulders. “Yes. I want to work on this. I want to try to make this work. I want you, too, all three of you.”

“Say it,” he said, his voice no less uncompromising for its quietness. “Say it Aislen.”

“Fuck you, Heath,” she complained. “Fuck you. I love you. I do. I do. I love you.”

He caught her face between his hands and kissed her. “Okay,” he was relieved. “Okay, we can work with that.”