Alpha's Solace (Black Moon Saga Book 1)

Dinner with the Logans

It is only a short drive to the Logans’ house from the clinic, which is why Kylie is trying to avoid confronting Adam about whatever has been on his mind that is making him so restless. She doesn’t think there is enough time to have a proper discussion before they get to her parents’ house. It finally gets to be too much for her to sit in the same car with him so close and radiating so much anxiety. She asks him to pull over about four blocks from their destination.

He is surprised by her request and worries what might be wrong. After he pulls the car off the road and puts it in park, he turns and asks, “What’s on your mind, Sweetheart?”

“I was actually going to ask you that, ironically. Something is definitely up and the tension I’m feeling from you is stressing me out,” she tells him. “I was going to ignore it, but I changed my mind. I think we need to address it now.”

He stays quiet, mulling over what to say to broach the topic. It’s not like him to keep secrets like this, but in this case it’s the guilt eating at him. He assured her he couldn’t get her pregnant, and she trusted him. He hates to have to admit that he let her down.

You i***t, Kieran scolds him. She understands that this is an exceptional situation. You should have told her when you told her everything else. It’s the waiting she’s going to be upset about. Kieran has been pretty irritated about Adam not telling their mate this important piece of information. He had considered telling her himself the next time they had a dream together, but the dreams have stopped so he hasn’t had a chance. Adam’s hesitation is frustrating him beyond measure.

“Alright, I might as well just say it,” Adam finally blurts out. “The thing I didn’t tell you about from the list of things Anya told me the other day is that she thinks you’re pregnant. I should have told you sooner, but I really hoped that this one thing she might have been wrong about. Not that I don’t want more children, but I just don’t know if it’s a good idea for you with your health the way it is.”

He watches as a series of emotions flash across Kylie’s face, though she has yet to respond. She opens her mouth as if to speak a couple times but seems to immediately change her mind and get lost in her thoughts. Finally, she takes a deep breath as if to calm herself, and then says quietly, “Yeah, you should have told me. I guess I don’t understand why you didn’t.”

He notices she is looking out the windshield instead of looking at him and worries that Kieran is right. “I had all kinds of rationalizations for it,” he explains. “The most convincing one being that magically detecting a pregnancy only a couple days after the potential moment of conception isn’t exactly medically sound evidence. I wanted to talk to a doctor about it before telling you and possibly getting you upset about nothing.”

“I’m guessing you did that today when you stepped out with Dr. Williams?” She looks at him finally and he nods in confirmation. “Well, what did he say?”

“He confirmed that it’s possible even though your wolf traits are suppressed because genetically you’re still a werewolf. You see, I told you I couldn’t get you pregnant because I know that a werewolf and a human cannot breed. But apparently a werewolf and a werewolf influenced by magic to appear human can. And I feel terrible about misleading you, which is probably the real reason why I didn’t want to tell you.”

“I do appreciate that you’re finally being honest with yourself. And with me.” She sighs before continuing. “This sucks, though, Adam. I don’t like the idea that you feel like you have to keep things to yourself to, I don’t know, protect me or something. I’m not as fragile as you think I am. And I’m guessing there’s no law that says you can’t tell your girlfriend when you think she might be pregnant, so you can’t blame it on that this time.”

“Yeah, that’s on me. I’m so sorry, Kylie.” He reaches across to take her hand. She lets him, which he takes as a sign that she’s not as angry as he feared.

She studies his face for a moment, considering that this seems to be a painful and difficult conversation for him. Eventually she recognizes that it is remorse she feels from him now. “Yeah, I can sense that you really do feel badly.” She realizes that letting himself be vulnerable and admit mistakes is not something that comes easily to him and tries to keep this in mind as she weighs what her reaction should be, but decides there is one thing she can’t let go just yet. “I’m just kind of wondering, if I hadn’t brought it up right now, how long would you have waited to tell me?”

He cringes, realizing she thinks he is only telling her because she forced him to. “I’m not sure. I’d like to think I would have told you as soon as we left your parents’ place. Now that I’ve talked to the doctor, I had every reason to tell you and no reason not to. I just didn’t want to bring it up now and make for an awkward visit.”

Kylie nods to herself, satisfied with his response. “Yeah, sorry. I just couldn’t take it anymore. I could feel the stress almost oozing off of you and I personally didn’t want to go in there feeling like that.”

“It’s okay. I’m honestly relieved to get it out there now instead of later." He glances at her, realizing he is not done clearing the air just yet. "So, in the interest of full disclosure, the doctor said to bring you back in a week for a test. He also warned that if you are pregnant, it’s going to be rough on you.”  

“Yeah, I would imagine so.” She shudders at the thought of how pregnancy would affect her body. “Listen, this is a lot for me to take in. I kind of just want to push it aside for now, do some thinking about it, and talk to you some more about it later. I’m glad you told me, though. You do seem less wound up.”

“At this point I’m mostly wondering how much begging and groveling it’s going to take to get you to forgive me.” He shrugs and flashes what he hopes is a charming smile.

She laughs, and the sound of her laughter breaks the remaining tension he had been holding in. He laughs with her and brings her hand to his lips, grateful for her willingness to push their friction aside and enjoy this moment with him. He also appreciates the maturity she displayed deciding to think on the situation carefully and revisit the discussion later rather than reacting to it emotionally in the moment.

He releases her hand and returns his attention to driving the short distance to pull into the driveway at the Logan residence. Betsy wasn’t expecting them until the morning but is thrilled to be surprised by them being here just in time for dinner. She meets them at the door and ushers them inside, then engulfs them both in warm hugs.

“Kylie!” She exclaims, planting a kiss on her daughter’s cheek. “You’re here early, and dinner is just about ready.”

“Early and sans the cast.” Kylie removes her arm from her crutch to hold it up to show her mother.

“Oh, goodness! That’s incredible. How did that happen?”

“Long story. I’ll tell you over dinner.”

Betsy escorts them to the dining room where Nate is already setting out place settings for dinner. Kylie leans her crutch against the back of a chair so that she can help her father and Adam follows Betsy into the kitchen so that he can help her get dinner on the table. Before long, the four are sitting at the table enjoying the lasagna made by Betsy and each other’s company.

“So, did you guys make it to the pack meeting the other night?” Kylie casually interjects into a break in the flow of conversation.

Her parents both stop eating and just stare at her for a moment. Adam is struggling to hold back his laughter as he realizes that this is how she has chosen to segue into updating her parents about all that has changed this week and everything she has learned.

“We did, actually,” Betsy answers finally. “What do you know about pack meetings?”

Kylie proceeds to tell them about pack meetings, the pack, what she knows about werewolves, mates, and so on. She tells them about being visited by Anya and Tian and that Anya used magic to heal her arm. She informs them that Tian is still investigating her parent’s disappearance and she may have helped discover new evidence. Finally, she gets around to dropping the little tidbit about Anya thinking she is a werewolf who has been cursed.

“Oh my gosh. Kylie! That’s amazing news,” Betsy reacts before realizing how it sounds and deciding she needs to clarify her response. “Not the part about the curse, but the part about you being a werewolf. We were considering moving so that we could live someplace you could come visit anytime you like. On that note, I’ve been worried this whole time that someone was going to rat us out for letting you come back here to visit Bo without The Council’s permission. I guess now we don’t have to worry about any of that!”

“Oh wow,” Kylie appreciates that her parents were willing to go to such an extreme to include her. “I’m glad you didn’t have to move, though. This was my childhood home and Jonah’s too, so I’m glad you’re still here so we can come back to it. But seriously, me coming here was the only part you were worried about? You weren’t concerned that I knew all these super secret things as a human?”

“Yeah, you know, you could have led with the ‘I’m a werewolf’ revelation,” Nate points out, laughing. “You about gave us a heart attack.”

“Speak for yourself,” Betsy disagrees with him. “I was stunned because I didn’t expect it, but then I realized that if Adam told you all that, then it probably meant he had decided to go through with marking and mating you. I wasn’t worried.”

“Appreciate that you assumed the best of me,” Adam comments, raising his glass to her.

Kylie chuckles, enjoying the light-hearted tone this conversation has taken. “You know what, though … I have a question for you guys.” Adam smiles, unsurprised.

“Of course. I’d expect nothing less,” Betsy remarks, eager to answer questions about topics she always wanted so badly to be able to discuss with her inquisitive little girl. “What’s your question?”

“You and Dad are mates, right? What’s that been like?”

Nate and Betsy share a look across the table and take a moment to respond. Kylie notices they’re sharing that unspoken conversation vibe, the one she witnessed so often as a child and assumed was a sign of how deeply they are connected to each other. Now she knows it is probably the mate-bond werewolf thing and looks to Adam for confirmation.

“They’re mind-linking each other, probably trying to discuss what they want to say to you,” Adam explains without her even having to ask the question this time.

“Oh, thought so,” Kylie responds as she watches her parents with interest.

Betsy is the first to address her, smiling apologetically as she explains, “Your Dad and I figured out a long time ago that the best way to respond to your questions is as a unified front, so we learned to communicate with each other first before trying to explain things to you.”

“Well, Kiddo,” Nate chimes in, “Your Mom and I are mates but we’re not true mates. We chose each other a long time ago. We grew up together as neighbors and we were in the same grade in school. One day, I didn’t show up to class, and she was worried so she broke into my house at lunchtime, the little delinquent, and found me in my bed suffering from this intense, full-body pain that felt like I was burning alive.”

“Oh, that’s what happens when your connection to your true mate is severed,” Adam interjects.

“Yep, exactly,” Nate agrees. “That’s what the doctors said, too. And when I told them I hadn’t even found my mate, they told me that it meant that my mate had died. I don’t know who she was or where she was, but I felt it. She was gone, and that was that for me.”

“He was hurting so badly, though,” Betsy recalls. “It just broke my heart to see him like that, and I couldn’t leave him. I stayed with him the three days it took for that pain to finally go away. And in those three days, we connected with each other. We fell in love, you could say, though we were just kids really. Probably 15 or 16, weren’t we?”

“16,” Nate confirms, “and we had a couple years of school left still. So, we finished that up, had the coming-of-age celebrations, and she didn’t find her mate here in this pack at that time. Granted, a lot of people have to look outside their home pack to find their mates, and they’re not always the same age,” Nate gestures to Kylie and Adam as a case-in-point, “but you know that already.”

“I took it as a sign, though,” Betsy continues. “I told myself before my party that if I didn’t find my true mate that night, I wasn’t going to bother with it. It’s all just a bunch of hoopla that The Elders get all jazzed up about, but that doesn’t mean it’s for me. I have this incredible guy right here in front of me, why do I need to be looking elsewhere or making him wait around for me?

So, the party came and went, no mystical mate showed up, and that was that for me. I went to the pack Shaman and had him perform the Severance ritual to sever my connection to my true mate, which, by the way, was far less painful than Nate’s experience. After that, I was his and he was mine as soon as we completed the mating ritual.”

“That’s not to say that we don’t have respect for the traditions and for those who are fortunate enough to find their true mates and enjoy that lifelong bond with them,” Nate adds. “We were so thrilled to learn that you have a mate, and that it’s this guy right here.” He gestures to Adam with a smile. “In fact, I take great comfort in knowing that. I know that he is going to be loyal, devoted, completely attached to you, and entirely committed to making you happy because not only is there so much love there already, but your true mate bond will make sure of it.”

Kylie gazes adoringly at her mate, who is blushing slightly from the spotlight her father has put on him. He smiles back at her, appreciating her just as much.

“Yeah, honestly, I only rejected the idea of a true mate because of how it made him suffer,” Betsy explains further. “We were so attached, and I couldn’t put him through more pain if my mate came along and swooped me up and took me away from him. Severing the tie when I did was for the best because I didn’t really feel the loss. I never met the guy, so how could I miss him?”

“Theirs is truly an incredible story,” Adam remarks. “I feel it is important to add, Kylie, that your parents here are quite the exception when it comes to chosen mates. I don’t know their secret, but they have been together quite a long time, and from what I’ve seen, they are so attached to each other that it is easy to forget that they’re not true mates.”

“The secret is to choose each other each and every day,” Betsy explains. “We didn’t have some mystical Goddess choose for us, so we have to do it ourselves. A lot of chosen mates let the spark fizzle out over time, but I just don’t know how they can let that happen. I wake up every morning to this man’s face,” she leans over to touch Nate’s face, “and I can’t help but think of all the reasons why I’m so blessed to have him. I wouldn’t want to live without him, and I make sure not to let myself forget that.”

“That seems like good advice for all mates, really,” Adam praises her perspective. He reaches out to take Kylie’s hand, gently stroking the soft skin of her hand with his thumb. They sit back and just watch and listen together as Betsy and Nate chat with each other, reminiscing about the years they’ve spent together.

By this time, everyone has finished eating. Once the conversation lulls, Betsy gets up and starts clearing the table. Kylie stands to help her, but her mother refuses her help. She tells her to go to her room and visit with Bo instead. The cat has just been hiding in there the entire time Kylie has been gone and could probably use some company.

When she gets to her room, she finds Bo sleeping in the closet. She decides to just lie down on her bed and relax. She has plenty on her mind to keep her occupied while the cat naps anyway. But before long, Bo emerges from her closet hideaway and makes her way to the bed to curl up with Kylie. She purrs louder than usual and seems especially happy that her owner has returned, and Kylie takes comfort in the warm, vibrating body snuggled up to her.

As she gently strokes the coarse fur of her familiar companion, her thoughts turn to pregnancy and what that could mean for her. She considers the condition her back and hips are in, and cringes thinking about how much worse the pain will get as she gains weight, and her abdomen expands. Then she decides to try to look on the bright side.

Her last thoughts before she falls asleep are that she could be the mother of her best friend’s half-sibling, and if she and Adam get married then she will be Marc’s step-mother. She smirks and giggles softly as she drifts off to sleep, which is how Adam finds her when he finishes helping Betsy with the dinner dishes and comes to her room to see if she wants to come stay the night with him at his house. She looks so content cuddled up with her kitty that he decides to leave her here to enjoy some quality time with Bo, knowing that means he’ll be sleeping alone tonight.