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“Goddess, Trix. Is everything all right?” I asked. “Did I… Did I hurt you?”
“There were… are so many things we have not discussed. A lifetime of things we never said to each other,” she said as if she hadn’t heard me.
I clenched my jaw to stop myself from speaking. I knew she wasn’t done. Letting her speak killed me, but was equally the greatest gift, other than the honour of being her mate, I’d ever received. She could have pushed me away but instead stayed in my arms. Her tears had stopped and she fussed with a handkerchief, blotting them away.
“I would have been happy in that flat,” she told me at last. “I would have. I never wanted material things. A cottage and chickens would have been enough.”
“Trix, sweet Trix. Still so romantic.”
“Not romantic.” She gave me a watery smile, which I treasured. I would do anything to break through the wall of grief.
“Trix, I’ve never known a greater romantic than you. You’ll not have this nor that but only the most ideal example of perfection.”
“You were my perfection.”
“And you’d have let me be? Taken care of my family’s business. Continue…”
“Of course I’d want to encourage you to grow the business. You are so clever. You were always tinkering and trying things out…” Her words trailed off. “I… Perhaps not. I would want you to be more because you are capable of so much more. You were all I wanted. I could have let you be. But I would have kept dreaming enough for both of us.”
“Trix,” I growled. She had my heart in her hands, squeezing it, breaking it. Why? Why was this omega, who had been so clouded by a sadness so deep in the freezing lake, now pliant perfect in my arms. Speaking of her plans for a future that had died when we were too innocent to know the weight of crushed dreams. I longed to find her dragons and slay each one with my bare hands. Even if I were one of those dragons.
Her eyes took on a glassy look, as if she were looking at some mirage only she could see. “There… There is something I must tell you.”
Silence.
“I was pregnant. I had a son.”
My heart jumped in my chest, clogging my throat, preventing all speech. The horse snuffled, and its bridle jangled in the unnatural silence that hung about us.
“I had a son,” she repeated.
I could feel the growl building before I stomped it down. Jumping to conclusions with Trix never ended well.
“What do you mean, a son?”
Her restless hands caught my eye, a stick of charcoal she must have taken from her drawing supplies completely ruined, crushed between her fingers. My mate was as crushed as that charcoal.
“What happened to him?” I didn’t want to know, but needed to hear her reply. If there had been another alpha (even a beta) in her life who’d given her everything an omega dreamed of… I’d have to accept that. I’d been with betas. I’d love her son with everything in me. I would treasure him as if he was my own.
“Our son… He was stillborn.” The word soft, gentle, and so filled with anguish that instinct took over and I pulled her into my chest, tucking her face into my neck and purring. “I felt so alone. My father and Polly were there, but without you… I felt so alone.”
“I am sorry you were alone,” I whispered into her hair. Learning the boy had been mine did not relieve the ache in my heart, but only made it greater. I’d failed her in the most fundamental way an alpha could fail their mate. I’d not been there to protect her, to ease her pain. “I’m sorry I left…”
“Afterwards, I was relieved. Maybe a month later, I came to terms with the truth—I was quietly, shamefully relieved. I didn’t know how to be a mother… I was eighteen and so scared about…” She whined. I brushed the tears away with my thumb. “I am horrible. I am… I loved him. I wanted us to be a family but… I was relieved.”
“You are human. You were so young… You should have told me…”
“I wrote a letter… When I first learnt… No matter how angry and hurt, I wanted you to know. I suppose it is for the best that you didn’t receive it.”
I suppressed the anger, the growl signalling some great ugly feeling of worthlessness. Her parents had clearly withheld such important information. Then again, it was Charles who had made me promises, not his bitch of a mate. “It is my fault.”
She continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “What makes me the most undeserving omega is that I am not sure I even want children… I’m terrified of going through all of it again. And… I’m not maternal. I realised that at the blessing. I was the eldest omega. I should have nurtured Viola and Iris, but instead I left them to their own devices because I saw them as another responsibility thrown at me. I wanted to live the life I wanted. Painting, being with my friends… Free. Perhaps that was selfish. Sixteen is young. They had no softer influence in their life.”
Her every word was so quiet that even in the still, quiet shadow of the ancient oak I had to strain to hear what she was saying. If I asked her to speak louder, it might break the spell. She’d remember I was the alpha who was the source of every heartache she’d experienced. In this moment her guard was down, that vulnerability perhaps not so conscious, but so precious because deep down she still trusted me.
My arm tightened. Words were not my strength. I was too alpha. My body, however, could comfort her, but my mate, oh Goddess, my mate, needed more from me than strong arms. “Why should you have to have them? Unless you want them. Queen Anne’s Lace Tea can prevent pregnancy. Whatever you desire, whenever you desire it… If it is in my power to give you… Dammit. I’m no good… Forget I spoke. I’m nae guid wi words, lass.”
“Your actions spoke well enough.” She nuzzled my throat. “In the past you never stood in my way. I could go my own way and know you were there to snatch my collar and pull me back before I did anything too dangerous. If you had known, I believe you would have been at my side.”
