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Thran watched me silently. He knew I wasn’t finished.
“But even after all of that, there’s still something keeping me from the idea of being his mate. I just want him to tell me he loves me. I want to hear it from him and know that he’s not holding himself back, because no matter how I feel about him, even if I do understand what he’s gone through and why he guards himself like that, I can’t stay with an alpha who can’t be open and honest. I wouldn’t be respecting myself if I did. Is that unfair of me?”
“It’s not,” Thran replied. “But have you told him how you feel?”
“No,” I said regretfully. “It’s not that I’m afraid. I was, before. I didn’t want to embarrass myself if he rejected me. But now I feel like if I were to tell him, and he reciprocated…”
“You might wonder about the authenticity of his commitment.”
“Yes. And I hate that I feel like that.”
Thran nodded. “I know you, cousin. You have a soft heart, and I mean that in the best way. You can only respond to what your heart is ready to accept, just like you were only able to tell me about the pregnancy when you felt ready. But that also means you must accept that doing so may mean sacrificing what could become one of the most wonderful things to happen to you. It seems like it already is one of the most wonderful things to happen to you. Can you do that? The only correct answer is the one you choose for yourself.”
He was right, of course. Thran always was. I so badly wanted to hear Ari say that he loved me, to settle all the doubts in my mind with just a few simple words, because as strong as I was, as capable and tough and powerful, I was still afraid of being left alone. I was shielding my eyes from all the other things Ari had done to show he cared. All I could see was my fear, and the nasty little voice in the back of my head that told me he would do those things for anyone, because he was a creature of duty, and not because he felt the same way I’d come to feel about him.
I’d never expected love to feel so close to insanity. And I absolutely felt crazy.
We rejoined the group, which was waiting outside the house with the horse cart, and as we all laughed and joked, I sat with Ari and felt myself stabilize when I was next to him, feeling his presence and the touch of his hand on mine. I was fighting a battle inside my head to convince myself to just tell him that I loved him, that I needed to, or else I was going to destroy myself from the pressure of holding it inside.
Why couldn’t I just surrender? Why couldn’t I accept what Ari was giving me for what it was? Wasn’t it clear he cared about me and the baby? Wasn’t that all that mattered?
My selfish needs were preventing me from accepting it fully.
No… Not just my needs. It all came back to one thing—fear. That was what it’d always been, from those first moments when I’d thought Ari disliked me. My fear, my defensiveness, they’d always kept a wall up between us. Not Ari’s wall, my own. The same fear that’d kept me from sharing the pregnancy with Thran.
Ari floated on his back in the gentle churn of the shore, and I watched as he sank slowly beneath the surface. Behind me, Oli and Delos swam with Thran, the little boy laughing as he slapped palmfuls of the warm water at his father. I paddled to where Ari was, looked into the water, and saw his wavering form drifting down like he was going for a nap on the sea bed. A pang of sadness struck my heart. At that moment, he looked so alone and so small.
I followed him down into the crystal-clear depths, and the sound of the others disappeared. All I heard was the rumble of the waves and the thud-thud of my heart. He took my hands in his and we floated together on the back-and-forth flow. His eyes stayed fixed on mine, blue as our surroundings. He smiled at me and pulled me closer so that my stomach was pressed against his, and then he pressed his lips to mine. At first, I thought he meant to give me air, and I parted my lips to receive a breath—and then realized it was a kiss. It wasn’t the desperately hungry kind of kiss that we only ever shared in the heat of our need. No, this was new. I’d never kissed anyone this way before. Soft, tender… loving.
I so badly wanted to hear Ari tell me things I already knew. Down here beneath the waves, there were no words. I had to trust my other senses—trust what was right in front of me. Trust him.
I could’ve lived in that moment forever. Ari and I, our baby inside of me just waiting to make her entrance to this world, and no fear.
Everything I needed was right here.
* * *
We gave Thran and the others a T’Wanu ahevamai that night. A bonfire at the main house, roast boar perfectly prepared by Visir, who had mastered the sweet and savory island recipe, and of course, dancing. It was just our group along with Grandma Payaka, but that didn’t dull the party’s intensity one bit. We all danced to Makoa’s drum, and when I got tired, I sat on the sand and watched with a grin on my face. Ari and Kai faced each other, trading mirrored dance moves that grew more and more ridiculous until Kai was wriggling on the ground like a worm and Ari was holding his stomach and laughing.
He came and sat next to me and was almost out of breath. I leaned over and pushed a strand of his long, black hair off his sweaty forehead.
“Never seen you and Kai like that before,” I remarked.
“Yeah,” he said, like hadn’t quite realized it himself. “He and I had a good talk. Really overdue.”
I rubbed Ari’s thigh. “Good.”
Delos and Oli danced around the fire, and then Delos lifted his son onto his shoulders and spun him around and around. I suddenly had a vision of Ari doing the same with our little girl. I could see him showing her the T’Wanu dance traditions.
“Will she be a dancer?” I mused aloud. “I wonder if she’ll gravitate to the drums. Or maybe chants and singing?”
A warm smile spread across Ari’s face as he watched the others, and I knew he was imagining something very similar to me.
“I’d love for her to learn how to dance like you,” he said. “But knowing the way fate likes to twist things, she’ll inherit my abilities.”
“Oh, come on, Ari. You’re a great dancer. I mean, perhaps compared to some of your cousins you’re shit, but give yourself some credit!”
He laughed brightly. “But I’m nothing like you. I love the way you dance, Istil. I…” Ari paused, and his grin faded back. He looked serious, but not cold. “Istil, I…Gods, why is this so hard? I…”
