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“What are you going to do?” Blake asked.
“No idea.” Rowan shrugged. “She still hasn’t forgiven me for how I denied her. I asked her to stay. I asked for a chance for us to raise the child together. She threw me out of her room.” He sipped from his bottle.
“I need to keep trying, it seems. We have a long time still before the baby comes, and I hope to convince her to change her mind before that happens. I did announce to the pack that she’s my mate, though. So there’s that.”
Fannar scoffed disdainfully. “I can’t imagine they took it jubilantly when you told them, did they?”
Rowan grinned. “Not at first. But as it turns out, I can be very convincing. Look, we haven’t always been the most welcoming clan to Juniper, unfortunately. If I am going to convince her to stay, she needs to know she will be accepted.”
“Looks like you have it all figured out,” Articus said.
“Not as much as I would have liked, but I’m hopeful.”
“What about your fiend in the woods? Any news?” The Yeti raised a brow at Rowan. He had been quiet the whole time, but had obviously grown tired of the conversation about mates.
“Actually, yes. It finally attacked a person.” Rowan spent the next half an hour narrating all that had happened since their last meeting. He informed them about the boy who had been attacked and how Juniper had saved him.
He enjoyed the reprieve from talking about Juniper, and immersed himself in other topics. The conversation went around the table as other members spoke about their own lives as well.
The group was starting to sound more and more like a support group to Rowan, although he had argued it when Articus had made a similar observation. As he listened to Xander talk about the tension building with humans, he realized how much closer to the truth Articus had been.
He tried to pay attention to the conversation, but all he could think about was Juniper. She was probably alone and scared back home. All he wanted to do was return home to her and keep her safe, but he knew that she wouldn’t let him in.
He found himself thinking about fatherhood, and it made him feel better. He remembered the first time he had transformed. It had been a partial transformation with only a few changes happening on his face and his hands.
His father had been with him then. He couldn’t wait to replicate that moment with his cub. The thought of it left him feeling giddy with excitement, like a toddler with a new toy.
There was so much knowledge that he couldn’t wait to pass on and share with his offspring, and that was a bigger motivation for him than anything. The hope of Juniper staying made it a perfect picture, a dream he had never thought he would see as a reality.
“Hey, Rowan. You here?” Articus nudged him, his eyes narrowed.
“Of course,” Rowan said, smiling. “What was the last thing you said?”
Chapter 13 - Juniper
Juniper struggled to believe that she was indeed pregnant.
She could not feel the baby’s magical signature yet. Her baby was still too young in her womb for that, to her relief. It would have felt too real to her if she could, and she was not ready to accept that reality.
The more she stayed in bed, the worse she felt. Being pregnant with Rowan’s baby was the worst thing that could have happened to her, especially with everything going on.
She felt a stab of guilt at how she had spoken to him earlier, but she pushed her guilty feelings to the side.
How could he have asked her to stay? He had finally admitted his feelings, but was it out of love, or a sense of duty?
If she had not gotten pregnant, would he have said the same things to her? She doubted it, although she knew that there was no way for her to be certain.
Everything that he had said, none of it had made her want to give him a chance or to stay. On the contrary, it made her want to escape again. She was filled with so much discontentment and anger, and most of it was directed at him.
He had known that she was his mate all this while, and yet he had let her go so easily. She was angry that he hadn’t stepped up back then. She was angry at him for not putting more effort into looking for her after she had left. She was angry at him for over a dozen things that she could list off the top of her head.
And yet, the thing that she was most angry about was the fact that deep down inside of her, she was so happy that he had finally acknowledged her. There was a part of her that desired to be with him more than anything in the world. And that burned her deeply.
She threw her blanket aside and threw her legs over the side of the bed. She needed to get busy. She needed to be active and occupied. She had barely left the room in the last two days, and fortunately Rowan had avoided her as well.
She had rested enough, and could feel that her mana reserves were up. She still needed a day or two to be back to optimal shape, but she didn’t see how she could continue staying in bed any longer with thoughts of Rowan assaulting her idle mind.
She thought about the little boy she had saved the last time she was out. She hadn’t really processed all he had said as she had healed him, and had passed out almost immediately. She felt fit and ready enough to return to her investigations.
