Chapter One

 

This book contains characters and reference points that exist in the One True Mate universe, but the story itself is an author interpretation and may not adhere to the original series. I hope you enjoy it!

This story is set approximately three years in the future of One True Mate Book Five, Shifter’s Rogue.

 

Mac settled in on the couch to watch the TV movie with Rogue. If it had car chases, someone got punched in the face, or big-ass explosions, they were all over it. This movie had all of that and it was starring Sylvester Stallone, so it was on like Donkey Kong.

They had all the appropriate snacks (His -  popcorn, beef jerky, and beer. Hers – chicken wings, fries, and a frozen margarita; because she was just classy like that) and they were waiting while watching the millions of ads in the commercial break. When a commercial for diapers came on, Mac rolled his eyes in disgust.

“Pffft,” he scoffed. “What the hell is the point to diaper commercials, anyway? I mean, in the past ninety-seven years, what exactly has changed about them? Diaper ads should be pay-per-view. Who needs to see that? Crazy people who can’t remember shit, that’s who.” Mac felt Rogue shift on the couch beside him.

“Stop acting like a grumpy old man, Mac. People who have kids need to know that stuff. Besides, one day we’ll need to know that stuff,” Rogue poked him in the belly. Mac choked on his handful of popcorn. He quickly took a long swig of beer.

“Wait, what? You’re not…what?” Mac looked damn near horrified. Roe laughed.

“No, you big dummy, I’m not pregnant. Not yet, anyway.” She sat back on the couch and thoughtfully chewed on a French fry.  Mac rolled his eyes.  Here is comes, he thought.

“Our kids will be so cute,” Roe said with a grin. “If they look anything like Ella or Trevor’s kids, they’ll be adorable. I wonder what they’ll look like?” She kicked her foot up on the arm of the couch, completely oblivious to the way that Mac sat still and quiet, while holding his beer bottle with a death grip. “I wonder if they’ll look like me or you? Will they be itty bitty pups?”

Mac squeezed his beer bottle even tighter.

“Or will they look like their human form? I talked to Ella and she didn’t know. She said no one can predict what their kids will look like. Even Track and Treena look different from Kit and Kyla, but they all look like their parents.” She tapped her chin thoughtfully. The clench of Mac’s jaw was barely discernible.

“Hm, I really wonder about that sometimes,” Roe went on as she picked up a chicken wing. “I think I would be a good mom. I mean, I have a lot to learn and stuff, but it looks easy enough, especially watching Ella and Heather do it. And I think you’d be a good dad, too. I mean if Trevor can—“

“Stop, just stop, damn it! STOP!” Mac squeezed the bottle so hard it shattered. He stood up, accidentally knocking the bowl of popcorn and jerky out of his lap. Shards of glass fell into the bowl and mixed with little droplets of blood from his injured hand, but he didn’t seem to notice.

“I can’t, Roe. I just can’t,” he said. “I can’t take the baby talk anymore. I don’t want kids. I know you want them, but I just can’t do it. No kids. That’s it and that’s all. No more discussion!” He rubbed the palm of his hand across his face and winced as a small shard of glass cut his cheek.
Roe looked at her plate of chicken wings like it was radioactive. Mac had clearly lost his damn mind.

“First of all, fuck you, Mac! Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to?” Roe shoved her food aside and rose to her feet, ready to take a fighting stance, but stopped suddenly when she looked into his eyes. There was something there she hadn’t seen before and it looked a hell of a lot like fear. But that made no sense at all, Mac wasn’t afraid of anything. She squinted, then waited a beat. Then she clenched her fist and punched Mac square in the jaw.

Mac’s head whipped to the side a bit, but he didn’t move otherwise. A tiny trickle of blood dripped down his face as he lowered his eyes and looked at the floor. Roe continued to wait, but he didn’t say a word.

“You know what, Mac?” Rogue rubbed her knuckles, charged over to the hall closet, grabbed a pillow and blanket, and came back and tossed them on the couch. “I don’t know what the fuck your problem is, but once you figure it out, you let me know. In the meanwhile, you and your funky-ass attitude can sleep on the couch.” Rogue grabbed her food and drink, stomped into their bedroom, and slammed the door.

Mac sighed and slumped onto the couch. This was a clusterfuck of royal proportions, but he just couldn’t face Roe right now. He didn’t know exactly how to tell her how he felt just yet. He rubbed his eyes and was about to sit up, when his phone rang. He glanced at it on the coffee table and saw “Teddy Ruxpin” on his caller ID screen. His reached for the phone.

“S’up, B.”

“Hey, Mac,” his best bear friend, Bruin’s, cheerful voice almost made him feel better. Almost. “Willow is closing at the Depot tonight and so I was heading to the bar for a drink. You wanna come?”

Mac glanced at his bedroom door and then at the pillow and blanket on the couch. If he could talk about this with anyone tonight, it was gonna be Bruin.

“Yeah, sure,” he said, as he slipped on his boots and rose to his feet. He wrote a quick “Out with Yogi, be back soon” on a Post-it note and stuck it to their bedroom door, then headed for the front door. “I’ll see you in a bit.”

Mac pushed open the door to the bar and wondered why Bru liked the place so damn much. The drinks were watered down and overpriced, the chips were always stale, and they served unsalted peanuts. Unsalted. Peanuts. Seriously, these people were barbarians. He scanned the room and quickly saw Bru, who motioned him over to a booth. As he sat down on the stiff and squeaky fake leather seat, he ordered a beer from the waitress who instantly appeared at his side.

“Any kind in particular?” The waitress winked at him. Mac waved his hand absently.

“Whatever you have on tap is fine.”

The woman nodded, then returned to the bar. Bru looked at Mac and frowned.

“What’s going on, Mac? Is everything okay? What happened to your face?” Bru took a pull on his drink and tossed a handful of the popcorn in his mouth. That crap looked unsalted, too.

Mac shrugged. “I lost a fight with a beer bottle and then another one with Roe.” He sighed. “She started talking about kids again.”

The waitress came back with his beer mug. She set it down on a napkin and then placed a small basket of peanuts on the table. Mac made a face and pushed the basket in front of Bru.

“Ah, yes. The baby conversation,” Bru said. “Yeah. Willow and I’ve talked about it, too. We want to do some traveling first before we settle down, you know? See the world, eat the food. Climb the mountains. Go kayaking. Take cooking classes in the Congo. Did you know that fire ants are full of protein and some say they taste like peanut butter? I want to try them.” Bru grabbed a few peanuts and tossed them in his mouth.

“Yeah, I’m gonna have to take your word for that buddy, but okay.” Mac could always count on Bru to be like a big bear search engine for incredibly useless shit. But it also made him the only partner you’d ever need for the bar’s “Buy one beer, get one free” trivia nights.

Mac looked in his beer mug, as if he could find the words he needed in the foam. “The thing is, it’s not that I don’t want kids. It’s just that, after my mom and Kensie were…” his voice trailed off.

Bru nodded his head to encourage him but stayed silent.

“I wasn’t there and, even though I know there was nothing I could do about it, I still feel like…damn it!” This was more difficult than he thought.

Bru took a sip of beer, then set down his mug and cleared his throat. “You spent a lot of time waiting on Rogue. Waiting for your mate, your love. And now that you have her, she’s the perfect woman for you. She’s a fighter and she can handle her own. So, you don’t have to worry about her. But that’s not the case with a baby.” Bru paused and looked at Mac.

Mac looked across the room, his gaze landing on the broken jukebox. It looked like it hadn’t worked since Elvis was a pre-teen. Bru always seemed to know what was going on in his head, which was probably why they were such good friends. He looked back at Bru.

Mac took in a breath, then slowly blew it out. “Babies are small and delicate and defenseless. If I couldn’t protect my mom and baby sister, what the hell makes me think I could protect my own baby? I know that doesn’t even sound rational.”

Mac took a long drink of his beer, then let out a mocking laugh. “Look at me. Great badass I am, right? I can load a gun, strap on my gear and go out into the world and fuck up ALL the shit but, when it comes to having kids, that shit’s my kryptonite. Fuck.”

Bru smiled. “Everyone has at least one thing that makes them nervous, Mac. You can still be a badass and have a heart, you know,” he said, as he popped another handful of those tasteless-ass peanuts in his mouth.

Mac shook his head. He pulled his phone from his pocket and texted “143”, his short code for “I love you”, to Rogue. A few seconds later, she texted back “FU.” He grinned. At least she was still talking to him. Well, sort of.

“Look, Mac,” Bru said, as he drummed his fingers on the table. “At some point, you’ll have to make peace with the fact that there was nothing you could do. What happened back then was out of your control. Nobody could have done anything different, not you, not anybody. It was not your fault. I’m sure if Kensie was here now, she’d tell you the same thing.”

Mac drained the last of his beer and sat in silence. He knew what Bru was saying was the truth, but he just wasn’t sure if he believed it.

Bru’s head suddenly snapped up and he looked around. “I want a hot dog. You want a hot dog?” He raised his hand and signaled for the waitress.

Mac gave him an incredulous look. “A hot dog? From here? Hell no. If they can’t even get the popcorn and peanuts right, they’ll for damn sure fuck up a hot dog. And that’s saying a lot, considering that most hot dogs are made from pig toenails and cow elbows.”

Bru looked at him in disbelief. “What? Really? How do you even cook a cow’s elbow?” He whipped out his smartphone and pulled up Google.

Mac shook his head. “You’re so damn weird.”

Mac and Bru hung out at the bar for another half hour or so before they parted ways and headed home. At home, before he went inside, Mac stripped off his clothes and shifted. He let his wolf run wild and free. A good run always helped him settle his mind, make sense of things.

An hour later, after a long and steady run in the forest surrounding his home, he was hot and sweaty and his muscles were warm and loose, but his mind was open. His thoughts were much clearer, just like they always were after a run.

He entered his home and quietly made his way to his bedroom.

Roe was asleep with the bedside light on. As he came closer to the bed, he saw that her face was a little puffy and red, like she’d been crying. His breath immediately caught in his chest. Roe always acted like she was super-tough and that nothing fazed her, but he realized in that moment that he must have hurt her more than she let on. He quietly leaned down and kissed her softly on her forehead.

“I love you, baby,” he whispered gently against her hair. Roe shifted and turned over in her sleep, leaving her back to him.

Mac turned and headed to the bathroom for a shower, but stopped short when he noticed something odd through the sliding doors of his closet. When he looked closer, he sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. On the closet floor was one of his favorite pairs of Nike shoes, slashed and ripped, and completely ruined. Because, well, Rogue.

“Better them than me, I guess,” he mumbled.

Mac showered and threw on a t-shirt and sweats, then headed back to the couch, casting one last look at Roe before he turned off the light. He turned on the TV, set the volume on low, then eventually drifted off to sleep.