Juliet

The front door opened and slammed shut before I came up with an answer.

“Juliet? Are you home?”

God, God. I dropped my face into my hands as my heart cracked wide open inside my chest. Leaving was the right choice. But knowing this was the last time I’d hear Mason walk through the front door and call out to me that way almost broke my resolve.

His feet pounded up the stairs. “Juliet, Alyssa said you weren’t feeling well. Are you okay?”

I did the best I could to clean my face with my hands and looked up just as Mason burst into the bedroom.

He moved toward me. “Are you all right? What…?”

I saw the moment his gaze landed on my suitcase.

“What’s that doing out?”

I stood up and faced him. “I think I need to go, Mason. This just isn’t going to work.”

“Go where? What’s going on, Juliet? When I left you at the office, everything was fine. What happened?”

“My happy little bubble burst,” I said inanely.

“What?” He shook his head and closed the distance between us, curling his hands gently around my shoulders. “You know what. I don’t care. Whatever’s going on in your head, get it out of there. You’re not going anywhere.”

I shook my head. “Mason, I can’t stay here. I’ve figured some things out over the last week, and I realized that I can’t do this to you.”

“Do what to me, beautiful?” His voice was so gentle and soft it caused tears to sting my eyes.

“Damn it. Don’t be nice to me. I won’t be able to get through this without crying if you’re nice to me.”

He smiled. “Then don’t get through this. Tell me what’s bothering you, we’ll fix it, and then I’ll help you unpack before dinner.”

“I have to go, Mason. This isn’t just one of my crazy pregnancy hormone things.”

“Is it a crazy-had-a-throw-down-in-the-ladies’-room-at-the-Kodiak-Tavern kind of thing?”

My mouth dropped open and then my eyes narrowed. “Alyssa ratted on me.”

He laughed and pulled me into a hug. “Alyssa was worried about you. She also figured she’d end up telling Kaden what happened and he’d tell me, so she figured she’d save us all some trouble.”

He rocked me in his arms and I couldn’t help myself, I hugged him back and let him rock me. I told myself I was just taking comfort one last time.

He pressed a kiss into the top of my head. “Now why don’t you tell me what they said to you that made you run home and pack your bags?”

I pushed back from him. “That’s just it. This isn’t my home. This is your home. It’s the place you built to bring your mate to when you found her.”

“Uh, yeah. That’s why you’re here.”

I shook my head. “Not me, Mason. Your true mate. I know you’re dedicated to this baby and you’re going to be a great father. And I won’t take that away from you, I promise.”

As I said the words, a plan solidified in my mind. I needed to make sure Mason and his den members were around to give my baby a real family. That meant I needed to stay in Kodiak.

I sighed and bowed my head. Staying here, seeing Mason all the time, would suck. But if it meant keeping my promise to Bruiser than I’d stay.

“I’m not going to leave Kodiak,” I said softly. “I’ll find an apartment in town and keep my job. We’ll be able to work something out where you’re a big part of the baby’s life.”

I sank my teeth into my bottom lip as I worried that maybe Mason would push to have the baby live here with him. Would he fight me for custody?

“Yeah, I know I’ll be a big part of Bruiser’s life. He’ll be sleeping across the hall from me every night. Just like you’ll be sleeping by my side…” Mason dipped his knees so his face was on level with mine, “…every night.”

“But what about when you meet your mate? I can’t be the one to keep you from being with the woman meant for you. And I can’t stay here and watch your feelings grow for another woman. You need to take me to a hotel in town for the night. Tomorrow I’ll sort out an apartment, and we can figure out the rest as we go along.”

“You are my mate,” Mason bit out on a growl.

“No. I know that’s not true, Mason. I know you’ll do anything for your child and I know you care about me a lot. But please.” My voice broke and tears flooded my eyes as I begged him. “Please don’t lie to me.”

He turned away from me with a snarl. I could see him fighting for control of his temper, or maybe it was his bear he was fighting. I didn’t wait to find out.

I swiped at the tears sliding down my cheeks and grabbed for the handle of my suitcase. “Please don’t make this any harder than it is.”

Mason whirled around and seeing my hand on the suitcase, his control snapped. In two big steps he was next to me. He snatched the suitcase from my hand and tossed it across the room.

I gasped, but before I could react any more than that, Mason had me in his arms and carried me down onto the bed.

“Mason! Let me up!”

“I’m not letting you go anywhere until you make some sense. You’re mine, beautiful, and I’m not letting you walk out of here over some half-baked idea some jealous bitch handed you in the ladies’ room.”

“She didn’t say anything that a wasn’t true.” I pressed my hands against his chest. He didn’t budge. “I can’t be your mate. You won’t even let me see you shift. Alyssa told me that sharing that helped deepen the bond between Kaden and her. That’s why you don’t want to show me. You don’t feel the same way about me.”

Mason collapsed on top of me, his face going to my neck.

I nudged him. “Mason, you have to let me up.”

He pulled himself up, bracing himself over me on his forearm. “That’s what this is all about? Shit, I hate admitting Kaden is right.”

I wrinkled my nose at him. This wasn’t going at all how I expected. “What are you talking about?”

“Kaden. He told me not to hide this stuff from you. He knew it would push you away.” He stroked my wild curls back from my face. “But sweetheart, I kept that from you because I thought you had enough to accept all at once. The pregnancy, moving, the fact your baby is a shifter, you’re turning into a shifter. You’ve been handling everything so well, but I was afraid if I kept piling stuff on you, at some point it would be too much and you’d run for the hills.”

I blinked up at him, trying to let his words sink in. “So you’re saying you didn’t want to show me, not because you don’t care about me but because you care too much?”

“Fuck, beautiful, care about you? Yeah, I care about you. You’re mine. My mate.” He shook his head and grinned down at me. “Caring is the least of what I feel for you. Possessive and protective come to mind. Loving you beyond reason. Pick any of those. They all fit. You are mine, Juliet. My mate.”

Shockwaves jolted through my body. “Your mate? Like your true mate?”

It was his turn to be confused. “What the fuck do you think we’ve been doing here the last month, beautiful?”

I opened my mouth to tell him, but suddenly images of the last month flooded my mind, and I closed it again. I saw Mason making me dinner, lighting candles around the room, checking in with me throughout the day to make sure the morning sickness wasn’t too bad. So many ways he’d shown me how he felt about me. And really only that last one had anything to do with the baby.

“I thought you cared about me because of the baby,” I whispered.

Mason dropped his forehead to mine. “Good thing I’m crazy about you or you might be more trouble than you’re worth.”

He softened his words with a grin and a kiss on the tip of my nose. “Beautiful, if I knocked up anyone, I’d do everything I could make sure my baby was taken care of. But move someone else into my home? Start building a life with them? A family with them?” He shook his head. “That’s only for you. My mate.”

I stared up at him in wonder, trying to process what he was saying. I lifted a hand to his jaw. “But you would have wanted to help anyone woman with the whole shifter thing.”

“The whole shifter thing?”

I widened my eyes at him. “Uh, yeah, you know, the whole I get pregnant and it forces me to transition into a werebear thing.”

Once again Mason collapsed into me, this time with a loud groan. “Shit. I really am going to have to tell Kaden he was right.”

He pulled up and again braced himself over me so he could look down into my face. “You’re transitioning into a shifter because you’re pregnant and you’re my mate.”

I stated up at him blankly.

He pulled in a deep breath. “I should have explained this to you a lot sooner. I guess I assumed all the time you spent doing research online you would have known this. But, baby, not every woman who gets pregnant with a shifter baby transitions.”

“They don’t? I thought…”

“I know. I’m sorry for making such a fucking mess of all this.” He ran his thumb over the apple of my cheek. “Only your true mate can force the transition through a pregnancy.”

I searched his eyes while I absorbed his words. When they finally sank in, I stiffened. “So all this time…”

He nodded. “I’ve known you were my mate since the first day. And I’m sure I would have known that first night we were together in New Orleans if my head hadn’t been so messed up.”

“Thank God I got pregnant.” As soon as I said the words, a laugh escaped me. If someone told me when Kendra and Dr. Walker were trying to convince me I was pregnant that in the not too distant future, I’d see it as the biggest blessing of my life, I would have laughed in their face.

But now…I’d already figured out my little Bruiser was a blessing, but now it really sank in. If it weren’t for him, I never would have come looking for Mason. I would have spent my whole life missing…my mate.

I reached up and pulled Mason down so I could kiss him with all the feeling I’d had pent up in me for so long. When we finally came up for air, I don’t know which of us looked more dazed.

“I love you, Captain Mason Hunter.”

He grinned down at me. “I love you, too, my crazy, beautiful girl.”

I returned his grin with one of my own until one more thought occurred to me.

“You haven’t claimed me.”

“Claimed you?”

I touched the spot on my collarbone, the same spot where Kaden left his mark on Alyssa.

Understanding dawned in Mason’s eyes and his grin grew wicked. “You want me to claim you?”

I thought about it for, oh, about a second and a half. Then I bit my lip and nodded.

His grin turned into a smile. “You got it, beautiful.”

Then he leaned down and set about claiming me. And by the time he was finished, nobody would ever doubt he’d laid his claim to me again. Myself included.