He’d told her he didn’t want to hurt her, and now look. She was the only one on the front line of a war brewing between shifters and vamps, and she was human! Weston was right about her being fragile. She was tough as hell on the inside, but her skin was thin as paper. She didn’t have swift healing. And if he was honest, watching her neck streaming crimson tonight had done something awful to his insides. He hadn’t realized how different it was for humans until tonight. It was one thing to know it, but another to see how easily they bled over something as simple as a bite. How easily the woman he was falling in love with could be taken from him.
Alana let off a soft, heartbroken sound, and he couldn’t do it anymore. He couldn’t just give her space to fall apart without him. His protective instincts wouldn’t allow it. Aaron shoved the door open and dropped to his knees on the floor, pulled her into his lap. She struggled for a moment and told him to, “leave me alone,” but her words didn’t have any vitriol behind them. As he held onto her tighter and buried his face against her neck, she wrapped her arms around him and clung on like he was her air.
“Weston has dreams. Visions,” he murmured low. “Before he even met you, he saw you with eyes the same color as mine.”
As he rocked her gently, Alana’s breath hitched. “What does that mean?”
“Weston thinks I’ll be your maker.” Aaron’s voice cracked on the last word, but fuck it. She should know every single complicated thing so that she could make an educated decision whether to stay with him or leave his life forever.
“Claiming you would be big, Alana, and not something I want to do without your consent. My mark would Turn you. It’s a huge commitment.”
“It would be like marriage for you, right? Like a ring.”
He sighed against her skin and kissed the uninjured side of her neck. “It would be bigger. For a shifter, a claiming mark is so much bigger. It’s the animal choosing without a shadow of a single doubt that he will be devoted to that person forever. There is no turning back, no breaking up, no divorce, no bowing out of the relationship after that. There would only be my unrelenting devotion.”
Alana was quiet for a long time, and he got it. She had so much to think about. This stuff wasn’t public knowledge for humans. It was the part of shifter culture that was no one else’s business but theirs. Slowly, she wiped her eyes, then straddled his lap and hugged him, resting her chin on his shoulder. “Would I feel that, too? If you claimed me, and turned me into a bear shifter, would I feel bound to you?”
He swallowed hard so his voice wouldn’t crack when he answered. “Yes. And it could be amazing. It’s something I want with you, but there is a trade-off.”
When Alana leaned back, Aaron was struck with how damn beautiful she was. Smooth skin shades darker than his, a tone between rich caramel and milk chocolate. Her eyebrows were arched perfectly, her delicate nose slightly rosy from crying. She wore her hair all piled on the back of her head, sexy-messy, and her dark eyes were vulnerable as she searched his face. “Tell me everything.”
And he did. He laid it all out there, all the scary parts of his life, all the complications. He told her about Harper going through The Unrest until they formed a crew. He told her about his excitement over fighting vamps, and how it had really been awful. He told her about the fight with the Asheville Coven in the parking lot of Drat’s and the death of the queen.
“Is that where you got this?” she asked in a whisper as she brushed her fingers over the scars on the side of his neck.
He dipped his chin once. “Aric gave me that.”
She touched her own bite mark. “We’ll match.”
“No,” he said firmly. “There is a woman in the Ashe Crew who makes cream for fixing scars. I’ll have some shipped here, and you won’t have to remember what Aric did to you every time you look in the mirror.”
“Why didn’t you use it on your neck?”
“Because scars are a part of every shifter’s life. We fight battles the humans are never aware of. Scars are a reminder of what happened but also a warning of what’s to come. Scars mean we survived. It doesn’t have to be like that for you, though. It can be easier.” He lowered his voice and cupped her cheeks. “Alana, I’ll make it easier, I swear.”
Her lip trembled, but she kissed his palm quickly. He loved that she was tender, affected, and real. He’d had trouble connecting with his emotions over the years, trouble understanding Bear, but here was Alana, so authentic, soft, and honest, and for some reason, that little lip quiver exposed strength in her vulnerability. It was a measure of trust that she allowed him to witness the dampness on her cheeks. Allowed him to brush them away with the pads of his thumbs.
The choice would be hers, to stay and endure a dangerous life or to move away and find a normal partner who would cloak her life in the safety of normalcy. It would rip him up inside if she chose the latter, but an overwhelming desire for her to be happy had overtaken him. At least he’d laid it on the line. At least he’d told her everything she needed to know about his life to choose her path. He wasn’t hiding anything anymore.
All he could do now was spend every minute possible with her until she moved away from Bryson City, or decided to stay here with him.
Chapter Thirteen
Aaron was scared.
Alana didn’t know how she knew it, but some instinct deep inside of her kept circling back to that thought as the seconds ticked by in the dark bedroom. He’d avoided the bed, told her goodnight, and settled on the couch outside the door. And there he lay, just on the other side of the wall. So close and much too far all at once.