Warrior Invasion: A Science Fiction Alien Mail Order Bride Romance (TerraMates Book 10) (27 page)

She stopped there, thinking about Mac and everything he had done for her, starting with bringing a grumpy, growly, pregnant woman peppermint to soothe her stomach. Every time he cooked for them, every time he was there for her, even knowing she carried another man's child, every kindness he'd ever shown her played in slow motion through her head.

Every kiss, every caress, every time he put her needs before her own.

Mac, who she'd been falling for before his bear-ness had come out, who had told her that he had scented her as his mate the first time he saw her-
her Mac
.

"It seems I've been very backward in my beliefs. It seems that I thought black was white, and white was black. I need to find Mac, to talk to him. Is he here?"

"Yeah, he's here somewhere," Bane answered. "He's been worried about you and the baby. He's been trying to give you some space. Bella, he's a good man. A great man, to be honest. You really couldn't do any better in a mate. Even knowing how you felt about him, he carried you here. Even before that, in the heat of battle, he..."

"He stood guard over me, I know. I remember."

Bane nodded, content to stay quiet from there.

"He even said he didn't care that I carried another man's baby. He said it didn't matter, that he already knew about it when he scented me. He said that if I carried a baby inside me, then that baby was meant to be his as well, to love and to raise, if I chose to keep it.

He said I hold his heart, and I know I've been stupid, and blind, but now I see.

If grandma hadn't kept mom, her own rapist's baby, raising her with granddad, none of us would be here. Not Kee, not me, not Ivy. I need to go to Mac."

Aunt Patty's voice broke in right then. She'd entered the room to tell them she had some food ready for them all, but instead she spoke up in surprise.

"Who said Enid was a rapist's baby? Enid? Hmmm, if I remember correctly, there was more than a fair share of doubt to that story. The way I remember it was a little bit different. I saw how your grandmother was when that boy came sniffing around, no pun intended. I always thought his version of the story was closer to the truth. I think your grandmother lay down with that shifter of her own free will. More than once, too, I'd bet. But when our daddy got wind of it, well suddenly she was denying everything. Almost cost him his life, it did."

Chapter 15

With all the rooms in the house being taken- Ivy bunking with the cousins, Bella given the couch, Bane and Keelyn sharing the one extra bedroom, Mac, David and Ryker were told that the only place left was the barn.

Since the second lion was still unaccounted for, David, Ryker and Mac decided to alternate patrolling the area, two at a time, while one slept. David and Ryker said they were still too hopped up to sleep, so Mac had the first sleeping shift, but once he'd settled down in the barn's hay loft, he found that he was still pretty hopped up himself.

He mulled over all of the events of the night, starting with Bella telling him that she thought Sammy had been a shifter.

While Bella had been passed out, and the rest of the group talked, they all realized that he couldn't be, since Sammy hadn't been killed through his heart. That aside, Mac focused not on Bella's conclusion earlier, but on how he thought she probably arrived at it.

He figured that Bella needed a way to deal with Sammy raping her, and that she probably latched onto the idea of him being a shifter gladly, and held tight, because that way she could compartmentalize him in her mind.

Shifters, bad. Sammy, bad. Rapists, bad.

It was a simple way to divide good and evil in her mind, and by believing Sammy the rapist was also a shifter, all of her bad things got to be tucked away nicely in her head in a big, bad, shifter bow.

Then, when her sister Ivy shifted into lion form, and protected her, Bella's divisions of who and what constituted good and evil must have crashed into each other inside her head. That, plus stress, plus pregnancy all probably triggered her to pass out.

Mac wondered if Bella would turn away from Ivy now, as it seemed like she turned away from both him and Keelyn when she headed out here all alone on horseback.

He wondered if she was awake yet, and if so, was she feeling even more betrayed? Everything she'd been taught to hate, everything she'd thought was evil- shifters, was being challenged with all of the events of tonight, and he was too busy wondering how she was going to handle this fork in the road of her very belief system to sleep.

Would she turn bitter, like Enid had? Would she keep an open mind since Ivy was one of the shifters she hated so?

His brain went round and round until thoughts of Bella were so real in his mind that he could almost smell her...wait! He breathed deeply, drinking in Bella's scent.

She was here! She scented uncertain and nervous, but she was here, and she was looking for him.

"Mac? Are you in here?"

She called out quietly- loud enough to be heard if he was awake, but quiet enough that if he wasn't, she wouldn't disturb him.

"I'm here, Bella. Up in the loft. Hang on, I'll come down."

He didn't bother to pull his shirt back on, he just jumped up and headed for the ladder.

Bella was halfway up it already, and he chided her for it.

"You don't need to be climbing, Bell. Not in your condition. I said I was coming down."

"I'm just pregnant, not hurt. I can climb a ladder. I wanted to speak with you privately, so I figured up there would be better. Crap, I didn't think about David and Ryker. Are they up there, too? I was trying
not
to stir everyone up."

"They aren't here. They took first patrol. My shift starts in a few hours."

He got out of her way as she crested the top of the ladder and joined him in the loft. Once she was sure of her footing, she looked up at him and he watched her eyes go wide.

She darted little looks down over him, his chest, then his eyes. His stomach, then back up to his eyes.

He raised his eyebrows and bit back a grin as he realized she was checking him out, but trying not to be obvious about checking him out.

The quick, heated scent of sudden arousal that she started to give off made him unsteady. He stepped back to regain himself, and took shallow breaths.

Her reaction to him made him hopeful, but he didn't want to push. The scent of her still washed over him, even as he tried to breathe in less of her. Maybe she didn't hate him after all? Maybe there was still a chance?

Her reaction to him must have thrown her a bit too, as she had started to say something when she made it up here, but now she seemed to be trying to collect her words again.

"How are you feeling?" He asked, trying to help her out.

"Hmm? Me? Oh, I'm ok. I'm embarrassed more than anything. I've never passed out in my life til tonight."

"I've heard pregnancy and stress can do that. Your body's way of protecting itself, or something."

"Which is so silly, right? You'd think I'd be better protected doing just about anything other than falling down in a heap, unconscious.
Anything
else, really, like running, or fighting, but no. Instead
my
body said 'let's lay down right here and be extra vulnerable.' Figures."

Mac laughed at the way she described passing out, but he had to admit she had a point.

"Although, I have heard that playing dead can have its advantages sometimes."

"Oh yeah, like when? When you want to be killed but don't want to see it coming?"

He smiled at her, but didn't say anything else.

They looked at each other in silence for a beat or two, and then she said, "Oh! I have some very interesting news to share."

He nodded at her to continue, trying to breathe mostly out of his mouth so as not to smell her and make it any harder on himself than it already was.

"Aunt Patty, she's Enid's mom's sister..."

"Yeah, I know."

"Sorry, I forgot you've actually been awake and functioning, unlike me. Anyway, Aunt Patty said that mom's version of grandma's story might not be one hundred percent accurate. She said that she thinks grandma may not have been raped."

"Really? We figured that when Ivy shifted lion that Enid's story was true."

"Mom's parentage may very well be true, but Aunt Patty said there was a lot of uncertainty around whose version of events was true, grandma's version where she told her dad that she was raped
after
she was found to be pregnant, and the guy's version, which was more like it was a consensual thing."

"Don't most rapists say 'she wanted it?'"

Bella stiffened, and Mac jumped in to apologize.

"Bella, I didn't mean to make light..."

"I know. It's ok. Really. I too have heard that. But Aunt Patty said that she herself saw grandma and the guy together on a few occasions, and that she always had doubts."

"Interesting. That makes sense, though. As sisters growing up together, she would have been privy to some things, I'd bet. What kind of stuff did she see that makes her doubt?"

"She wouldn't say. She said she was too tired after all the excitement and that she was too old for this staying up shit and she was going to bed," Bella laughed, quoting her. "She did say that she'd tell us everything she knows tomorrow at breakfast, so I guess until then it's still a mystery."

"So, until then..."

It got quiet again, and Mac broke the silence this time.

"Did the others tell you what we figured out about Sammy?"

"That he couldn't have been a shifter? Yeah, they told me. Of course Keelyn had to say that the baby still could be, since we do carry shifter blood, and then she grinned at Ivy."

Mac laughed, "Yeah, that does sound like something Keelyn would say."

"So, Ivy..." Mac drawled, after they agreed that Keelyn was a bit of a troublemaker.

"Yeah, Ivy. That's actually one of the things I came out here to talk to you about. Mac, I'd like to apologize to you. You've been nothing but amazing to me, and I repaid that by being a total bitch about a lot of things.

The events of tonight have opened my eyes to things that I never thought I'd ever have to face. Everything mom said, about the past, and about grandma, at first only cemented my beliefs. But now? After seeing Ivy shift, after watching her single handedly take down another lion, for me, well I guess it came down to the fact that I love my sister. Both of them. If one of them is a shifter, and the other one loves a shifter, then maybe I'm the one with the stereotype issues.

I'd never met a shifter in real life before you, that I know of anyway.

You, Bane and Naythan, you guys have been nothing but kind and loving and protective in everything you have done since you guys all got here.

I can see how much Bane loves Kee, and how much she loves him back. If Bane can make a were-hunter fall for a were, if they can make it work and look past each other's history's, then I can, too.

I thought Sammy was a shifter, because he was so animalistic in his attack, and because everything I'd ever heard about shifters was bad, but the worst man I've ever had contact with wasn't a shifter, he was human. And some of the best men I've ever had the pleasure, and the honor, of knowing
are
shifters.

I know that no one gets to choose how they are born, and that point was driven home with Ivy. We all make the best of who we are and what we are, and I'm willing to admit that I could be wrong about shifters as a whole.

Obviously there are bad shifters, as it sounds like those lions at the castle are, but obviously there are good ones as well, and I'm ashamed to admit that I've been judging them all, even though I had never met one.

I'm sorry for that. I was wrong, and I'm sorry."

Mac looked down at her, his gaze locked on hers as she spoke. He had stayed still and quiet as she spoke, but his heart was swelling with joy and love. He smiled at her, letting some of what he was feeling show on his face and in his eyes.

"My sweet Bella. You have no idea how happy I am to hear you say that. I owe you an apology as well. I hope you can forgive me for hiding my true self from you. The bear part, anyway. The rest was real. Everything was real, Bella.

I know I've already told you this, but that was different. I've spoken these words before, trying to reach you through your anger and betrayal, but I'd like to say them again.

I fell for you the moment I first saw you. My bear knew you were someone special, as did I, even as I wasn't sure how it would work.

I'd do anything for you, anything at all. From making you tea to protecting you with my body to keep you safe.

I know our relationship is young, but for me Bell, it is forever. Bears mate for life, so take your time, if you need to. Be sure in your choice, because once you accept my heart, it won't beat for anyone but you."

Mac stayed still, even though his bear was crying out to touch her. He wanted to pull her close and hug her tight, to rain kisses all over every inch of her, and to bury himself in her, until they both were one.

But he knew the choice had to be hers, as he'd already made his. He had chosen her long before, but for this to work, she had to choose him, too.

He inhaled sharply as she placed her hands on his chest, and as she rose to her toes, her mouth lifting toward his, he heard her whisper.

"Ivy said it best when she told me- choose open, not closed. Choose forgiveness, choose happiness, choose joy. I'm choosing those, but above all, I'm choosing love, and I'm choosing you."

Her lips pressed softly against his. As her arms slipped up and around his neck, he wrapped his arms around her. She felt so right in his arms, even better than before. Before a huge secret stood between them, now there was nothing between them but honesty and their open hearts.

She parted her lips under his, in teasing invitation, and he accepted.

He kissed her slowly, deepening the kiss as she started to melt against him, molding herself to him.

Fully aware of what happened the last time he let his need for her loose, he took extra pains to be gentle with her. He would have loved to bend her over one of the hay bales, tug her pants down around her knees and slide into her, curving his body around hers and filling her with his cock, but he knew he'd have to control his bear if he wanted her to feel safe with him.