“So you said,” Roger huffed. “Can we talk?”
Well, it needed done anyway, so I nodded and eased myself down in the chair opposite the couch. “Of course.”
Roger watched me for several minutes without speaking and the silence between us made me twitch. When he finally spoke, I nearly jumped.
“Jeremy told me what you talked about,” Roger said, his voice so low I almost couldn’t hear him. “That you are leaving me.”
I nodded. “I found a job that comes with a place to live,” I confirmed, not sure why he was looking so sad. “I was going to tell you, though. I swear, I was.”
“Because you think I don’t want you here,” Roger commented.
“Because I don’t want you forced to take care of me just because a condom tore,” I corrected. “He, ah, told me about the baby,” I hedged. “That it won’t be human.”
Roger’s brow twitched slightly and his eyes narrowed just a touch. “No. It won’t.”
“He thought that might make me rethink my decision to carry it to term,” I said baldly. “I just want you to know that it won’t. I know you want the baby,” I rushed on. “I’ll take the best care of it I can for you.”
Now Roger was full on staring at me. “You’ll take care of it,” he repeated, “for me?”
I nodded, eager to put his mind at ease. “Of course. You’ve been very nice to me and I really appreciate it. It’s the least I can do.”
Roger’s eyes widened in something like alarm. “You’re having our child as afucking favorto me?” he hissed, anger overtaking his face in a way I’d never seen before. “Then what? You just hand it over and walk away?”
I hesitated, unsure what I’d said to make him so angry. “You said you wanted it,” I reminded him, my voice a little shaky. “That Alphas want to be in their children’s lives.”
“So, I can have our child, but you don’t want any part of this?” Roger had quickly tamped his anger down, but his voice was brutally cold. “You’re just walking away?”
Confusion was clouding my mind and that awful internal itch was starting under my skin as I struggled to understand what I’d done wrong. “Not now,” I tried to assure him. “Not with your baby. I wouldn’t do that. I’m staying in the area until the birth.”
“Right.” Roger stood abruptly and started toward the door, his voice tense. “Please make sure you leave a forwarding address so I can send the support money.”
And before I could form a response, he was gone and the slam of the door was echoing through the room.
I sat for several minutes but he didn’t return, so I finally began collecting my belongings, shoving them into a couple of grocery store bags. I walked back to my new home and dropped them inside the door before collapsing on the bed and releasing the tears I’d been holding back.
Of all of the beings I’d met and counted as friends since my rescue capture at Omega Destiny, International, Roger was the only one that made me feel like my world was complete and now it seemed I’d messed that up and I didn’t understand how.
Chapter Nineteen
Roger
My arm was up before our unit commander had finished speaking and most of the assembled brigade members groaned as one. I ignored them, keeping my gaze on Commander Alfried’s face, making it harder for him to skip over me to choose someone who had volunteered after me.
Alfried sighed. “Honstein, you sure about this? It would be your tenth recon mission in under two weeks.”
Actually, it would be my eleventh, but I certainly wasn’t going to correct him. Instead, I nodded and leaned back in my chair.
“Fine.” He finished briefing the unit on the current situation and then gestured me to the door at the side of the room that led to his private office.
“Roger,” Alfried began, waving his hand for me to take a seat. “I’m starting to worry about you, son.” Tim Alfried was a fatherly sort who never referred to us by our nicknames the way most of the brass did.
“There’s no need,” I assured him. “I just have time and energy to kill.” I shrugged and flashed him a cocky smile, “Besides, unless there’s something you need to tell me, I’m still the best you’ve got.”
Alfried gave me a rueful smile. “You know damn well you are,” he agreed, “but I feel like you’re trying to use the job to exorcise your personal demons and we all know how that can end.”
“Badly,” I agreed immediately, “but I’m not. It’s not like that at all.”
Actually, it was pretty much exactly like that. In the two months since I’d walked back onto the base to request an end to my previously approved emergency leave of absence – the one I’d forfeited my newly granted promotion to request the day I found out about Ari’s neglect problem- my hand had been the first one in the air to volunteer for every dangerous assignment. The riskier it was, the more desperate I was to be the werewolf assigned to it.
