“So you’re saying it’s a bad idea?”
“That’s not what I said, but it’s a big decision, and racing to make it might lead to you having regrets.”
He let go of my hand, and at first I thought he was angry, but then he rolled onto his side and was looking at me. I did the same, my eyes on his face in the dim light of the moon cascading through the crack in the curtains.
“What if I’m a hunter? What if I hurt our baby?”
And there it was, what was really nagging at his brain.
“You aren’t and you never would.”
“But what if?”
“The what-ifs that could never be are not the what-ifs you should be worried about.”
“You don’t know that. Sometimes I think the baby would be safer with you, without me around.”
My heart broke. He wasn’t rejecting me or our child. He was trying to love and protect, and that was a whole lot to take in.
“Hunters are not real. You are not dangerous. Just the fact that you’d be willing to walk away to keep our pup safe… that right there is all the proof we need that you could never hurt them. Our baby is safe with you.”
This wasn’t the first time we’d had this conversation, and I feared it wouldn’t be the last. For some reason my message wasn’t being received, and I didn’t know how to fix that.
“I’m gonna say something, and I don’t want you to be mad. What about therapy?”
“That sounds like a really bad idea.” Rawling’s immediate rejection didn’t surprise me. I’d have probably done the same, but I would do anything about now to help him. “This isn’t something I can just talk about.”
“No. I mean, yes, you can or we can. Not the hunter stuff, but the rest?” Why did he have to be right? “We’re in this together as mates. I’ll be by your side the entire time.”
“Have you noticed that the health services here don’t offer that and no one mentions their therapist in public spaces? There’s a reason for that. There aren’t any, not for us.”
“Yeah, I know, but there’s got to be one, right? Just because we don’t see them doesn’t mean…” I didn’t finish my thought. Telling him that not seeing something didn’t mean they didn’t exist was as good as saying hunters might be real. Not really, but he’d see it that way.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized he was right, though. Without resources at the ready, we were at a standstill. It wasn’t like we could go to humans.
Therapy might not be feasible, but there had to be something I could do to help. I knew part of his struggles were that Rawling had held things in for so long paired with a past he didn’t fully understand.
It was the two of us against the world on this. It wasn’t like there was anyone we could talk to. My parents were supportive, but I needed them to stay that way. And sure, Atticus was my closest friend, though not anymore, but no one was giving him an empathy award.
“I love you.” I leaned over and kissed his cheek. “We’ll figure it out.” And I meant every word. “I think we just need some sleep. We’re too tired for this conversation.”
I needed to come up with some sort of a plan, and a clear head would go a lot farther than what I was currently dealing with. I waited till he fell asleep before allowing myself to do the same.
I didn’t know if it was a dream or a noise outside, but something woke me with a start. I sat straight up to discover I was alone and, from the scent of it, had been for a while. I threw on some jeans and followed my mate’s scent.
My mind played the “what-if” game he was so good at, and it led me straight to his old room, the one Jack still lived in with Bardoul. Bardoul, who wasn’t exactly on good terms with Rawling at the moment.
“Hey.” Rawling looked at me, but it was like he wasn’t there. He was breathing like he’d just run a mile after being on the couch for a year, and his eyes never fully seemed to register who I was. Wonderful.
I wanted to put my hand on his shoulder, but he pushed me away, which, if he was sleepwalking, made sense because he wouldn’t know who I was. That wasn’t what shocked me. What did was how strong he was. Even if I had expected it, I would’veended up on the ground. His strength outdid mine, and I was an alpha.
“Rawling, Mate, what’s going on?” I slowly stood up. “You’re safe. You’re fine.”
I tried to play in my head all the things I’d learned about sleepwalking and realized every single one of them was from a sitcom and held no actual useful information.
“Hey, listen, love. I need you. Our baby needs you. Please come back to me.”
I didn’t know which of those phrases it was that worked, but Rawling snapped back. It was as if I was looking at a stranger in my mate’s body and then suddenly Rawling was back.
