“I know you.” His mouth pressed against her hair as his arms tightened around her. “I know my mate.”
Becky broke then, her hands fisting in his shirt as she cried against him. Sloan held her, careful of her hand, careful of the glass, careful of everything but the rage still burning inside him. That rage could wait. Whoever had done this could wait. Becky couldn’t.
“I’m scared,” she whispered, the words barely making it past her tears.
“I know.” Sloan closed his eyes, pressing his lips against the top of her head. “But you’re not doing this alone. Do you hear me? Not one second of it.”
She pulled back just enough to look at him, and the pain in her eyes damn near took him under again. “What if?—”
“No.” His voice was low, but firm. “No what ifs tonight. Tonight, you and I breathe. That’s it.”
Her chin trembled. “How can you be so calm?”
“I’m not.” Sloan brushed the tears from her cheek with his thumb. “I’m the furthest thing from calm, but you need me, so that’s what I’m going to be.”
Becky stared at him like she wanted to believe him, like she needed to believe him, but he knew fear still had its claws dug in deep.
Sloan shifted, lifting her carefully from the broken glass and setting her on the closed toilet seat before kneeling in front of her. Carefully, his touch gentle even though every part of him wanted to tear something apart, he lifted her hand and took her thumb into his mouth. He tasted her sweet blood as he ran his tongue along the cut. Their eye contact never broke. Slowly he pulled her thumb from his mouth. “Are you hurt anywhere else?”
She shook her head. “No.”
His eyes moved over her anyway, taking in the tears, the blood, the way she held herself like she was trying not to fall apart again. It gutted him. This was Becky. His Becky. The woman who stood toe-to-toe with Warriors, put him in his place more times than he could count, and never backed down from much of anything. Seeing her like this, so lost and terrified, was a kind of pain he hadn’t known existed.
“Please don’t cry,” he said, waiting until her eyes met his again. “We’ll deal with this, together.”
Fresh tears filled her eyes. “Together?”
“Always.” Sloan crouched in front of her, his hands resting on her knees. “You are my mate. Nothing changes that.”
Her hand shook as it moved to her stomach. “I don’t even know how I feel.” Her face crumbled, but he knew she was trying not to cry. “How I should feel?”
“There are no rules for this.” His voice softened in a way few ever heard.
“I’m terrified.” She looked away, tears slipping down her cheeks.
Hearing that his mate was terrified of anything tore through him with a rage that kept him silent. He was afraid to open his mouth in that moment because he knew she would hear his fury, and he didn’t want her to think any of it was directed at her.
“But...” Her fingers curled against her stomach. “There’s a part of me that already loves this baby, and that scares me too. Because I don’t know what I’m allowed to feel. I don’t know if I’m supposed to be happy or angry or disgusted or broken.”
Sloan’s chest tightened until it hurt. “You’re allowed to feel all of it.”
Her eyes came back to his.
“All of it,” he repeated. “There is no right way to feel after what you’ve been through.”
“What about you?” she whispered.
Sloan didn’t answer right away because he wouldn’t lie to her. Not about this. Never about this. “I’m angry,” he said finally. “Angrier than I’ve ever been in my life. But not at you. Never at you.”
Becky’s breath hitched.
“The child is innocent.” Sloan’s voice roughened as his eyes dropped to where her hand rested. “A part of you, and because of that, mine to protect.”
A sob slipped from her.
He knew what those words meant. Knew the weight of them. He wasn’t saying them because it was the honorable thing to say or because she needed to hear it. He meant every damn word. Whatever was happening, whatever truth waited for them in the morning, Becky was his. And anything that came from her, an innocent life caught in the middle of this nightmare, would be protected with everything he was.
Sloan reached up, cupping her face in both hands. “Look at me.”
