by T. Cobbin
He had felt the love in the room. The smiles on the family’s faces, the subtle touches here and there. He’d caught the playfulness of Belle’s mother. Although she was sick, she’d still asked him to kiss her cheek, knowing not only that her mate wasn’t far from her but it would get a reaction from him too—even if Shawn was potentially family. That was before the grief had taken over. The scent of pain, loss, and even guilt overtook everything else. He wanted to go over to Belle, to scoop her up in his arms. He would plead, beg, or swap his life to any higher power, if there was one, to give this loving family more time together.
Belle’s father lay a hand on his daughter’s head while his females cried together. Shawn watched as a stray tear fell down the old man’s face.
If Shawn’s heart felt like it was gripped in a vise, what did Belle’s feel like? His heart broke as he watched his mate sit by her sick mother’s bed, clutching her hand and crying so hard her whole body was shaking.
He moved slowly forward to lift Belle into his arms, but she pushed him away, so he changed tactics and sat on the floor behind her. He tried to wrap his arms around her, hoping he could help comfort her in some way. Again she pushed him away. He began to worry. Why wouldn’t she let him help her? Why did she keep pushing him away? He couldn’t take her pain away, but he could offer some kind of comfort, but she wouldn’t let him.
Taking a deep breath, he reminded himself that this wasn’t Rosie, this was his mate. This was Belle, and she was hurting. She wasn’t pushing him away destructively.
He thought back to when his parents had been killed. He’d wanted to scream and yell, he had wanted to punch, hit, or kick something. Most of all though, he had wanted someone to blame. Was that how Belle felt right now? Was she looking for someone to blame for her mother’s impending death?
Shawn couldn’t let his feelings of rejection rule him. If Belle needed someone to direct her grief onto, he would be there for her.
Mate hurting.
I know, my friend. Shawn sighed.
I help?
You know what, that actually might be a good idea.
Without another thought, Shawn began his shift, giving free rein to his other half. His eyesight became clearer. His hearing improved to the point he could hear the skittering of bugs around them. His clothes shredded, and fur threaded through every pore until finally Shawn’s near seven-hundred-pound tiger stood in his place, shaking his fur out.
Without preamble, his tiger curled his huge body around his grieving mate’s and tucked his head onto her lap. He purred lightly, letting her know he was with her in one form or another. He knew the vibration from his throat would echo along her skin even though it was covered in cloth. When one of Belle’s hands lowered and gave a quick stroke behind his ear, he knew he’d done right in offering her comfort. Shawn’s tiger purred a little louder in response.
* * * *
Almost two hours later the family—including Shawn—gathered in the kitchen. The air felt thick with grief.
“Why don’t you youngsters go for a run?” Belle’s father suggested. “Take your mind off things for a little while.”
Shawn thought that was a good idea, but Belle shook her head.
“Your mother isn’t dead yet, girl. Now go out there, take your mate and run. Believe me, you will feel loads better.”
Shawn saw the determination in her father’s eyes, so when Belle looked at her father defiantly, he coaxed her himself.
“Come on, love, your dad is right.” When she shook her head yet again, he tried to bait her. “My cat says you don’t want to let his female out because he is faster anyway.”
His beast was calling out to his female in Shawn’s mind, as if she could hear him. He didn’t like their mate feeling as bad as she did.
With a growl of annoyance, Belle rose from her seat and moved to the back of the house, where she undressed and shifted lightning fast. By the time Shawn was undressed, she had already disappeared into the trees.
Belle ran like there was a beast after her. She ran so fast and furiously that Shawn’s tiger watched nothing but her cat’s tail swish in aggravation while he ran behind her. Eventually he’d had enough of seeing her behind and decided it was time for his mate to let her anger loose another way. He gathered speed to catch up with her, and when he was within the space to pounce on her without injury, he did.
“What the fuck are you doing, or should I say what is your fucking beast doing?” Belle asked.
“My tiger has decided you and yours need to calm down, and instead of seeing your backside, he wishes you to lose your negative emotions another way. Blame him, not me,” Shawn replied with a mental smirk.
He received a growl from both Belle and her cat. Within seconds Belle’s cat flipped off Shawn’s using the strength of her back legs and began circling her mate while showing her teeth and growling low.
“Pissed much?” Shawn taunted.
“This is not the time to fucking piss me off…or my cat!”
Although Shawn paused inside of his tiger’s head at her answer, his cat continued to counter her cat’s moves. Shawn, however, was suddenly thrown back into the past. Rosie shouting and screaming at him. Her hands slapping at his skin. Her feet and fists kicking and thumping. Her face red with anger. He couldn’t do this again. Reaching out to his beast, he tried to rein it in.
We need to stop. We can’t make her angry at us…at me. Please, Shawn begged.
This is our mate. It not the same as She Devil, his tiger argued. Mate get bad news, she angry. She allowed.
But… He knew his tiger was right, but what if it continued? What if this was the start to another abusive relationship?
Not happen! You believe mate will treat you bad?
Rosie didn’t treat me bad at the beginning. Guilt swamped him when he’d realized he’d actually taunted Belle, his tiger had too. He’d never had the guts to do that before with Rosie. We need to stop. This is all my fault.
How your fault?
I started this… I let you start this… I added to it.
Let me take care of mate.
Shawn sighed and gave up trying to argue. Something inside of him knew that this wasn’t the same thing. He was judging Belle on the grounds of a previous relationship. After spending time with her he knew deep down that she wasn’t like Rosie.
Shawn’s tiger struck, bringing Shawn out of his thoughts. He pounced on Belle’s beast and dragged her to the ground. With flailing paws both tigers scrabbled together until the female was free and began circling him again. Shawn realized the female wasn’t running.
She enjoying game. His tiger purred.
You no win, the female taunted.
Not answering her, Shawn’s beast struck again. He bounded and landed on the back half of Belle’s cat. Her legs failed and dropped to the floor, the weight of Shawn’s cat keeping her down. The female feline bucked and rolled over, but Shawn’s cat hung on for dear life. He was determined to win her submission.
For what seemed like forever the female fought, but gradually her muscles relaxed and a yowl ripped through the air. Immediately, Shawn’s feline moved up and over the female, his teeth sinking into her neck. Shawn felt Belle’s cat freeze, and victorious feelings flowed through his tiger.
I win. You mine. Shawn’s tiger purred, sending vibrations through his mouth to the female below him. Her tail whipped to the side in the last act of defiance, then she relaxed totally underneath him.
Only because I let you.
Mine!
This time, the female replied before a purr ripped from her throat when her mate impaled her.
As the birds sang and the day continued, both tigers played, talked, and mated until finally a few hours later they walked home side by side in a relaxed manner. Both Shawn and his tiger could still scent the pain and grief rolling off their mate; it seemed to weigh down heavily on her. They didn’t like it one bit, but there was only one cure for grief…time.
Chapter 14
The atmosphere was quiet and surly at Belle’s parents’ house as they all sat around the dinner table. Although her mother was ill, Belle’s father had carried her to the table to join them in a meal. Even though her plate was barely touched she joined in the chatter and storytelling that her father started to break through the silence. It led to him telling Shawn a lot of the antics Belle had gotten into when she was younger. She knew her face was the color of a beetroot through some of the stories. As Shawn and her parents chuckled, Belle couldn’t help but smile, and the atmosphere in the room warmed, becoming warm and toasty. This was what their normal mealtime had been like before her mother had gotten sick.
Belle watched her mother throughout the evening. She grew paler and paler until finally her father rose from the table and bid both her and Shawn goodnight. Picking his wife up in his arms, he walk toward their bedroom. Belle watched as they left the room. The love the pair still had for each other was in their eyes, the way her father carried his mate, his fingers caressing bare skin, and the occasional duck of his head when he kissed her.
“I want that,” she said with awe, her heart fluttering.
She wanted to be loved as deeply as her father loved her mother. The love she had with Shawn was still so new. An image appeared in her mind of Shawn carrying her to their bed like that in fifty years’ time. As her parents disappeared behind closed doors she looked toward her own mate.
“There’s nothing stopping us from having that.” Shawn, who’d been sitting beside her through their meal, moved closer and gathered her into his arms. She couldn’t resist curling her body into his.
“You really think so?”
“Yep.” He kissed the top of her head.
Looking up and into his eyes, she saw he wanted that too. She supposed coming out of a destructive relationship he would. “How can you want to be with me so quick after…you know, Rosie?” She watched sadness creep into his blue eyes, and they seemed to turn a shade darker.
He sighed, then said, “First off, I think being you are my fated mate, it was hard to resist. When I first spotted you it was love at first sight. Your body, your eyes, your tiger. Everything called out to me, but with Rosie so fresh in my mind, I tried to push you away. You, however, are quite persistent and wouldn’t stay away.” He chuckled, his eyes sparkling. “I’m glad you didn’t,” he said and gently laid a whisper of a kiss to her lips. “As shifters we know who our other half is. With Rosie it was different. It was lust at first sight. But even though I grew to love her, my tiger didn’t. It was hard work. I did love her at first, but then I suppose fear of being alone and never meeting ‘the one’ kept me with her. I know if I had left her, her brothers would have handed me my arse. But it was a beating I would…could have taken. I might even have laid them out. But the fear of actually taking a beating…well, it’s massive.” Shawn sighed deeply. “I never even introduced my tiger to her, and I couldn’t even if I had wanted to, because he slept, hiding away, because he strongly disagreed with who I had chosen. I think the reason I stayed with Rosie was for company. I hated being on my own. I know now if I had left her, my beast would have spoken more to me, but at that time I didn’t know that.”
“That’s what I don’t understand.” Belle twisted in his arms to look at him properly. “You had a choice, you could have left her at any time. Why put yourself through so much?”
Belle wanted to understand, she needed to know. It was something that had niggled at her ever since she’d met him. He was a shifter, so he had more strength than an average human. He could have walked away from that relationship if he’d wanted to before it ended as it did.
“It had been so long since my beast had spoken to me I felt incredibly lost. I had nothing really. She took care of the money, the bills. Even the car I drove was in her name. By the time I realized she had control over everything that happened in my life, it was too late to stop it. It got so bad that I thought I’d done something so wrong that fate was telling me I wasn’t entitled to a happily ever after.”
“But you could have left, just taken a few clothes maybe. You could have fought her for your money.” Feelings of frustration grew inside her. Why hadn’t he left her? Why hadn’t he fought for himself?
She could feel Shawn begin to withdraw, the metaphorical space between them growing. She could feel the waves of frustration grow from him as well as the scent of pain.
“If I could explain it, I would,” he replied, his voice upping a notch in volume. “I loved her in the beginning. But over time I felt worthless, like I deserved it. When you’re in the situation you can justify everything that happens. Now? I don’t know, I feel stupid explaining why I stayed so long. I feel like an idiot for letting her hit me and abuse me. A couple of times I held her wrists to stop her from hitting me, but she always accused me of wanting to hit her. She would say I was the one abusing her. ‘What do you want to do, hit me?’ She’d repeat it over and over until I felt guilty for trying to stop her.” Shawn growled low, running his hands through his hair. “Sometimes I did want to hit her back, or just slap her to make her stop. But I knew that would make things a whole lot worse.”
Belle could see, let alone scent and feel, the boiling anger inside him. He wanted to lash out. For some reason she wanted him to; she wanted him to get angry, to allow his pain out. It was like watching a ticking bomb.
Shawn’s hands paused on top of his head, his fingers tangled in his hair. It was like whiplash to watch so many emotions flicker through him. One moment she felt the boiling lava of anger inside him, then he raised his walls and…nothing. It was like he’d shut down.
“Defeated. That’s how I felt.” He slumped in his seat, his hands wringing together in front of him. “In the end, it was as if I wanted her to take my pain away…to kill me.”
A lone tear dripped over his eyelid to fall down his face. Belle raised a hand and covered his cheek with her palm, the tear stopped by her thumb.
“I couldn’t even do it myself. Every time I picked up a blade or I even thought about suicide… I just couldn’t do it.” His whole body shook with emotion. He looked crushed. It was as if his admittance for wanting to die had killed part of his soul. Belle couldn’t stand watching her mate in so much pain.
They ours, her tiger reminded her. My mate hurt too for leaving him on his own for so long.
We will help them mend, Belle vowed to her cat.
With a mental firm nod from her beast, Belle wrapped her hands around Shawn’s biceps and tugged him toward her. At first he resisted, but with determination to help her mate, she persevered until she won out and he rested his head on her chest. Once he settled, she hugged him around his shoulders, holding him as tightly as she could.
“No more wanting to die, right?” She could feel her own tears sliding down her cheeks. To think of her mate in so much pain then and now hurt her too. She wanted him to live, not just for her, mainly for himself.
Shawn didn’t answer or move.
“Right?” she asked more firmly. She felt him nod. Tucking her face into his neck, she pulled his spicy scent deep into her lungs. “It’s okay. I have you now,” she whispered in his ear.
Belle had no idea how long they sat together at her parents’ table, holding each other. Gradually the room became darker. She knew she still had a question to ask Shawn. Sitting up straight, she pushed Shawn away slightly to look at his face.
She grimaced a little, wondering what his answer would be. “Um, would you mind staying here… I mean as in…living here?” She looked down toward her lap. “I don’t want to leave my mum, with her being so sick.”
“Hey.” Shawn’s slid a finger under her chin, lifting it up. Sorrow still filled his eyes, but so did compassion. “We are in this together, right?” He smiled. “If we were homeless and had to live in a box, I would do it. Sweetheart, I would follow you to the moon and back.”
Wrapping her arms around his neck, she hugged him. “This place has thin enough walls for card
board city.” She giggled.
“Come on,” Shawn said, urging her to stand up. “Let’s get cleaned up and head to bed. Then perhaps I’ll fuck you…albeit very quietly. We can get my stuff tomorrow. There isn’t much, so it won’t take a lot of time.”
“It’s a good plan.” With one last hug and a quick kiss, she released her man and started collecting the dinner dishes from the table.
* * * *
The next morning Belle and Shawn were sitting at the table eating breakfast when her father walked in. Belle felt the wariness slip into Shawn, and his muscles stiffened, waiting for some kind of response from her father. Her father smiled at the pair of them, and Shawn promptly relaxed.
“Morning, Pop,” Belle said, rising and kissing her father on the cheek.
“Just getting some coffee for your ma and me. How’d you both sleep?” he asked.
“We slept good,” Belle replied. “How did Mum sleep?”
“Up and down, babe. The weather looks good this morning, and she wants to sit in the garden for a bit today, so I’m gonna take her outside later.”
“We’re going to take a walk back to Shawn’s to pick his stuff up. We won’t be long. Then, with it being Sunday, I’ll cook us a roast.” Sundays were important to her family, it was a day they spent together. No work, no patrols, nothing. After sleeping late, Belle and her mother would cook a large Sunday roast together. Afterward, when they were all stuffed and happy, they’d watch a movie or go for a stroll.
“You’re picking Shawn’s stuff up why?” her father asked, pausing from spooning coffee into two cups.
“We’re going to stay here, Pop, with you and Mum. I can—”
“Hey now, love,” Belle’s father interrupted her. “You don’t have to stay here. You are newly mated, and Shawn has his own place, right?” Her father sat down beside her, taking her hand in his.
“Pop, I want to stay here. Shawn says he’s okay with it. Please.” The word please came out as a small whine.