The King (Black Dagger Brotherhood #12)(85)

God, she’d known he wasn’t happy, but she’d had no idea it went this deep.

Then again, when was the last time they’d actually talked like this? The nightly grind coupled with the stress of the Band of Bastards and their bullshit …

“I didn’t know.” She sighed. “I mean, I was aware that you were unhappy, but…”

“I don’t like talking about it. I don’t want you worrying about me.”

“But I do anyway. I know you’ve been stressed—and I wish I could help in some way.”

“That’s my point. There’s no help for it, Beth. There’s nothing anyone can do—and even if I had perfect eyesight and the risks of pregnancy were no BFD? I still wouldn’t want to dump this shit on the next generation. It’s a cruelty I wouldn’t do to someone I hate, much less my own f*cking child.” He laughed harshly. “Hell, I should let Xcor have the goddamn throne. Serve him right.”

Beth shook her head. “All I want is for you to be happy.” Actually, that wasn’t true. “But I can’t lie. I love you, and yet I still…”

Boy, did she get an idea of how he felt about the no-words thing.

He’d found a way to talk, though.

“I almost can’t explain it.” She curled a fist over her heart. “It’s like this emptiness in the center of my chest. It has nothing to do with you or how I feel about you. It’s inside of me—it’s like a switch got flipped, you know? And I wish I could be more articulate than that, but it’s hard to describe. I didn’t even know what it was … until one of those nights, when Z took Bella down to our place in Manhattan and I babysat? I was hanging out in that suite of theirs, with Nalla asleep in my lap, and I just kept looking at all of the stuff they had in their room. The changing table, the mobiles, that crib … all the wipes and the bottles and the pacis. And I just thought … I want this. All of it. The Diaper Genie, and the rubber ducks, and the late days. The poop and the sweet bath-time smell, the crying and the cooing, the clichéd pink and the robin’s-egg blue—whatever we get. And listen, I sat on it. I really did. It was such a shock that I thought—it’s a mood, a phase, a rose-colored delusion I was going to snap out of.”

“When did you…” He cleared his throat. “How long ago was this?”

“Over a year.”

“Damn…”

“Like I said, I’ve felt like this for a while. And I thought you’d change your mind. I knew it wasn’t a priority for you.” She was trying to be diplomatic on that one. “I thought … well, now that I’m saying it, I realize I never did talk to you about where I was at. There just hasn’t been time.”

“I’m sorry. I know I already apologized, but … goddamn it.”

“It’s all right.” She closed her eyes. “And I know where you’re coming from. It’s not like I haven’t seen you every night looking like you wanted to be anywhere else but where you were.”

There was another long silence.

“There’s something else,” he said after a while.

“What?”

“I think you’re going into your needing. Soon.”

Even as Beth’s jaw dropped open, in the back of her mind, something kindled. “I … how do you know?”

The mood swings. The chocolate cravings. The weight gain …

“Shit,” she said. “I, ah … oh, shit.”

Annnnnnnnd that just about summed it up, Wrath thought as he eased back in the library’s desk chair. At his feet, George was stretched out on the rug, that big, boxy head resting on one of Wrath’s shitkickers as if offering support.

“I can’t be sure.” Wrath rubbed his aching temple. “But as your mate, I’m going to be affected as soon as your hormones start fluxing—my blood runs hotter, my emotions are stronger, my temper gets really touchy. Like, you’re out of the house now, right? And I feel more myself than I have in about two weeks. But during that argument we had? I was kinda nuts.”

“Two weeks … that’s about the time I started checking in and then sitting with Layla. And yeah, you were really out there.”

“Now”—he held up his forefinger to make the point even though she wasn’t with him in person—“this is not to excuse the way I behaved. It’s just context. I can talk to you over the phone like this and keep it together enough so I can explain myself. When you’re with me? Again, not an excuse and not your fault, but I’m wondering if it didn’t play a part in all of that.”

As he leaned to the side and put his hand on his dog, George lifted his head, the golden seeking, sniffing, giving a little lick. Stroking the long waves that grew from that barrel chest, Wrath pulled them out and flattened them on George’s forelegs.

“God, Wrath, when I didn’t wake up with you just now…”

“Horrible. I know. It was the same for me—or maybe even worse. I wasn’t sure whether I’d really f*cked things up. Like, no-going-back-f*cked-up.”

“You haven’t.” There was a rustling, like she was shifting around on the bed. “And I guess I knew we’ve been kind of working in parallel for the last while. I just hadn’t realized how much time we’ve lost—and other things. Going down to Manhattan, getting away together, really talking. It’s been a while.”