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TAYTE
Damn, my head hurt.
I forced my eyes to open, though they didn’t want to. There was Sam, by my side. In a stark white room I had to assume was the hospital.
“Hey.” I swallowed, trying to make my mouth work properly. I was as dry as the desert.
“Hey, yourself,” Sam said, standing up. “How are you feeling?”
“Like I got pulled through a hedge—backwards.”
Everything hurt. My head, my chest, my belly, my legs.
“Yeah, well you did a pretty good job of almost dying, but we weren’t gonna let you.”
“How? Oh...”
The memories of this morning came back to me in a flash of pain and knives and cruel laughter. “The bears.”
“Yes, the bears. What were you thinking, giving yourself over to them?”
He sounded angry at me, which was strange. After everything that had happened with Celeste, I’d thought Sam would be relieved to get rid of me.
“I was fixing all our problems in one go. The bears would leave the pack alone, and you three could be happy without me.”
That got me a soft punch in the arm.
“Ow.”
My head spun from the pain and he shoved a handle into my palm.
“Push this button. It’s morphine.”
I glanced down at the green button and pressed it. Anything to help with the throb in my brain.
“Thanks.”
I lay my head back and tried to swallow again. It was like the desert in my mouth.
“Is there any water?”
Sam handed me a cup and I swallowed some down, the brief wetness enough to get my tongue to unstick from the roof of my mouth.
I closed my eyes, the pain dragging on me.
“How’s Celeste? Is she okay?”
There was silence in response to my question and then the whoosh of a curtain.
“How ‘bout you ask her yourself?”
I lifted my head and opened my eyes.
There was my beautiful mate, standing in the doorway. Her hair fell around her like a halo, and she held our baby in her arms.
Tears filled her eyes as she stared at me.
I tried to smile, unsure of the response I’d get from her. I was pretty sure last time we’d spoken, she’d broken up with me. “Hey, beautiful.”
Celeste sobbed as she threw herself down on to the bed with me. I suppressed my groan of pain as she placed her head on my chest, the baby cradled between us.
“Tayte... oh my God. You’re okay.”
She lifted her face to me, her eyes shiny with the unshed tears.
She’d forgiven me?
I tentatively reached down with my good hand and cupped her face.
“Of course, I’m okay. How are you?”
She sobbed again and pushed herself up so that she could kiss my lips, the saltiness of her tears on my tongue.
When she pulled back, my heart ached. I’d missed her love so much.
She sniffed and wiped at her face. “I was so worried about you. I am so sorry about what happened the other night. I should never have even been there, let alone believed the lies you told the bears. I should have known better, and I am so, so, sorry for everything.”
Tears fell down her face and I looked to Sam for guidance.
He just sat in the chair, watching and waiting.
I rubbed her back with my good arm, then pulled it back in close to me, the pain too great to move far.
“Stop crying, Celeste, it’s okay. I totally understand why you wanted me to move out. It’s your right to reject any one of us, if you have cause. And you did. But I couldn’t stand by while my pack and the whole town was in danger. I saw a way out, for all of us. So I took it.”
Celeste hoisted up the baby and placed her on my chest on her stomach.
She was the most perfect little thing. Rosebud lips and pale, soft skin.
I would have missed all of this.
Celeste shook her head. “No. You should have stayed and fought to remain in our family. This little girl needs her daddy, and I don’t want you to ever, no matter what, think of leaving us again. I promise you, it will be the same for me. No more running away.”
I looked at my mate, and then back to my daughter, my eyes burning with the strangest feeling.
I swallowed hard. Did this mean that everything was okay? That they still wanted me?
“What have you called her?”
Celeste smiled and stroked the baby’s head.
“I haven’t named her anything yet. I wanted your approval.”
I raised my good arm to touch my baby’s soft hair.
“All right. What would you like to call her?”
Celeste met my gaze and I saw a lot of love and uncertainty there. “Destiny. After all, it was Destiny that brought us together.”
I smiled as the sound of our daughter’s name rolled around the room.
“Sounds perfect to me. Contingent on the rest of the family’s approval, of course.”
I glanced at my Beta and Omega, both of whom nodded happily.
“We’re happy with anything you choose.”
“Destiny, then.”
I lifted my daughter up higher on my chest and kissed the top of her head.
Celeste leaned close and rested her cheek against my shoulder.
I had to ask—my head was whirling with all the uncertainties left.
“So, we’re okay? After I get better, I can come home?”
I never thought I’d have to ask my pack such a thing, and Sam’s eyes were shadowed as he stared at me.
“It’s only a home with you in it, Tayte. You’re the foundation of everything in our family.”
I blinked away the tears that gathered in my eyes once again and put it down to all the drugs in my system.
I let my body relax into the pillows and looked at my family.
They weren’t going anywhere, and thanks to a stroke of luck, now... neither was I.