Hope for my Future

Chapter Seven

Nicole

A knock sounded on my door, about ten minutes after I had finally escaped from Lily's room. I loved my daughter, but the bedtime routine got pretty ridiculous some days. I opened the door and there was Tanner, leaning against the frame. He held up the same whisky bottle as last time, brows raised, the question clear but unspoken.

"Again?" I asked him in amusement. "Are you trying to get information out of me?"

He shrugged. "Something like that." He stood straight and turned to head down the hallway. "Coming?"

I followed him, only half sure why. I knew what he was doing and wasn't sure I wanted to spill my guts before him; I was pretty sure I'd leave bloodstains all over his dining table. Yet here I was. Maybe there was a part of me that wanted to spill my secrets, have someone else know. I thought back to the Council visit to Haven and internally rolled my eyes. Have someone outside of an official capacity know, I guess.

We sat and he poured in the same way as last time, but now instead of asking questions he just watched me, his face settled with an expectant look. It made me chuckle under my breath.

"You're something else, you know that?"

A corner of his mouth lifted. "You're probably right. Since you saw through my oh-so-clever ruse, I thought I'd save myself the trouble of asking."

I huffed a laugh. "All right then." I sipped at the whisky, letting it warm me, as my mind drifted back, my eyes fixing on a tiny spot on the wall. "I suppose it really starts with Jessie. My life started when I met him and ended when he died."

And then I explained it all. The four blissful months I spent with my mate, when I felt, for the first time in my life, as though I had genuine happiness. Of course, life or fate or the Moon Goddess had other plans. Whoever controlled the flow of life sure had a sick, twisted sense of humour.

"I didn't even get to tell him about Lily. I did a pregnancy test, and I didn't want to just blurt it out to him, you know? I wanted it to be special. So, I took him for a walk, planning for a romantic picnic in the woods, and we were about halfway there when we ran into a group of rogues."

I stopped, having to swallow past the lump in my throat, and glanced up at Tanner. He was pale, eyes sympathetic; I suppose he thought he knew where the story was going. He was half right.

"They killed Jessie and took me." That was it, the bare truth, the point in time where hope and faith had died.

"Took you?"

I nodded and cocked my head, before I laid it all out before him.

"Have you ever heard of the Ring?"

***

Tanner

Her story was beyond anything I could have imagined. How on earth did she survive all of that? Meeting her mate, watching him die in front of her, giving birth in captivity and having her baby taken away straight afterwards. And then spending more than three years fighting in an illegal fighting ring against other kidnapping victims.

"What the fuck?" was all I could manage. "How has no one heard of this?"

She reached for the bottle to top up her empty glass for the third time. "I'd imagine word will get out soon enough. We were only rescued a month or so ago."

I shook my head, unable to believe that anyone was capable of such atrocities. I couldn't fathom it, knew I would go mad if I tried to unravel that level of cruelty and corruption, so I shied away to safer waters.

"So, you're from Glenborne, then?"

She shook her head. "No, Jessie was from there; I joined the pack when we met. I was only there for four months before everything happened."

"And before that?"

She lifted her eyes, studying me with that piercing, calculating gaze I was becoming used to. "Before that, I was a rogue."

I sucked in a breath in surprise. Here I'd been thinking that she wasn't as bad as I had previously thought, but this... "Were you banished?"

"Of course, you would assume that." Her eyes turned a bit frosty. "I wasn't banished, and I didn't run away. I was born a rogue. My parents..."

She trailed off, eyes lowering, and I saw that same trace of sadness flit across her face that often appeared.

"That's enough of that," she sat up straighter, adjusting her shoulders as though shrugging off the past. "What about you?"

"What about me? I'm nothing special."

"Born here?"

"Yep."

"Unmated?"

I ignored the pain that stabbed into my gut. I hated even thinking about Julia. "Sort of. My mate left me, about seven years ago now."

She paused, and her voice softened. "I'm sorry. Is that why you adopted Lily?"

I shook my head. "No, that was all Lily. I'm the one who found her on the border, and when I saw her, I just... I just wanted her."

She nodded, an understanding I never expected lighting her hazel eyes. "She did the same thing to me. I never wanted anything as much as I wanted her, from the moment I knew that I was pregnant." Her eyes hardened. "Oh well. Life has a tendency to shit all over what we want, hey?"

She stood from her chair as I shook my head a little.

"I suppose it makes sense for you to see it that way," I muttered.

I couldn't believe how wrong I was about her. Everything I had accused her of had been forced upon her, and guilt churned my stomach. I still felt a twinge of resentment towards her for barging her way in and disrupting our lives, but I knew that it was unjustified. Rachel had been right; Nicole deserved to be with her pup.

"I'm going to turn in. Night."

She moved away from the table, and I abruptly stood, catching her in the darkened hallway.

"Nicole..." My hand rested on her shoulder, and we stood close in the cramped space. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have treated you the way I did."

"It's okay," her voice was hushed. "I told you I'd been called worse names before."

I could only imagine, now that I knew her history. "That's not making me feel any better."

She lifted her hand to rest over mine, her touch surprisingly calming to me. "Really, don't worry about it."

I stared into her eyes, trying to make sure, and something changed as we gazed at each other. The air shifted, and my eyes were drawn to her mouth. Her lips were full and pink, slightly parted, and I wondered if they were as soft as they looked. I felt myself hardening as I remembered what she looked like in that tight workout gear, the t-shirt and nothing else combo from the night we first drank together, the tiny little shorts she had on right now. She really was beautiful, temptingly so.

I didn't know what was happening or how I felt about it, but something was telling me to go with it. It was probably the whisky.

I brought my hands up, one going to her cheek and the other cupping the back of her head. I went slowly, giving her time to refuse me, but she did the opposite. She was always the opposite of everything I expected.

She slammed her mouth onto my own.