Trashed & Treasured

30

"We have a few months right? I'll figure something out before then."

"Dominic—"

"This isn't negotiable!" His voice raised unintentionally with his frustration. The base in it made me flinch but with his next words, there was an obvious softening. "I don't mean to yell at you Jade but I need you to understand where I'm coming from. I'm your mate and the father of this pup. Neither of you should have to do anything strenuous. Like my Dad, I'm supposed to be the provider in your eyes and superman in our son's. How can I do that if he comes into this world having to fix shit that I couldn't?!" Every single emotion coursing through my mate hits me like a strong wind with the most prominent being disappointment. Had he not said those last words that emotion alone would have told me exactly what he's thinking. "I should have just killed Cameron! He purposely stood behind those people that day because he knew I wouldn't risk hurting them to get to him. I should have done it anyway." He huffed another frustrated breath and slid out of my grasp. "This is my fault. All of this. I'm failing my son already..."

I climbed to my knees and straddled him placing both my hands on his cheeks forcing him to look me in the eyes. "You're not failing either of us, Dominic! What you did took immense strength. I know how much you wanted to attack Cameron that day but you chose the pack over your own desire to do so. This is just like when I couldn't break the bond. You didn't view me as being weak or a failure for not being able to separate myself from Cameron so neither I nor the baby will see you that way."

"But I still don't get why I couldn't break his hold. We're supposed to be the strongest of our kind but Cameron was able to do something that we couldn't even stop."

I sighed hating the fact that I have to tell him this reason, anticipating a not so good reaction. "Hemming has been trying to figure that out over the last few weeks and it's looking like it has to do with him being my born mate. He was supposed to be where you are now Dominic. Hemming said that he didn't find any traces of alpha blood being present in the sample that he took from Cameron after you kicked his ass but there were changes. When he bit me it strengthened him because we were born connected to each other but at the same time, he isn't as strong as us because I never claimed him back or mated with him. We still don't know exactly how or why we were able to break his hold but," ducking my head to catch his eyes, "we can do this Dominic. Even if we have to wait until the baby is here to fix things, we can do it. I don't know how but we'll do it together and I can promise you that our baby will be very proud of you."

Dominic wrapped his arms around me leaning his forehead against mine, "You always know how to fix my damaged ego. Where would I be without you?"

"On a beach saving girls that don't want to be saved," I smirked and laughed as he pinched my side.

"You were really mad at me for that."

"Hell yeah, I was mad at you! Then to make it worse you dragged me off to your house and tried to undress me with that smug smirk!" I fired back to which he gave me that exact smirk.

"You were the weirdest girl I ever met. One minute you were pissed at me then you were kissing me."

"There were no complaints then! As I recall, you kissed me back right AND you bit me!"

A smile crossed my mate's lips as his eyes scanned over my face with warmth and love. "And I don't regret any of it. I can't express enough how grateful I am to have you—that you decided to try and do something so stupid on my beach of all places."

I smiled back looking over his face just like he did mine. I love him so much that it's unreal. I want nothing more than to stay here on his lap and in his arms every single second for the rest of my life. I've once heard that a good man can make you forget that your heart has ever been broken and I feel like I'm on my way there. I could have closed myself off to Dominic listing him under the same category as Cameron as well as every other male but he made it impossible. He came into my life and stole my heart before I had the chance to guard it and like him, I don't regret it at all.