Chapter 26

Tyler POV

Backstage at The Late Late Show

"Rachel," I snapped again, "What do you think you're doing? You're announcing to everyone in the world you're involved with the Alpha of House Lewis?"

Dylan Roberts had been my best friend for too many years to let me be blindsided by my mate's infidelity. I had shown up at the interview expecting Rachel to perform her song and dismiss the rumors regarding her involvement with another man or any man.

Rachel needed to put a good front forward to keep up her momentum as a performer. I knew she would have to say something about the rumors regarding her supposed involvement with a married man or with a mated man. I didn't expect her to start up a new romance with her high school sweetheart!

I hadn't even known she had a high school sweetheart until "Love at the First Sight" debuted! How could she have kept her past a secret all through our mating? Didn't I deserve to know she'd been in love before meeting me?

I was her fated mate! Rachel should have told me everything from the very beginning!

The more I learned about her, the more treacherous she seemed, but I couldn't get her out of my mind!

"Nathan is none of your business."

She sounded so sure of herself. I almost wanted to let it go, but I had to have an explanation. How long had she loved Nathan Lewis? Had she been in love with him the whole time she'd been with me? Had she ever felt anything for me except the mating bond?

"Everything about you is my business. You're my mate."

Rachel held her hand up, palm facing me, and smiled grimly, "No. I'm not. I have a right to be free, Tyler. I gave you your freedom in return. Why do you keep coming for me now? You couldn't spend enough time away from me when we were together!"

I hated to think she was right, but I had spent as much time at the office as possible to avoid being home with her. We had shared a bed to satisfy our wolves. Being alone with her had made me uncomfortable since the day I had found out she lied to me regarding her pregnancy.

"Things change. Are you pregnant?"

Rachel lowered her hand to clutch her abdomen in a way which was all instinct. I didn't need her to say the words then, but it would have made me feel better to hear her admit it.

"You are," I stated firmly, 'And it is mine."

I didn't have any kind of clairvoyance. There was no magic behind my certainty. I simply knew Rachel Flores had never taken sex for granted so she wouldn't have been intimate with another man while we were together---and she had to be more than a few weeks pregnant to know so surely she had a baby on the way.

"Why are you doing this, Tyler? What do you want from me?"

"I can't walk away. I thought I could, but I can't."

Rachel looked so sad as she considered my face. I wondered how I looked to her. I knew when I saw myself in the mirror I saw a man who was haunted by too many demons.

Sleep came to me rarely. Deep circles ringed my eyes to emphasize the exhaustion which kept me constant company. Stress lines aged my face around my tired eyes and grim mouth. Even my skin seemed an unhealthy sallow shade rather than its usual tan.

"You never had a problem keeping your distance before. What's changed?"

I focused on her hand cupping her abdomen. She wasn't visibly pregnant. I had a hard time believing there was a baby growing in her when she had never looked more feminine or sexy to me.

"Wynd won't speak to me. I haven't been able to shift since the Forsaken Blade sliced through our bond."

I hadn't wanted to tell her about losing connection to my wolf. Rachel was the one I blamed for losing my wolf. She had chosen to end our mating. She had insisted on the ceremony. I had done nothing wrong!

"So you want me back to get him back? What makes you think it'll be so easy? Rayne has been sleeping since the rejection ceremony was completed. She knows I can't let her out while I'm carrying a child."

Wolves couldn't shift while pregnant without risking their unborn. I had always thought females maintained a connection to their wolf while pregnant. Could Rachel be experiencing the same Hell I was without her wolf?

For a moment, I felt my spirits lift at the idea of having a shared misery with her. Being without our wolves was something no other could understand unless it had happened to them too.

Nathan Lewis might have swayed Rachel's affection, but he couldn't understand her pain the way I could.

"You know then. We have to come together to try to fix things. I can't live my life without Wynd. He's as much a part of me as my eyes. Without him? I'm going through life blind. That's no way to live. You can't want to live that way."

"I don't know how I want to live with my wolf, Tyler. I do know I have to focus on my child. A child I want and I intend to raise."

"I never wanted a child! You had no right to get pregnant!"

Rachel and I used protection when we were intimate. We had an understanding children were not going to be part of our mating. Our lives were complicated enough without an unwanted pregnancy.

I couldn't believe Rachel had accidentally become pregnant. We weren't intimate enough for it to be random. She had to have stopped using her birth control or damaged the condom.

"You think I got pregnant on purpose?"

I snorted at her outrage, "Rachel, you trapped me into our mating by saying you were pregnant. It isn't hard to believe you chose to get pregnant for your own reasons."

"What reasons would that be? I'm not the one following you around! I'm not coming after you! You keep coming after me!"

"And I don't understand you for it! What do you want? Do you want to punish me because Jenny got her picture in the paper with me and you didn't?"

Women did strange things for jealousy. I knew Jenny inspired negative emotions in other women because she was a very successful supermodel. She had suggested Rachel was angry for the attention she had gotten and Rachel had not.

I'd never imagined Rachel wanted fame, but clearly I was wrong about that. She was everywhere these days pushing her music. Dylan had sent me an email two pages long with public appearances listed for Rachel's debut tour.

"You are such an asshole!"

I reeled back from her in shock. How could she think I was an asshole when she was the one forcing us into Hell? We would both have our wolves if it weren't for her insistence on a rejection!

"I'm an asshole? You're the one who couldn't stop asking for a rejection!"

"And I'm happy to have gotten it! I want you to leave me alone, Tyler! What do you want?"

"I want my wolf back and I want you to come home where you belong!"

Rachel opened and closed her mouth several times as her hand balled into a fist before her belly. I was getting to her. I didn't know what she was feeling exactly, but I could tell she wasn't detached or patronizing me with repetitions of 'rejection this' or 'rejection that.'

"Tyler, we never had a home. We shared a house. You weren't happy with me. I know you're worried about losing your wolf. Wynd will come back around just like Rayne will. Our wolves loved each other, but surely you know their feelings can't be our reason to be together?"

Why couldn't we be together for our wolves? They were part of our souls. Their happiness was the same as our happiness. I could be satisfied with a life in which I had the ability to shift on command and Wynd ran with joy beside his mate Rayne.

"You're being ridiculous. I'm going to tell you right now: I will give you another chance. I will even let you have this baby if you're so determined to have it. Come home with me."

Rachel shook her head at me as if I were speaking a foreign language.

"I was never 'home' with you, Tyler. I can't go back to what we had. It didn't make me happy. It won't make either of us happy to return to that. Now I have to go meet up with Nathan. Goodbye, Tyler."

I grabbed her arm as she went to leave the green room.

"I'm not ready to say goodbye, Rachel."

"Too bad. She's already said it. Let her go. Now."

I turned to the sound of an Alpha command and found myself face-to-face with Nathan Lewis: the wolf who was trying to take my mate!