“How serious?”
“Serious enough that I was going to ask her to be my life mate. Turns out I couldn’t give her what she wanted.”
“And what was that?” Austin knitted his brows.
“Children.” Reno took a deep and painful breath. “I’m sterile.”
Austin sat back, staring pensively to the right. “Sorry. I didn’t know.”
“Yeah, that’s not something I want to share with the others, if you catch my meaning. It’s better that you were born the alpha. Maybe that’s why the gene skipped me, little brother. Faye didn’t stick around; she found herself a man who could give her what I couldn’t. So that bullshit about wolves mating for life is only a standard we hold ourselves to. Maybe we honor it more than humans do, but it doesn’t make us any better than them. I don’t believe in destiny. I believe in finding something good and making it work.”
It had taken years for Reno to get over losing Faye. He didn’t reveal to Austin how her rejection broke him in ways he couldn’t have imagined. That he’d pursued her hard, even after she chose another man. He’d loved that woman and the last time he saw her, she slapped him in the face and told him he was a disgrace to his own kind—that no woman would ever choose to mate with him. Faye wanted children more than love. Reno would have built a pyramid for her. And yet Faye didn’t hold a candle to a human who had stolen his heart with her whimsical smile and unyielding acceptance.
Austin leaned forward, his icy blue eyes pinning Reno to the chair. “Don’t be so quick to knock the idea of destiny. I’ve always felt a connection with Lexi. It’s not something I can explain—it’s a pull in my gut that tells me she’s the one. When she’s in trouble, I can sense it. There’s something about the way we fit that doesn’t always make sense, but we’re like two puzzle pieces coming together. I wouldn’t be a complete man without her, and that’s as good as destiny for me. We’ve all heard the stories about soul mates and the bond between two Shifters who were born for each other. I believe it because I have that with Lexi. It’s an inherent attraction that brings us together like magnets. Just give it some time and you’ll find it with a Shifter. You can’t have that kind of bond with a human.”
Reno shifted in his chair. All the things Austin had just listed off were exactly how he felt about April. “So you’re saying if Lexi had turned out to be a human and not one of us, you would have let her go?”
Austin flexed his jaw and sat back, the lamp beside him shining on his tatted shoulder. Cold weather didn’t faze Austin; he ran hot and often wore T-shirts or tank tops in winter. “Lexi would have still been in our pack if she chose—that’s a given. Not all humans can accept that people like us exist. I don’t know if I could love someone that hard and let them slip through my hands because they have a shorter expiration date. But I don’t have that choice to make, you do. April is a smart girl and she lived with us long enough to see this was the wrong life for her. Lynn still struggles with it, and she’s been talking about sending Maizy away to live with her grandparents or shipping her to boarding school when she’s older. She’s worried we’re a bad influence on her even though she’s found a home with our pack. Lynn doesn’t want to start over on her own, and she has a place in our family. Humans don’t think the way we do. They don’t get our lifestyle. They don’t cope well in a crowded house full of people who aren’t even related. She doesn’t like having to hustle downstairs whenever I want to get frisky with my woman. I don’t understand how anyone could ship their kid off, but humans do it all the time. They leave them in day care and send them to summer camp.” He shook his head and ruffled up his hair. “They don’t raise a family the same way we do—that’s part of the disconnect. Maybe April wants a family and that’s something she can’t have with a Shifter. We live in a dangerous world, Reno. Do you think it’s fair to ask a human to give up family and normalcy to live with Breed?”
Reno released a heavy sigh and rubbed his face. April was adamant about not wanting kids, but she was only twenty-three. Does a person really know what they want at that age?
Then it hit him like a sledgehammer.