Chapter 26: Girl in Ipanema

October 9th, 2053

He pulled me in at the waist, my body molding to his firm form. Javier was gorgeous, smart, loving, loyal, kind and much more than I deserved. The confidence and warmth with which he held me made me feel sick. How could I hurt him? "You look so beautiful," his warm soft breath said on my neck.

"Thanks." My eyes burned with the pricking sensation of incoming tears, two leaked out before I could wipe them. "Javier, I—"

"What's wrong?"

"Javi, I… I'm going to find him," I whispered, moving back to see his face. It darkened immediately, his grip on my waist tightening.

"Why?" He asked his voice was still calm, but his eyes gave him away, flashing an intense amount of fear and doubt; it killed me.

"Javi, I'm so sorry. Please know that I—I'm just, I'm so sorry. I never wanted to hurt you, you brought me back to life more than once. For years I've held myself back because I was scared of losing both of you. I stayed longer than I should have because I care for you so much, but it's always been him," I begged him to understand, breaking down in his arms. He let me fall to the ground, his face now settled in shock.

"You can't do this, Maddox, I asked you if you really wanted this and… no! You—you asked me to marry you, you promised this La Push shit was done." He was hyperventilating, his chest was heaving as he struggled to get the sentences out. I grabbed his knees holding him in place while he searched around as if he were about to leave, to run, to find Solace himself.

"Javier, I wish there were better words to express how sorry I am. I just—I can't ever love anyone like him, I tried. I tried so hard, I wanted to love you more, but I can't and it's not fair to marry you when—when I belong to someone else."

"No, you don't, you belong to no one, Maddox! You said you were past this, past this tribal bullshit!" He screamed, his cheeks blazing red.

"I can't be over it, Javier. I thought I could, but he's a part of me, the best part of me—I'm not complete without him." The words boiled in my chest, no less true, but painful to utter. It had been so long since I let myself feel what I was feeling for Solace and even longer since I had said it out loud.

"No, Maddie, you are your own woman. You're a really strong, passionate woman and you don't need him, you want him!" He screamed pulling me off of my knees a bit more roughly than he normally handled me. I winced and the hissing sound emitting from my mouth broke his iron grip on me, though he didn't remove his hands entirely, using them to hold me in place.

"I do! I need him and I want him. I'm sorry, you are so much more than I ever deserved. Javier, you are the sweetest fucking guy, and that's why it's killing me, because I should want you and only you, but it's him, it's always been Solace!"

"So, what? You're just going to leave? What the fuck am I supposed to tell everyone?!"

"What's going on?" My dad, flanked by Addison dressed in his groomsmen suit and Seth, stepped out of the house from the front door, walking forward as a unit so that they took up half of the porch.

"Dad, please, not now!" I screamed, but it was too late, two of Javier's four older sisters and the youngest walked out eyeing the scene dubiously, ready to pounce like any good sister would.

"Javier, que pasa?" Cristina, the oldest and most snarling sister called, pushing past my family to approach us.

"She's leaving me for another man." He slumped against the car, releasing my arms in defeat and I took the opportunity to turn, to make my move and run, but before I even got one step away, I was wrenched back by my hair, claw-like nails sinking painfully into my scalp.

July 2046

Three days before we left for Brazil, I hung out with Chloe, who was leaving with her family for Europe the next day. It was something I hadn't done for a long time and it was surprisingly comfortable. She told me about her boyfriend Sebastian, whose cousin was also a student as EWU, and we planned a photo shoot together before I left for school. She was building a modeling portfolio because she and Harley were secretly making plans to move to Los Angeles as soon as they graduated.

I didn't tell her about Solace and mine's plans to elope. I didn't want anyone to know really. There was something much more personal about keeping it just between us, but I talked about Solace—a lot! Soledad and I were close, but it was hard for me to talk about Solace with her, knowing how close she still was with Amber. I didn't want her to not be friends with Amber and I knew she wouldn't go discussing my love life with her, but it just didn't feel right somehow, a fact that had become even more apparent after she nixed our plans to visit Europe.

I helped Chloe pack for Europe and she in turn helped me; three bags for two weeks, but I couldn't condense it anymore. Solace had allowed me to go crazy online shopping and well, it'd be rude not to bring it all, right?

I had spent almost a week picking out the perfect wedding dress and that dress, wrapped carefully in a bag, was lying on top of my carry-on luggage, which held all the essentials of our trip because I was just too scared to let it out of my sight. The white mini was asymmetrically cut off of one shoulder, embellished with a simple thin silver belt that I was going to pair with silver strappy shoes on the happiest day of my life.

"Three huge pieces of luggage for thirteen days... hmm," Solace pondered aloud, my father elbowed him with a face that said "don't even try to talk reason into her." I shot him a grateful smile before hugging him for a third and last time before leaving. My mother started the car and we drove off, heading to the airport with me and Solace cuddled in the back.

"Don't do anything stupid and call me if you need absolutely anything!" My mom advised when it was time for us to part ways. I pulled her in for a kiss on the cheek, avoiding responding to her demands because I knew I would be doing something she might think of as stupid.

Well actually, I wasn't sure how she would see us having a ceremony without them. But I was beyond uninterested in having a traditional wedding. A big lavish affair like Soli's or the one Annie was planning didn't seem right for us, not the way eloping did.

Solace and I had a really beautiful, but insular kind of love. I don't know if other people really understood it, not that they didn't approve, I just felt sometimes like they saw us as ill fitted. He was old and I was young, he was rough and tough and I was girly and sensitive, he was introspective and reserved and rash and loud, but this was going to work, I knew it was. Fate had chosen us for each other.

Every time I looked at Solace, it was like looking down a path, or steps that we would climb together even if they seemed a bit shuffled and out of order; first marriage then college, then careers and building a family. All things we would be doing for the first time and we would be doing them together. Okay, granted, Solace had been legally married to Amber, but it wasn't real. It was legal, it was paper, but it never had what we have now.

We were in first class on my first airplane ride and I felt extremely posh in our leather seats with the foot rests and big blankets, which we spread over my lap so he could lazily draw circles over my clit till I exploded twice in the darkness of the cabin at night.

"So you think this officially makes us members of the Mile High Club?" I whispered against the musky skin of his neck, he moved his head back and forth contemplating before he shook his head no.

"I'm already a member, but I don't think that counts for you. If you wanted though, I'm sure we could find a way to make it happen," he purred in my ear, pulling up the little armrest divider thing between our seats and gripping my thigh under the fluffy fleece to urge me closer. I scooted towards him, my skirt hiking and the bare skin of my thighs making a slight squishy sound as it stuck to the leather. "Meet me in the bathroom, wait at least five minutes."

I couldn't wait that long, I checked down the aisles to see that basically everyone was sleeping except for the smartly dressed stewardess who didn't seem to notice anything was off when I slipped in the bathroom that was so small it barely held Solace's rather large form. He lifted me up, settling me on counter and spreading me wide for him. He ran his finger up my now extremely wet slit, slowly working his finger up and down till I was convulsing.

"Now, Solace, please," I hissed and he slammed into me making the sink under me groan. Our quickie kept me going for the last eight hours of our twenty hour flight.

We stayed in a hotel near the airport the first night, ordering room service fruit plates and cuddling up with a travel book about the area of Ipanema and its scenic beach.

Ipanema is not actually a city really; it's sort of more like a suburb in the southern area of Brazil. We had reserved the honeymoon suite in a beachside hotel, and it ended up being more like a little cottage behind the main building.

I'd brought three bathing suits, but I only really needed my 1950's throwback floral one that was crumpled and synched along the front with a cute little see-through sarong, which I lounged around in for our first few days in Brazil.

We'd eaten richly, seen live musicians, gone to a nightclub, which was a first and possibly last for me since I hated to dance, and even made friends with an American couple actually honeymooning from Utah named Joseph and Linda. They were young, though still older than me and they were spending the day taking a guided tour, which left me tanning on the world famous beach, trying to reach the deep coppery tan of my father while Solace watched me intently.

"You are so fucking sexy in that thing," he cooed sliding closer on the orange towel.

"Hmm, you should take that shirt off," I suggested slipping my hand under the wife beater that clung to his chest. He let me undress him and I squirmed, the crouch of my bathing suit soaking under the desire burning from his gaze.

"So I worked out some arrangements with the girl at the front desk, but I wanted to run it by you." My intake of breath made him chuckle, he had not discussed our wedding plans since he gave me my ring, which was now sparkling on my hand. I twirled it around nervously, two carats and square cut with an elaborate twisted band that had beautiful diamond flecks interwoven throughout.

"Okay, what's the plan?" I asked stretching out on the towel so that more of our bodies were touching.

"Beachside or little chapel?" He asked tracing the curve of my back along the spine till he reached the top of my behind, which he cupped possessively.

"Which would you prefer?" I asked lazily, relishing in the feel of him, in the beauty of his face and the power of his fingers.

"Baby, would you be mad if I said I didn't really care?" He asked kissing me almost reverently.

"Oh," I said unable to keep back the disappointment in my voice.

"No, don't do the wounded thing, I meant that I don't care where we do it as long as I can call you my wife," he explained pleading. I claimed his lips with mine, pulling him on top of me, till I could feel the stiffness in his pants grow.

"Beach… I don't believe in God, so doing it in a church would feel farcical," I finished flatly; he chuckled, his chest rumbling against me.

"Okay, tomorrow night? Is that too soon?"

"No, it's perfect," I assured him and he smiled kissing the ring on my finger gently.

"Let's take a walk," he suggested inhaling deeply and I agreed looking at the crowded beach around me.

Ipanema Beach, made famous by a song many years before I was born, was a tourist spot and that was never more apparent than when you walked along the streets near the beach, food stalls and stands selling souvenirs and knick knacks. There was an undercurrent through the streets and it wasn't just the music, which seemed to emanate from every store and cart and car, fusing into this hum that soaked into your bones.

"I want it," I squealed catching sight of a bracelet I could not leave without. It was silver with bundles of charms and he didn't think twice about pulling it down and slapping money on the wicker top of the stall.

His warm fingers brushed the sensitive skin of my wrist as he clasped it securely in place where it stayed for the rest of our visit.

"Do you, umm, want some help getting ready?" Linda asked carefully from the door. "When I got married every woman in my family tried to help, made for a very inconsistent look," Linda chuckled still standing in the doorway a bit nervously.

"That would be really nice," I told her motioning for her to come in and take a seat. I had everything spread across the bed, Solace having skipped out to get ready himself. Next to my dress I'd laid out a peach lingerie set, which was simple but pretty and wouldn't show through the thin white material of my dress. We had an hour before the hotel valet was to take me to the adjoining Copacabana Beach where we would be married and Linda was the only person I had to keep me leveled.

"Are you nervous?" She called out as I slipped into the underwear and shoes in the bathroom.

I pulled on the hotel bathrobe, which was a tad bit snug and faced her. I hadn't actually thought about it, not really, what would I be nervous about?

"Nope, I've wanted this forever."

"Yeah, that was what I was feeling… but I just couldn't imagine doing this without my family," Linda said sweetly. Her hair was short and very edgy, the platinum blond was striking and it matched beautifully with her creamy white skin. She sat cross-legged on the bed, helping me place the large curlers around the crown of my head. She softly gathered the wispy hairs at the nape of my neck like my mother used to do when I was a child, which made my eyes tear though I wasn't really sure why.

"Aww, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make you sad—I mean, do they know about this?" She whispered dropping my hair so I could turn around to face her.

"I'm not sad, I don't… I guess I sort of just started thinking about my mom. She doesn't know, not that she would be mad you know, I sort of wanted it to be just us," I explained though the thought now didn't seem nearly as appealing.

Linda watched me as I applied my make-up with a heavy shaking hand. I used ample shimmery silver around my eyes and soft pink on my lips, my bottom lip quivering when the phone in my room erupted. Linda picked it up for me, allowing me a moment to actually get the dress on, zipping the side clasp with a flourish.

"It's here," she sang. I hugged her, grabbing my small silver charm bracelet that I had taken off for my shower and carefully sat in the back of the slick black car. It was close to nightfall, the drastic heat of morning now downgraded to a spring like warmth with a soft fragrant breeze from the ocean cooling the air.

There was a trellis set up near the rocks, the beautiful sound of crashing waves accompanying my rapid steps towards him. He stood a foot above the man I assumed was brought to preside over the event, with his hair brushed back and dressed in the heather grey shirt and simple black pants I'd picked for him, the actual effect was far beyond what I had envisioned.

"You look amazing," I breathed against his broad chest when he pulled me in for a hug.

"Yeah..." He trailed off his eyes roaming over the bare skin of my shoulder. "You too." He gulped, licking his lips in a slow sensual way. I lifted my face to him, straining for a kiss which he granted softly.

"You look so much like your grandmother with that tan," he marveled tracing his fingers from my collarbone to the apex of my shoulder.

"There's a band," I side stepped the conversation entirely, feeling the corners of my eyes prickle with tears. I couldn't control it, I had no reasonable excuse for crying on my wedding day, where I was marrying to the world's most perfect man, yet here I was, doubting everything about this. Not marrying him, no, but the sneaky way in which I was doing it. Technically, it didn't count for anything, there was no paper, these were just words, but I craved now desperately the support of my family.

"Yeah… what's wrong?" He asked as we were ushered under the trellis. A woman, local and outrageously stunning in her natural beauty, passed me a bouquet that was creamy white with sporadic splashes of color.

"Nothing," I lied, busying myself with the bouquet, my wedding bouquet that I would not be able to toss to a circle of awaiting girls, my wolf-girl sisters, my little sister, Chloe or Ava. That thought brought forward the tear that had been threatening to leak earlier, just as the tiny priest-like man took his place. Solace held his hand out to stop him, shooing him away before I could protest.

"We don't have to… Madd," he assured me lovingly, but I could see the glimmer of fear in his eyes.

"I want to, of course I want to," I begged pulling him closer, but the tears wouldn't stop. "It's just stupid nerves and I was thinking of my family."

"Do you want to wait?" he asked firmly, holding my hands inside his, which formed a cup that caught my tears as they cascaded from my eyes.

I nodded vigorously, ashamed yet unable to hide the fact that I wanted to back out, that I wanted, no needed my family.

"I'm sorry," I sobbed, but he brushed it off, wiping the tears away with the back of his hand then kissing the damp skin of my cheek.

"Don't be, Madd. If you want to wait to do it with your parents or not at all even, that's fine. I just want you to be happy."

"Can we? Please? It doesn't have to be big, just my family at the courthouse, I'll pay for it," I promised, but he just laughed it off. We spent the night under the stars, dancing to the bizarrely upbeat music, drinking beer with lime and planning our wedding, which like most things in our relationship would be out of order, happening almost directly after our honeymoon. We made love in the sand, something that was much less romantic than it seems in romantic movies and trashy novels, sand creeping into places it most definitely didn't belong.

The last days in Rio we spent like a honeymoon, never leaving the room or our soft bed with its stark white sheets, pounding the headboard against the sea foam green walls. We packed in between rabid humping, not romantic or loving, though I loved him with everything inside of me, it was animalistic, unlike anything we had ever experienced before. I was in heat and with my pleas he took me, roughly.

We tried positions I had never even heard of until I was satiated in a way that I never thought possible. I always felt like I wanted Solace, like I needed him on a primal level, but I was utterly content by the time we boarded the plane back to Washington.

My father picked us up from the airport. He hugged me stiffly, probably smelling the remnants of our romps though he tactfully didn't mention it.

"How was it?" My father asked in the last minutes before we saw the sign welcoming us to La Push.

"Great," we gushed in unison, Solace's smile brightened up the cabin of my father's truck.

"So are you married?" My father's shoulders were stiff as he watched us from the rearview mirror.

"No actually, we didn't want to do it without you. Are you proud?" I giggled, but his reaction was far from what I expected. My father's face dropped in disappointment, sharing a long and confusing look with Solace who looked just as perplexed as I was.

"Is everything alright, did—" Solace's phone buzzed loudly in his bag and he looked at my dad once more before he reached for it.

"Hey, Phil! How are ya man, we just—" He stopped frozen in mid sentence just as my father stopped in front of his house, which seemed to have lost its liveliness in the two weeks we had been away.

"What's going on?" I was on the verge of panic, frantically looking between my father and Solace, whose sexy Brazilian tan had drained from his face leaving him almost gray. My father hopped out the front, opening the door for me and almost dragging me out.

"What happened?" I begged struggling against his hold as he pulled me away from the truck and Solace, whose chest was heaving in the back seat, his vibrating figure illuminated by the light from the lamppost.

"Just give him a minute," my father pleaded, looking down at me with terrified eyes, like I'd never seen before.

"Is Phil okay?"

"Yeah, he's an asshole, but he's okay. Maddox… look, Solace just found out something and he's going to need your support. Can you just promise that you'll be understanding?" My dad asked releasing my arms. Solace had hung up and I could see him redialing at frantic speed.

"Understanding about what?" I spat.

"Maddox please."

"Daddy, what's going on?" I felt like screaming, but the glistening tears in Solace's eyes stopped me. I ran to him.

"How could—how could you do this to me?" He sobbed into the phone holding his gut as if someone had kicked him. "You hid my child, you stole him from me."

Child.

My child.

Solace looked up at me then my father, who stood behind me, keeping me upright as the weight of his words sunk in. Phil. Europe. Amber. Child. The words were nonsensical yet somehow they clicked. Soledad insisting I don't go to Europe. Amber leaving the country after her tryst with my Solace. Her family secluding themselves from the pack. Their night together all those years ago. They had a child, a child they had made while I was supposed to be the center of his world.

"Maddox, let's go inside and talk about this," my dad cooed, urging me to the door, but I broke free and on unsteady feet down the unmarked path, I ran towards Phil's house. The sounds of loud buzzing insects and wind rustled trees filling my ears almost painfully btu I needed to see them. Chloe and Ava would not lie to me. None of the pack could be trusted anymore. Had my parents known?

When I got to his house, the light on his porch spotlighting the swing Chloe and I used to swing in as we imagined our futures together as world famous dancers, my knees gave out and I slumped to the ground under the weight of this evening's monumental revelation.

"Maddox—I… I didn't know." Solace's voice was low, unsteady behind me, but I couldn't turn to look at him. I couldn't see the pain in his eyes, the longing he would surely have now that he knew his child, the child he had been dreaming of for so long, stood waiting for him on the other side of the world.

Part of what made it easy, what made it possible for me to be with Solace, to build a relationship with him knowing he essentially rejected me for the first ten years of my life, was this misguided notion that their love meant nothing and that their love could never live up to ours.

I lived, I breathed, I survived on denial, denial of Solace's missteps. I never allowed myself to think of him without me, and when I did, I let the blame lie solely on Amber. Amber, being stunning and seductive, she had dug her hooks into him, she had fooled him into turning his back on me, but once he had met me, once he knew how perfect I was for him, the spell was broken.

That denial kept me going and now the fragile glass walls that protected me from the truth of it had shattered and I stood exposed, naked to the glaring truth, the ugliness of his betrayal and the reality that nothing would or could ever be the same again.

I kept my back turned away from him, unable to see the beauty in his face, which I once loved more than the air I breathe. Wrenching the screen door of Phil's back door open with force and letting it slam shut behind me with a resounding bang that seemed amplified in the deafening silence of the room, I ran for Chloe.

The kitchen was full, the harshly glaring fluorescence lights blinding me as I tried to take inventory. Phil, Tara, Chloe, Soli, Annie, my mother and Mark filled up the kitchen, all awash with a range of emotions. Phil looked furious, Chloe looked nauseous, Tara nervous, my mother terrified, Soli defensive, Annie defeated and Mark horrified and I was all those things wrapped up in a blanket of doom.

"You knew," I spat at Annie and Soli, who stood by watching me as I stepped farther into the kitchen with faltering yet determined steps. I felt their betrayal pierce my heart with unflinching and premeditated deliberateness. How could they? Did I mean so little to them? Did they hate me so much that they intentionally wanted to hurt me by keeping this secret?

"She's my sister," Annie reasoned holding her hands out before her in a show of helplessness.

"You knew. You knew we were getting married and you didn't say anything," I yelled at Soli, clutching my chest, which throbbed painfully, constricting my lungs until I felt like I couldn't take in enough air to survive.

"She's my best friend, Maddox." She was her best friend… we had forged a bond that I thought would last a lifetime, but it hadn't been real. I would never be to Soli what she had become to me, a real friend. Her loyalty would always lie first and foremost with Amber. That knowledge slammed into me, a blow aimed directly at my chest and it landed with deadly, painful accuracy making me feel hollow inside.

"Did you?" My mom asked hopefully, grabbing my arm as I felt my knees begin to grow weak.

"Did I what?" I cried out in response to her random question, unable to focus as Solace's large arms encircled me, holding me up and pulling me flat against his firm chest, but his arms had lost their former comfort and now they only felt constricting as if I was imprisoned in the broken promise of our once bright futures.

"Did you get married?" Phil asked, his eyes working frantically between Solace's face and mine. The subject was impossible to process or contemplate right now, to consider what it would have meant if we were and what it did mean now that we weren't. Desperate for escape, I struggled in Solace's arms, falling forward into Mark, who caught me with ease.

"No," Solace said darkly meeting my eyes for the first time. His dark orbs had lost their warmth, they were dull, defeated.

"Well shit," my mother whispered to my left where she held Tara's hand tightly.

"Did you know?" I asked her and as if she had prepared for this, she launched into a monotone speech that sounded like a generic statement repeat to the press during things like ongoing investigations or unexpected disasters. This certainly fit the latter.

"When Lana moved to Europe she told me, you were too young then to understand and you didn't really know Solace. When you started—"

"YOU KNEW!" Everyone in my world knew that we had been living a mockery, that any second the bricks we had so carefully and lovingly laid could come tumbling down on us, burying us in their wreckage and they allowed it to happen. It was another blow and it hollowed me out even more. The room was spinning, the floor below me shook, and the black and white tiles swirled uncomfortably.

"Mark," I said pitifully, reaching out for his shirt and holding onto it desperately.

"Yes, Maddox," he answered sweetly, his expression sympathetic and apologetic as he held me at the waist and on the back of my head. His hands were the only things anchoring me to reality, keeping me there, upright, conscious and sane.

"Get me out of here," I begged, feeling the last reserves of energy draining from my body. I'd lost. For so long I had thought that I was the winner in the battle between Amber and I. I thought the battle was over, finished beyond contestation. I thought that I had come out victorious, but once again, in the end I always came up second. I'd thought a lot of things and I'd been devastatingly wrong about all of them.

Mark and Jordan's cabin was quiet, almost too quiet, leaving me to my thoughts, which were loud and violent and painful. I wasn't entirely aware of the passing time as they consumed me and I forced myself to assess the unfortunate truths of the new reality I had suddenly been plunged into. I couldn't be without him, I couldn't survive, but nothing in our lives could be the same.

Marriage. How would our marriage ever be normal knowing he had a whole set of baggage neither of us had foreseen? Would I be expected to act as a stepmother to a child that was born out of an act so vile it made me sick? I didn't hate him, the boy. He was a part of Solace and I couldn't bring myself to feel that for a child, but how could I ever see his face? How could I ever be in the same room with the physical manifestation of Solace's infidelity? And furthermore, I was too young to be responsible for children. I knew that now. I couldn't and didn't want to be responsible for a child. I wanted to be young and carefree until I had to step out into the world. Marriage was one thing, but children… another woman's child, was a completely different world.

And school, would Solace still play college student with me knowing that his child was fatherless in another continent? How could I focus on school when my husband was parading around Europe with his child? His first child, another landmark Amber had stolen from me.

"Maddox… Maddox!" Solace's loud hiss sounded from just outside the living room window where I lie frozen on their couch.

"Solace!" I ran to the door ripping it open where he flung himself at my feet.

"Please don't leave me," he begged kissing my thighs just below the oversized t-shirt I'd worn to bed.

"Solace, how is this going to work? I'm so scared," I whined kneeling on the ground with him, kissing the side of his face as an act of benediction.

"We can work it out, just please don't give up on me, Maddox, please."

"I don't want this to change. I've built my life around you, my future, everything, Solace." I held onto his shirt shaking him though he didn't move an inch.

"I need to go get him, he's not safe there. Amber's going to be changed into a vampire. She's—I don't know what she's doing, but I can't risk having him there while she's a newborn. There's a second room in the university house and we can enroll him in school in the community. I'll sign up for one weekend class, that should be enough to qualify me as a student and you can concentrate on your studies." He wasn't talking to me, he couldn't be. The complete ludicrousness of it excluded me, it must have.

"You can't be serious," I blanched; this was worse than I could have imagined. In my wildest scenarios I never envisioned any future where his child was anything more than an occasional holiday visitor, a summer bunker at worst. My stomach now knotted painfully, vibrated with dry heaves making my shoulders shake from keeping them down.

For their mistake, I would be losing college, the entire college experience that I dreamed about so vividly for the last year. The four years of organized chaos that would forever alter me, that would change my world views, shape the course of my future and provide years of funny stories to tell our children about. The one first experience I had left for just the two of us to do together.

"He's my son." The way he said that even in this, the bleakest of hours, the words 'my son' filled his eyes with such brilliant happiness I couldn't help but be jealous.

For their mistake, for their duplicitous fuck-up, I had lost him. Solace wasn't really mine anymore, if he ever had been at all and now I seriously doubted my hold on him had ever been strong enough for anything except a temporary loan. How could I compete with his own flesh and blood, the only family he had left in the whole world?

"He's not mine. I can't, Solace! I can't give up everything for some kid you made with that bitch when you were supposed to love me and only me! What is wrong with you?" I pushed away, using his shoulders to stand again, pacing the room twice before I forced the words past my lips. I didn't want to say them, I needed to, I needed to draw the line, but with so much at stake and such uncertainty in the outcome it made it so much harder.

"Solace, I'm not uprooting my life for your mistake. I am going on with my life as planned, you can come with me or you can go get your son."

He got up off his knees using the doorframe as support as he watched me from across the room his eyes now devoid of the spark they had just held, empty of everything. He'd never looked at me like this, without a trace of emotion, of the unwavering love that ordinarily flared, blazing brightly when his heated gaze was focused on me. It was a look I didn't recognize and it caused icy fingers of dread to creep up my spine before gripping my chest and seizing my heart in its frozen, constrictive hold.

"Fine," he breathed glancing blankly back at me over his shoulder before he stepped out the door. My pulse, now racing, thumped noisily in my ears and the crickets, invisible in the darkness, were the only thing louder in the eerily silent night.

"That's it?" My feet carried me forward, down the stairs towards his retreating frame. No, this couldn't be happening, it couldn't end like this.

"That's it? Solace!" He turned after hearing my desperate plea, his fists balled, a single tear cutting a path down his perfectly sculpted cheek. "You can really choose a kid you've never met over me? I'm your imprint!"

"I choose you, Maddox. It's not really a choice, but right now I just can't look at you," he breathed, kissing my forehead stiffly before he turned back around and disappeared into the night.