Free Bitten (Black Mountain Bears Book 2) by Ophelia Bell, Amelie Hunt Page B

racing. She forced herself to sit and let Aidan talk. She struggled to keep still during his account of their pilgrimage and the aftermath, resisting the urge to get up and pace. When he started talking about taking her during her estrous, she stopped him.
    “I wasn’t a fucking invalid, Aidan, I knew what I was asking for. I knew the risks. This is not all on you. Please don’t lie about it.”
    His jaw tightened and his blue eyes met hers. “Let me do this for you, Autumn. Please let me shoulder this.”
    Seeing the determination in his eyes shut her up. She had no idea what he was planning beyond the confession that would destroy her. How would he shoulder it? It was her fault as much as it was his. She was the female. She was the one who’d carried the child, and she’d made the choice to walk back through the portal with her power going haywire and no true mate to help ground it. She should have known the barrier would take something from her to balance it.
    She couldn’t even look at Jasper and Gunnar now, but they sat still and solemn while Aidan recounted everything.
    Finally, the torture ended and she stood from where she’d been seated on the bed and walked to the window.
    “I’m going to my mother tomorrow to confess everything,” she said. “You guys can go home and just . . . forget about me. Be together, be happy.” She struggled to hide the shaking in her voice. “Be . . . ” Be able to forgive me, please.
    Someone moved behind her and she flinched. She didn’t want any comfort, didn’t deserve it. She stared out at the burgeoning dawn, hoping whoever had come up to her would just leave. That they would all just leave.
    A warm hand rested lightly on her shoulder, carrying with it Jasper’s piney scent. He squeezed and whispered in her ear, “I love you. And nothing, nothing would keep me from wanting you. I don’t know what that confession means for you. It seems like it’s pretty bad, but it doesn’t change a bit how I feel.”
    He simply didn’t understand. Gunnar wasn’t the one standing behind her, and she was afraid to see his reaction now that the deed was done. She kept staring out the window, refusing to move. If she didn’t turn around, eventually they would all leave, and she wouldn’t have to look at them. Wouldn’t have to see their disappointed looks, their blame.
    Jasper moved away, but a second later, Aidan’s familiar scent washed over her.
    “They’re yours now. I’m leaving.” He squared his shoulders and rubbed the raw spot on his shoulder. He chuckled sardonically. “Mother will be so thrilled to learn I’m as big a failure as she believed after I tell her what I did. She’ll expect me to come grovelling, of course. That, I won’t do, but I will tell her the truth about why you left me back then. I’m the fuck-up in all this, Autumn, not you.”
    Autumn’s chest tightened and she gripped the rough wood of the window sill, digging her fingernails in as though it could keep her world from turning upside-down.
    “You’re not a fuck-up, Aidan. I deserve the punishment, too.”
    She turned and looked up into his eyes. Eyes she’d gazed into for so many hours in her youth, but that were now filled with such regret it made her heart hurt to look into them.
    He glanced away and smiled. “You’re a female. And you’ve already given up your place in the Sanctuary for the Princess’s mates. No one in their right mind would deny you your power. Having you, in full power, on the outside will be good for us. But you were right . . . we need to come clean. Let me carry our confession to our mothers.”
    “I need to face them, too,” she said. “They need to know I’m not oblivious to what I did.”
    “You can’t go back, baby,” Aidan said. He glanced behind her and she turned her head to see the two gloriously naked men standing near the fireplace. “They are yours now, at least as soon as you mark them. They can’t go back, either.”
    “They’re