Page 24 of Such a Delicious Omega (His Alpha Desires #4)

Jabez

Every time I delivered a baby to a happy couple, it was a reminder of what I had lost. Not that I would deny them the joy of their new arrival, but my mate’s passing while pregnant with our young had stolen that from my life.

And his. He’d been so young and enthusiastic about everything. Our mating. Our new home. Our baby to come. Fate was so unfair to give me only a year with him before stealing him back to the ethers. Shifters usually lived decades past humans…and my mate had been a human. So, I’d known when we met that I would outlive him. But I never thought he’d die at twenty-six. Of an aneurism. There wasn’t even any time to do anything about it. He just sat up in bed, grabbed the sides of his head, and said it hurts.

Then he was gone. Dead in seconds. I called the human paramedics, although I was a trained healer and could recognize departed when I saw it. Still, my brain demanded I do something to fix the worse moment of my life.

His family blamed me, not for being a shifter. They didn’t even know about that. But for getting him pregnant when he’d known since he was a child that he shouldn’t. The aneurism risk had been identified then.

Thing was, he’d never told me about it.

I still couldn’t think of him without searing pain in my soul. I tried to be grateful for the time we had together, but how could I when I was still angry at Fate…and at him.

Why didn’t he tell me?

We could have adopted if he wanted children that badly. For me, he came first, anything he wanted. But I would never have given him death.

Samuel and Echo had a healthy baby boy. Most of the other club owners were also growing families, but I would never have another mate. I threw all my energies into caring for others and my kink.

The violet wand was a source of endless fascination for this healer. A distraction from the sadness at the core of my soul.