Chapter Twelve: Mending
1109 Words
The knock came in the late afternoon.
Three sharp raps, unhurried, a rhythm that landed somewhere familiar in Elara's memory before she'd fully processed why. She set down the book she'd been reading and crossed to the door, curious more than cautious.
She opened it.
And stopped.
Shawn stood on the step.
She hadn't seen him — hadn't heard from him at all — since the beach, since the punch that had sent him staggering into the sand, since he'd walked away without looking back. Months had passed. He looked different now in ways she hadn't expected.
Lighter, somehow.
The storm grey eyes that had always carried something contained and heavy about them had softened into something clearer. His shoulders sat differently — less braced, less ready for a fight that wasn't coming. He looked, she realized, at peace in a way she had never once seen from him.
"Shawn," she said.
"Elara," he said. Quiet. Careful. "I wasn't sure you'd want to see me."
Before she could answer, she felt Jace behind her.
His hand found her waist, gentle but immediate, the specific protective instinct that hadn't fully faded even after all this time. She felt the tension coil through him the moment he registered who was standing at their door.
"You have some nerve," Jace said. Low. Controlled, but only barely.
"Jace—"
"No," he said. "I haven't forgotten what happened on that beach. I haven't forgotten any of it."
"I'm not here to cause problems," Shawn said. His voice was steady, without the defensive edge it used to carry. "I came to apologize properly. It's taken me this long to be ready to actually mean it instead of using it as an excuse to get close to something I had no right to."
Jace's jaw was tight.
He looked ready to close the door, ready to do considerably more than that, the specific fury that had never fully cooled since a beach and a kiss he hadn't asked for and a fight he'd thrown everything into.
"Jace," Elara said softly. "Please. Let him talk."
He looked at her.
At the plea in her eyes, the genuine request rather than a demand.
He exhaled slowly.
Stepped back, just slightly, enough to let Shawn see past him into the house without fully welcoming him in.
"Talk," Jace said. "Fast."
That was when Shawn's eyes dropped.
To Elara's stomach.
To the visible curve beneath her sweater that hadn't been there the last time he'd seen her, the specific unmistakable evidence of a life that had continued and grown and changed entirely without him.
Something moved through his expression — quick, involuntary, gone before he could fully control it. His heart, she imagined, doing something complicated in that moment, some old ache finally meeting its permanent conclusion.
"You're—" he started.
"Pregnant," Elara said gently. "Yes."
Shawn was quiet for a long moment.
"Congratulations," he said finally. And it sounded real. Not performed, not bitter underneath. "Genuinely. That's—" He shook his head slightly. "That's wonderful, Elara."
"Thank you," she said.
He looked at Jace.
"You're a lucky man," he said.
"I know," Jace said. Still guarded, but something in his posture had eased slightly at the genuine warmth in Shawn's voice.
"I've spent a long time thinking about that night," Shawn said. "The beach. What I did. I told myself for months it was because I loved you and love excuses things it shouldn't." He looked between them both. "It doesn't. Love that respects someone doesn't demand they choose you. It doesn't kiss someone who's already made their choice clear a hundred times over. I did something I had no right to do, and I hurt both of you doing it."
"Yes," Jace said. "You did."
"I'm not asking you to forget it," Shawn said. "I'm asking if there's room, eventually, for something better between us than what's been sitting there since. I've done a lot of thinking. A lot of changing, I hope. I'd like the chance to prove that, if you'll let me."
Jace was quiet for a long moment.
Looked at Elara.
She nodded slightly — not pushing him toward anything, just letting him know the choice was entirely his.
"You hurt her," Jace said finally. "You hurt us. I don't forgive that easily and I'm not going to pretend I do."
"I understand," Shawn said.
"But," Jace continued, "I've spent enough time being furious to know it's not doing anything except taking up space I'd rather fill with something else. She's about to have our daughter. I don't want old anger sitting in every room she grows up in."
Shawn looked at him.
"You'd let me try," he said. "To make it right."
"I'd let you try," Jace said. "Slowly. Carefully. If you do anything—"
"I won't," Shawn said. "I promise you that. Not this time. Not ever again."
Jace studied him for a long moment.
Then he extended his hand.
Shawn looked at it.
Took it.
The handshake held something neither of them said out loud — the specific weight of two wolves who had been enemies, then complicated, then furious, finally finding something that might, with time, become simple friendship again.
They stayed an hour.
Shawn sat carefully at the edge of things — not pushing, not overstaying his welcome, simply present in the specific way of someone testing whether a door that had been slammed shut might, slowly, be allowed to open again.
He asked about the pregnancy. Listened when Elara told him about the kicks, the cravings, the fear from the beach that had faded slightly since. He didn't flinch when she mentioned the overheard conversation, the threat gathering somewhere in the dark.
"If you need it," he said, as he prepared to leave, "my pack's loyalty. Whatever's coming for you — you'd have more support than you think."
"Thank you," Jace said. And meant it.
Shawn nodded.
Looked at Elara one more time.
"I'm glad," he said quietly, "that you have this. That you're happy. That's all I ever actually wanted for you, even when I was terrible at showing it."
"I know," she said softly.
He left.
The house settled back into quiet.
Jace pulled Elara against him, watching the door for a moment after it closed.
"That was strange," he said.
"Good strange," she said. "I think."
"Yeah," he said, something loosening in his chest that had been tight since the beach. "Good strange."
Her hand found her stomach.
The baby shifted gently beneath her palm.
"One less thing to carry," she said quietly.
He kissed her hair.
"One less thing," he agreed.
- Writer
