Traded To The Lycan King

I rest my head on the door frame, leaning into it as I watch Hayes sleep, the light from the bathroom hitting his face just right. He has been through so much, changed and yet not changed at the same time. His scars shine in the light but they don't diminish his looks, instead they make me smile.

I get to spend the rest of my life healing his inner scars, the ones that we both carry and will always struggle with. Perhaps this is what we needed to understand, not only life, but what it means to love. The bond can't make you love someone. It plants the seed, but it takes effort. It takes time and nurturing. The Hayes I loved when I was a teen is not the same Hayes laying in front of me, and we are both better for it. How else would I have realized how much I needed to fight for him? How else would he have woken up from the terrible nightmare of a life he threw himself into?

"It's a little creepy, you standing there grinning like that," Hayes' soft voice drifts to me, a sleepy raspiness that melts my heart.

"Creepy?" I scoff, feigning hurt, and I watch his lips twitch up as he tries to hide a smile and cracks one eye open.

"Stalker-ish?" He says, thinking that altering his word use might save him. I arch a brow in interest. "Well, my job is basically a spy. Kind of." I shrug my shoulders before pushing off the door, leaving the light on.

"Oh? And what information do you plan to get from me?" He asks, lifting his arm to encourage me back into bed.

"Mmm, I know everything about you already." I tease, throwing the covers back away from him, exposing his naked body. "I learned what I didn't know a few times last night."

He glares up at me.

"So you know why I am annoyed with you?" He asks, and I throw my head back and chuckle. "Because I am not naked?" I ask, and he smirks.

"You may know me pretty well."

"We have to go check on Tiago, and then maybe grab some food. I am starving and this baby isn't going to feed itself." I say, patting my belly under the oversized t-shirt I found in the dresser.

Hayes' face goes from sleepy sexiness to excited dad to be as he sits up quickly.

"When will you start to show?" He asks, reaching out and tugging on my shirt as he draws me closer, then rests his head on my stomach as I stand between his legs.

"Uh, well, I kind of feel like I already am showing a little," I frown, looking down at him. My stomach flutters and I place my hand in his hair, gently stroking my fingers through his strands, enjoying this sweet moment.

moved." He

I tell him. Then he looks up

heard the movement." Then

my eyes. "Did you think I made

no, but being told and then knowing? There is a difference." He whispers in awe, looking at the stomach, his hand brushing over the area. I swear I have a

grab him some clothes. "But for now, we have to go save your brother from the

I disagree, but there has been so much that has happened in such a

to keep him a little close lately."

understands my feelings, the bond doing what it does best and making communication smoother by way of

excited. "I wonder if

shoulders straighten as

future he kept swearing up and down. He wanted nothing to do with. Back when Hayes tried to convince me he didn't want me, that he couldn't want

so worried about how undeserving

head to the side, a sadness in my stomach causing my throat to grow

the elastic waistband of his shorts over his

know you are happy now, but...with everything that happened, all

deep breath. "Are you

mean?" He asks, his eyes narrowing

deeply and then grip my

Just forget I said anything." I murmur, turning back to the dresser as I

of his closeness, the breeze of his breath that tickles my neck. There is no hiding anything from each other. I can't do that, not again. All it does is breed

looking up into

sudden and nonstop. You went