I swallowed hard. “At first it was to keep the pack safe, but when he finally allowed me a decent amount of time with my daughter, I discovered that she’s sick. He’s the only one who knows exactly what and how to stop this illness from taking over her system. I can’t kill him, despite my desperate need to, and I can’t even keep the pack safe any longer, since all my focus is on Tabitha.”
“Tabitha,” Mera breathed. “A new bestie for Aurora.”
Gods, that painted a perfect picture. “She’s my little angel, but there’s something seriously wrong with her, Meers, and I can’t fix her without his fucking help.”
Mera’s forehead crinkled as she pondered this. “If this happened before you were twenty-two, then she should be like… ten, right?”
I pressed my lips so hard together that they ached. “She should, but she’s still a baby. I’ve known about her for a few years now, and in that time she’s aged so slowly it’s a barely noticeable change.”
Mera’s concerned expression grew. “Are you sure she’s your child?”
My nod was rough. “Yes. Her energy is mine, I knew it the first moment I touched her. Even if some of her energy is foreign.”
Tabitha was only half shifter. The other half, I’d guessed at, but I didn’t know for sure.
“Foreign?” Mera repeated.
I nodded again. “Yeah, the mixing of two genetic lines is making her sick and stopping her from aging. If she doesn’t have whatever Alpha Dickhead holds for her health, she starts to fade completely. So, I’m stuck doing his bidding. One heir for his pathetic son and I get Tabby back with instructions on how to keep her alive.”
Mera shook her head, face creasing in sad lines. “Girl, you know that Shadow can read minds, right? At least he can read shifter minds. We could have stripped that information and all the rest from Lorenze in a heartbeat.”
If she’d have stabbed me with a knife, I would have been in less pain.
“I… I never—” I had to clear my throat. “I never knew that. Alpha Lorenze doesn’t allow information like that in our pack, and I never had the chance to know the end of your story.”
I mentally beat myself up for a few minutes, while Mera looked on in sympathy. Which somehow made it worse. Should have expected I’d made a stupid as fuck move like that.
A sigh escaped. “I think I was scared for Shadow to know about Tabby in case her mix of genetics was not sustainable. That he would choose to destroy her rather than release whatever she is into the world. I just… I couldn’t handle that. It was better to sacrifice time and freedom in the hope that eventually I could have my child and the secret to her health from Alpha Lorenze.”
“I wouldn’t allow him to destroy her!” Mera said in a rush. “Not that I even think he would. He doesn’t interfere with free will much, and gods know Aurora is scary and powerful already. There’s nothing your daughter could bring to this world that ours wouldn’t try and one-up.”
“I should have expected it,” I said softly. “That after having a child of your own, you’d understand my desperate need to keep her alive.”
Mera snatched my hand up and squeezed it tight. “I understand better than you think, and I don’t care what Shadow says, we’re saving your girl.”
For the first time in years, a flutter of hope took flight in my heart. A hope I prayed wasn’t the final stitch in the fabric of my undoing.
6
SAMANTHA
Mera left me to race after Shadow. I took the opportunity to tear off the lacy bottom of my dress so it was no longer dragging on the ground. The veil was next. I ripped it free along with the millions of pins until my hair fell in curls down my back. I allowed myself a moment to breathe deeply and let the wild in my soul free.
My wolf rose and howled, the icy power flowing through my veins as some of the weight that had been resting on our soul lifted. It sucked to know that if I’d just opened up to my friends, I might have avoided the last couple of years of turmoil, but there was no going back.
I shouldn’t be too surprised; I’d been conditioned to shoulder my own burdens. No one had ever stepped in and taken any of life’s stresses from me, so it was true to character that I’d decided to handle this situation without outside help.
And yet, somehow, help had still arrived. Right when I needed it.
Fuck. Maybe the Fates didn’t hate me completely. I’d been sent a fiery angel and her shadowy mate at the final hour.Please let this be a new path forward for Tabitha and me.
A minute later Mera and Shadow were back, and the look on Shadow’s face reminded me why I’d been hesitant to tell them this secret.
Celebrated too quickly.
Dread swelled in small increments within me, and if I’d had anything in my stomach I would have vomited. “Why are you angry?” I finally asked, too tired and stressed to care that I was questioning the Shadow Beast. “I will fight you to keep my daughter alive. I don’t even care if you can smite me with a mere thought.”
He regarded me closely, like he’d never really seen me before. The icy energy rose as my wolf lifted her head and faced her creator. “You are no ordinary shifter,” Shadow said, and there was thankfully no fury in his clinical tone. “What is your heritage?”
