He had options, of course.You didn't become the alpha of a pack like the Pride and not have options to watch your dearly beloved offspring.It was just that when he considered most of those options, he didn't find it overly appealing to so much as to think of leaving her with them.The idea of having Destiny in the company of Persia or Willow, both of whom had stolen away his mate while she was pregnant with his daughter, left Ryan's skin crawling.He knew it was an overreaction and that, at the end of the day, the two women were doing what they had to in order to protect the prophecy.But before Destiny came into his world, all he could ever think about was El.
Hell, even when he looked at his daughter, he was still thinking about El, considering the fact that, much like El was the spitting image of her mother, Destiny was the spitting image of El.
To leave her somewhere felt like abandoning El somewhere.But to take her with him…?Well, that was to invite trouble.He knew that he should leave her behind, that this was the safest option.
And now, his options were to either trust her to two women who he didn’t care to look in the eyes anymore, his own mother who was likely planning a coup against him some day, or to take her with him to the Pantera compound.It was a miracle that Ryan’s head didn’t burst from merely considering these thoughts.
Actually, it was a miracle that Ryan didn’t shift into a lion right then and there and hunt down Trip and Shawn to ask them what exactly they thought they were doing, abandoning their daughter when it was so obviously their turn to watch her.
But then…
She babbled joyfully, spitting up bubbles as she looked directly at her father with a grin that he liked to believe she reserved for him alone, having identified him as the softest amongst her fathers and the one most likely to bend to her will.Especially as she opened her arms and reached towards him, signaling that she wanted to go up and forcing the man to grab her, nestling her below his chin and relishing in that new baby smell that seemed to always hang around Destiny.
Another, smaller part of him almost liked the idea of bringing Destiny along.It was definitely the dad in him, the proud male that wanted to show off his spawn.Knowing Luis to be unmated, it would be so easy to rub his nose at the fact that the leader of the other pack had gotten everything he could have wanted and more.Maybe it would even cause the man to lose his grip and even the playing field.
It was a thought.It was not a good thought but most certainly a thought on his part.
Ryan made up his mind within those five minutes of debating, knowing that if Shawn and Trip were already this late, then there was no use holding his breath for them to return in the few seconds before he had to leave.Destiny would just have to come with him and be a bright light on his honestly fairly irritating day.He supposed as he reached down and secured her into her baby carrier, radioing over to the driver to put in the car seat base so that he could clip her in and take her along.
If Ryan were lucky, the mere sight of Destiny’s cute, round face would remind Luis of what was at stake in these negotiations: the future.And if he were unlucky?
“Take your daughter to work day?”Adam teased the moment that his brother exited the office, eyeing the pram in his hands and obviously deciding to irritate him despite the fact that it was half his fault that Destiny couldn’t be left behind, considering the fact that he insisted on mating Willow instead of allowing Ryan to tear her limb from limb.
“Shut the fuck up,” Ryan growled in response to his chuckling brother as he hauled Destiny’s purple pram a little higher, a small smile blossoming at the corner of his lips as he looked down and saw her giggling at his use of vulgar language, regardless of whether she understood it or not.“Luis is going to be frothing at the mouth,” he remarked as he shook his head down at the little girl, swearing to himself that this would be the first and only time that he’d bring her to the Pantera compound, at least for now.
She could return once she was leader of the Pride.
El scowledat Marcus as he lounged back in her bed, still barely clothed, though admittedly much more modestly dressed than he was just twenty minutes prior.Still, she was mad at him for what had happened twenty minutes prior, when he’d obviously taken advantage of his far more advanced skills that came with being an older shifter and heard the approaching pride members, knowing that El’s handmaidens were nearing.He’d then, just when they were only about two minutes out and El had faintly begun to process the fact that they were nearing, not only sent her off on another mind-blowing orgasm that sent her head back and a loud, audible groan from between her lips but also decided to double his own exhibitionist Pride by spending his load in her, leaving her to helplessly clench her thighs as she was approached by one of her handmaidens just moments later, a white plush robe in their hand and a heavy, dark red blush characterizing their cheeks as they handed her her phone with a stuttered apology, having obviously heard stories of the past Lunas and how they would rip off heads for being interrupted in the middle of their bliss.
But that was beyond the point anymore because half of El’s bad mood wasn’t even Marcus’s fault if she were being honest with herself.It was the fault of the one person who had decided to text her that day, the one person whom El had sworn she never wanted to talk to again.
Silently, El cursed herself for not taking Shawn up on his offer when he offered to fake her death.It obviously was a stupid choice on her part to turn him down.She just assumed, wrongfully, it turned out that once she was gone, she would never hear from her mother again.Outside of mandatory public appearances, the occasional scoffing, and the woman rubbing her nose in things out of spite—it didn’t make sense for Annabel to contact her.After all, El wasn’t her real daughter.
But El had forgotten something in the whirlwind of events that had been in the last few months.Largely the fact that her father had finally decided to leave Annabel now that he was reunited with his true mate, casting the woman aside and deciding to have a large and rather messy divorce.One that Annabel obviously blamed El for, considering the few 100 square-filled text messages she had shot her way, but El had done her best to ignore those.
What she couldn’t ignore, however, was the text that she received that day.“It’s Mother’s Day,” El groaned, reading the text out loud for both Marcus and her to hear.Even though she knew that Marcus wouldn't be the one accompanying her to such an event, it would have to be Ryan.
To be honest, in the myriad of bliss that had filled her mind the past few weeks, she had almost forgotten that she had had siblings.To be honest, it was far too easy to pretend that her brothers didn't exist, that she wasn't connected to well-known politicians who spoke in the media all the time and puffed out their chests left and right.But there are moments like this when her mother contacted her out of nowhere and reminded her that she had obligations to attend to, which unfortunately reminded El of that fact.
After all, she wasn’t even supposed to know that Annabel wasn’t her mother, nor was anyone else supposed to.Therefore, it likely wouldn't make sense to her brothers if she didn't show up to Mother's Day, largely because she had been showing up to Mother's Day for years on end.It was her duty as a good, diligent daughter, and now that everything had been torn apart?
Annabel had practically made a point of calling El every now and again to whine about her impending divorce, complaining about the fact that El’s father, of all people, had grown a spine and decided to divorce her.Not for any woman of note but rather for a common bakery owner.One that Annabel had never seen before.Surely a slight.
“He’s trying to get under my skin,” Annabel had complained the last time she’d spoken to El.“He’s mad because of what happened in the Bahamas,” she said.What had happened in the Bahamas was that years ago, on Easter Sunday, when El was still in college, her mother had decided to cheat on her father with a cabana boy.“But that doesn't count,” Annabel said, and in her head, El could practically picture the woman waving the thought from the air with a firm, dismissive frown on her features.“Everyone knows that the help doesn't count.Your father informed me of that,” Annabel said on a rare occasion of her actually acknowledging the fact that El’s father had a nasty habit of cheating on her left and right, and El did her best to hold her tongue then,
Just as El did her best to hold her tongue now, as she looked down at the screen of her phone and read and reread the message that her mother had sent her, fighting the urge to inform her that she actually wasn't her mother and that she wasn't obligated to give a shit about her.“Why would I celebrate Mother's Day with you, anyway?”El noted to herself, murmuring under her breath so that her mate couldn't hear her acknowledge the truth of her younger years.“You never were much of a mother to me to begin with.”
A truth, if there were any.Annabel had never been anything close to a mother to El.She'd always treated her daughter like she was the competition when it came to gaining anyone's favor and an inconvenience otherwise.It was Annabel’s prerogative to push El to the corner of events, away from where cameras could see her.For a long time, El tried to starve herself skinny, assuming that the problem was that she just wasn't pretty enough for her mother's taste.Having listened to her mother had seemed like a likely enough reason.
But what El never would have guessed was the fact that it wasn’t that at all.Rather, it was the fact that she wasn’t her daughter.Annabel hated having a cuckoo's egg in her nest, and the urge to push El out so that she splattered against the pavement was obviously too strong for the woman.She had hated her since the moment that she was born and then proceeded to hate her with a little more fire after Annabel had gotten to know her adoptive daughter.
Nothing that El did could ever make Annabel like her.And yet, because she refused to make a hasty decision and fake her own death, she was forced to continue kissing this woman's ass until she died of old age.
“Thankfully, she's going to die long before me,” El said, hating the fact that she was so petty towards a woman that she should have looked up to, but knowing that if the situation were reversed and Annabel was the shifter who was destined to have a lengthy lifespan that could reach up to a century, she would have been more than happy to see her adoptive daughter die.
If Annabel knew the truth of their situation, then she’d likely be writhing with jealousy.Not for the fact that El was a shifter or anything like that, but rather for the fact that El would not have to worry about wrinkles for the rest of her natural life and then part of her unnatural life as well.Annabel spent thousands on Botox.
And on fillers.
