Immediately, the room spins, and Astrid’s cries muffle before ebbing into nothingness.
Only pure, empty darkness.
Chapter 24 - Caleb
The evening brings a slight reprieve from the summer heat, keeping me feeling more grounded as I move along the north-west perimeter with deliberate strides.
The pine needles under my boots crack softly, and the breeze carries familiar scents of the pack, earth, and water running in the distance. Everything seems normal. Predictable, even.
But inside, nothing is. There’s nothing routine about the lingering ache in my chest and the burn of the fact I now carry.
Jack walks a few paces behind me, giving me room to think while the guys monitor within a relative proximity. Everyone knows by now that I’m one mild inconvenience away from snapping again, so they don’t push. Surprisingly, even Dominic has toned down his usual antics.
When I’m not myself, they all know it, and they’re also aware that it’s in their best interest not to make it worse.
Regardless of how the trees sway gently around us, which should be calming to me right now, my heart squeezes anyway at the echo of the fight I had with Lila. It’s still so raw, and the sound of her shaky voice strikes me again and again. She looked guilty, yes, but also beyond hurt. Vulnerable.
Astrid is my daughter, yet no matter how many times I say it in my mind, it’s just as surreal.
At this point, I’m not angry. I don’t even feel betrayed. I just feel the empty loss of those years I missed, and the years she grew without me knowing she existed.
That precious, bright little girl is mine, yet I wasn’t there for her until recently.
And Lila… she didn’t keep her from me out of spite. She hid her because I didn’t give her the safety and security she needed. At her confession, I crushed that fragile, irreplaceable thing between us.
I didn’t deserve to know it. I didn’t deserve anything but the distance between us.
After a while, Jack clears his throat from behind me. “You’ve been quiet.”
“I’m thinking.”
“You’ve been thinking a lot lately,” he adds dryly.
When I glare at him, he just shrugs and keeps walking. I don’t even have the mental energy to do anything more than that.
The truth of the matter is, I’m not angry that Astrid is mine. I’m angry that I failed both of them long before I knew the truth, and now I’m paying for it.
“Being a bonded mate isn’t exactly easy, as I’ve learned,” I mutter while we follow that unmarked path through the trees.
“I can just imagine.”
Ignoring him, I focus my strength on keeping my emotions under control. But even then, I can still hear the two of us in the kitchen, and I can see the way she didn’t fight back. She just took it, like she knew it was inevitable. Because it was.
Lila reacted like keeping Astrid from me was an unforgivable offence, and one we’d never come back from. She felt guilty, and to me, that spoke volumes.
It wasn’t something she wanted to do, but nothing had been in her favor back then. Nobody was there for her.
I certainly wasn’t.
I can hardly blame her for doing everything in her power to protect Astrid. I just wish it didn’t cost me that time with her.
But now, this is bigger than just the two of us.
I want to be her father. Not just an anomaly in her life, but a present one. A loving one. And I want Lila there too.
I just don’t know what it will take to get us back to that place.
Shaking it off, I continue, not wanting it to consume me.
