I crashed into her, squeezing her so hard the breath rushed out of her lungs and into my ear.
“And I totally understand,” I told her, my voice breaking. Her arms wrapped around me and we held each other for a long while, until we finally pulled away, wiping our eyes.
“Do I look like a racoon?” she asked, wiping at some smudged mascara.
I grinned. “Just a little bit racoon.” I reached out and wiped some more black off of her cheeks.
She sighed. “That was heavy, but I feel better.”
I laughed. “I agree, we need ice cream immediately.”
And with that we joined everyone else in the main room. Sage ordered ice cream sundaes for all of us and I sat next to my dad, leaning into him so he could wrap his arm around me. When Sage was showing my mom and Raven something on the TV, I leaned in closely to my dad and whispered in his ear. “I’m so lucky you’re my father. I love you so much, Dad.”
He swallowed hard, a tear slipping from his eye as he pulled me in for a hug. “I love you too, kiddo. You and your mother are my whole world.”
I tried not to think about Curt banishing my mom and how unfair that was. I tried not to think of the nice Paladin man who got beheaded because of me when I fell down the mountain. I really tried not to think about what Sawyer would do if he found out what I was. I just let my dad hold me, and pretended everything was going to be okay.
* * *
After seeingmy parents and Raven out to a car that Quan was driving, I thanked Sage for the surprise and slipped back into my apartment. Sawyer asked me to come over after, but I couldn’t; I needed to absorb the fact that I was half Paladin, that I was born of the blood of Sawyer’s family’s mortal enemies.
I looked down at my phone. I wanted to text him or PM him on Insta, but he wasn’t big on technology and social media. His WolfDude_4 profile only existed to like and comment on my photos.
Taking a deep breath, I called him instead.
“Hey, beautiful. You coming over?” he answered and I smiled.
“Actually I’m kinda wiped out emotionally. I was just calling to see if tomorrow was okay to meet up instead.”
“Are you okay?” His voice was suddenly protective and alert.
I nodded, and then remembered he couldn’t see me. “Yeah. Just some heavy stuff with my mom.”
“Oh,” he sighed. “I thought you would like having them here. Otherwise, I never would have gotten it approved.”
“No, I do. I have a really good relationship with my parents. It’s just…” I really wanted to tell Sawyer, but I didn’t think he could handle this and still love me, so I told a half truth. “Do you know why my mom was banished?”
His sharp intake of breath told me everything I needed to know. “Yes. She had a love affair with a Paladin during my father’s selection year.”
I winced. When he said it like that, it sounded bad, but hearing my mother tell the story was different. His words were true, but it wasn’t my mother’s fault she loved a kind man who she’d known since childhood.
“Sawyer?”
“Yeah.”
“Why do you guys hate the Paladins so much?”
He was silent a moment, then he breathed into the phone long and deep. “You know that story I told you about the curse that witch put on my family one thousand years ago?”
My heart threatened to jump out of my throat. “Yes,” I croaked.
Don’t say it. Don’t say what I think you are about to.
“Well, that woman was half Danai and half Paladin wolf, their alpha.”
Fuck.The Danai were the dark witches…
“So the Paladins are … like the Ithaki? Hybrids? They have female alphas?”
