Later, it would likely make me pay somehow. I’d shift when I got the chance and try to run off the wildness, the wrongness that boiled up inside me.
I’d just mated with Daphne when it was almost the full moon and had resisted the urge to give her my bite.
I could do this. I would not tie myself to her, and that would keep her safe.
Most of the household had returned from the festival and were already in their rooms by the time we made our way inside.
“Sorry about earlier. I’m okay. Shall we head to my room?” I asked Daphne. “My bed is very, very comfortable.”
“Your room? You want round two already?” Her mouth curved up in a smile.
“Are you saying no?” I chuckled. “I’d be perfectly happy for you to fall asleep in my arms in a nice, comfortable bed with no further hanky-panky. If that’s what you desire, anyway. I just want you to be comfortable in my room because it’s technically our room.”
“That doesn’t sound too terrible.”
I seized her hand and led her through the quiet house. I cracked the door open, only to see that there was someone already waiting in my bedroom.
I threw the door open wide and we walked in. The room was mostly dark, except for two lighted sconces on either side of my bed. My grandfather sat in an armchair in the corner.
Daphne stopped and let out a startled squeak.
Worry surged through me. “Grandfather, what in the moon are you doing here?” I demanded. I was sure he’d walked down here, and he shouldn’t have exerted himself like that.
He was sitting on my chair, breathing hard. Peering at him, though, I did agree with what I’d heard—he was regaining some color. He’d even put on a little weight.
But he was still a shell of the man he once had been.
“You shouldn’t have come all this way. There’s no way Grandma let you do this.”
“No, she’s asleep,” he wheezed. “She would have raised hell to the heavens if she saw me leave.”
“What’s going...” Daphne said, but I stopped her. I went to my dresser and got some extra robes out of a drawer. I handed one to my mate and put one on myself.
“Her,” he barked. “She’s the one you’ve been with, isn’t she?”
“Daphne, this is my grandfather, Liam. Grandfather, this is my mate-to-be, Daphne.”
“I’m honored to meet you,” Daphne said politely.
“You,” he hissed. “You’ve moon bitten her already, haven’t you, Killian?”
“I’ve done no such thing,” I snapped back. “The full moon isn’t for three days.”
“Then you still have time to come to your senses. Send her away, Killian. Be rid of her.”
I mean, Daphne was standingright there.
I put my hand on her arm and gave it a gentle squeeze but kept my gaze fixed on my grandfather.
“She is my fated mate. And I love her. I have followed the terms of the contract, Grandfather, and we’ve discussed this before.”
I heard a little noise of dismay from Daphne. Of course I hadn’t told her that my grandfather was against this. It was pack business. Alpha business. Nothing for her to concern herself with.
My grandfather stood up and took a deep breath. “I order you to, as alpha of the White Fang!”
It was pathetic. And it hurt me to see. The man who I idolized, the role model in my life, putting himself in this position.
Demanding my loyalty—and feeling that I was denying it to him.
