Page 50 of Fated Alpha Baby

Annika reaches a hand out and places it over mine. “I noticed this morning. You’re still angry with him, aren’t you?”

“Of course, I am.”

“That’s why you kept Clarissa a secret from him, even after discovering that you’re fated mates, and after the mating ritual.”

“Yes. He hurt me too much in the past.” I look up with tears clouding my vision now. “He broke his promise to me, Annika. He got what he wanted, and then he threw me under the bus as soon as the sun came up. If he didn’t do that, I would have gone to him for help. I would have asked him to defend me. But it was too late.”

“Elder Bernard is…a scary, grumpy old man. I can only imagine what he was like when he was the alpha of this pack. He must have been very hard on Conan.”

“Yeah, well, Conan should have left me alone if he knew it wouldn’t work, instead of making empty promises to me. Now we have a child together, and even though we’re mated, everything is a mess.”

“Things will get better,” Annika assures me, squeezing my hand gently. “You just need to give it time.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that, Annika. He hates me because I kept Clarissa a secret from him, and it’s only been a few days. I hate him because he hurt me, and eight years later, it still hurts.”

Annika sighs. “Well, if you’d like, I can spend the rest of the day with you and Clarissa. If you’re not ready to let the others know about her, I’d suggest you stay indoors until you and Conan sort things out. They’re bound to scent her, just like I did. Just like he did.”

I nod nervously. “And if her wolf isn’t hidden, it means it won’t remain dormant forever. She’ll figure out he’s her father soon enough.”

“Then perhaps you and Conan need to iron out your differences before that happens. For her sake, the two of you need to talk. If what Dorothy said was true, that it wasn’t like that for him, that he believes you left of your own free will, then there’s clearly a misunderstanding, and it needs to be cleared up.”

***

I’ve spent all day mulling over Annika’s advice, and my mind races with ideas of how to approach the subject with Conan.

But when he returned home at nightfall, he didn’t say a word to me.

We’ve been having dinner in silence, save for the casual chat between father and daughter, while Clarissa remains unaware of what he is to her.

He’s kept his promise not to tell her the truth, and he’s clearly making an effort to form a relationship with her. That’s probably why he brought home hamburgers and French fries for dinner, courtesy of Heinrich and Annika, who picked some up on their voyage to the human world to make sure that things were still calm out there.

No demon sightings have been reported in the city, and the attacks remain isolated to wolf and witch territory.

For now.

“Mommy, I’m tired,” Clarissa yawns when she’s done eating her dinner. “I wanna go to bed.”

I nod as I’m about to stand up, but stop when Conan raises a hand.

“Don’t worry. I’ve got this,” Conan assures me. “I’ll tuck Clarissa in tonight.”

“Really?” Clarissa’s eyes shimmer with excitement. “Are you gonna tell me a bedtime story?”

“Yes,” Conan chuckles. “Yes, I am.” He glances at me with an unreadable expression as he stands up. “Would you like to hear the story about the boy who cried wolf?”

“I never heard that one before!” Clarissa beams with excitement as she skips toward the hallway. “Good night, Mommy!”

“Good night, Bug,” I call back, then sigh when the two of them leave the kitchen.

My heart plummets to the floor, a sinking feeling overpowering the unease that had been there the whole night.

I can’t sit here and wait for him to come back, so instead of tending to the dishes, I wander down the hallway and stop just outside Clarissa’s bedroom door, listening to Conan telling her the timeless fable. My heart pounds, a lump lodging in my throat by the time he nears the end of the story.

“…No one trusts a liar, even when they’re telling the truth. The end.”

“Wow! I really liked that story, Conan! You gonna tell me another one tomorrow?”

“Yes,” Conan concedes with a lighthearted chuckle. “Good night, kiddo.”