Filed to story: The Alphas Contract Novel by Taylor West
I am more than overwhelmed.
Neah keeps her eyes on me. I don’t think she is waiting for an answer, instead I think she is watching to see how I process her words.
My mouth opens and closes several times as I struggle to form any words. I’m also pretty certain that if I had been holding anything but Luca, I would have dropped it.
Forgiveness was something I was never expecting. Never. She had made that very clear that day she finally heard me out.
I clear my throat, hoping that my brain will engage my mouth muscles. “You do?”
She bobs her head at me.
“Why now?” I could feel more tears creeping along my eyelids
“You are not who you were. I’m not who I was. We have both come a long way.” She shrugs her shoulders at me like it’s no big deal. “The person you were back then, she only ever cared about herself.”” She smiles to herself. “I killed the man who shot you because it made me so angry that I thought I had lost you too.”
I hadn’t thought about it like that and she had never mentioned anything about it. Brax had told me that the guy was aiming for Neah and that was why I assumed she killed the guy. Not because he had hurt me.
“You have no idea what it means to hear you say that.” I whisper, still trying to process the weird sense of relief that I’m feeling. I had no idea of the guilt I had been holding on to. I guess I had just grown so used to it, that now it’s gone, I feel strange, but in a good way.
“It’s funny.” Neah shifts her gaze to the window. “I never thought I would see you again, I definitely didn’t think we would be living in the same pack.” “Or that you outrank me, big style.” I add and see her lips curve up
“I never had a friend until Raven, and even if she were still alive, I don’t think we would be as friendly as you and I have become.”
“She cared about you.” I offer
“For a while, but then…..Anyway, do you accept?”
“Hell fucking yeah!” My response makes Luca jump, causing him to cry as Neah laughs.
I stay with Neah for a few hours while she mulls over Dane’s reaction to Evrin shifting. Though I’m certain it’s just because it’s something he wasn’t expecting. In the moment he was probably excited and then reality set in. It will be harder to protect him now and some people may not like it.
Leaving the house, I find Dorothy sitting behind a bush, her back pressed up against a side wall,
hidden from most people’s view.
She’s doodling on a piece of and by the looks of it the discarded food wrappers, she had been here for sometime.
Slipping in behind the bushes, she stares at me with bright green eyes, waiting for me to tell her off.
“Dorothy?” I say softly. “Why are you sitting behind the bush?”
“I don’t want my Dad’s to find me.”
I lower Luca and myself until I’m sitting with my knees touching hers. “You know they can smell you, right?”
“I didn’t think of that.” Her shoulders drop and her bottom lip sticks out. “They are mad at me.”
“Because of what happened at school?” It had to be the only reason.
She bobs her head and the bottom lip comes out further.
“Something made you angry?”
She doesn’t answer me and refuses to meet my gaze.
“Everyone gets angry.” I tell her, “Lot’s of different things make people angry and do you know what I’ve learned over the years?”
She shakes her head.
“It’s always better to talk about it.”
“But they will be angry.”
“Maybe, but if we don’t know why you are, we can’t help you.” I’m hoping that she will find it easier to talk to someone that’s not one of her Dads.
“He said I was different. That there is something wrong with me.”
“Kade?”
She bobs her head and I notice how hard she is pushing the pencil into the paper. “I’m not bad. I help Neah He called me poison. I don’t even know what that is. Then he said…. He said someone will kill me in my sleep because I deserve it.”
Her fingers curl tightly around the pencil until it snaps, “but I’m not the one who is bad.” “You think Kade is bad?”
Her head moves up and down making her braids swing. “Not right now, but he will be.”
Surely it wouldn’t be possible to know if a child is going to be a problem when they are older. They haven’t even experienced life.
“Have you spoken to either of your Dad’s about it?”
“Daddy Damien was angry and Daddy didn’t listen. I had to stop Kade, Mallory. Everything he said made me sad. He’s mean and only to me” She smiles at Luca sleeping in my arms. “Can’t I just stay here and play with Logan and Evrin? They like me.”
“That’s not up to me. But school is really important. Have you made any friends?”
“One girl talks to me. Her name is Lyrah.”
“She’s a Wolf?”
“Uh huh, she’s the one who told me to stick up for myself. So I did.”
“I want you to do something for me.”
Her green eyes are unsure as she studies me.
“When you go back to school, if anything happens, I want you to tell the teacher. I don’t want you doing something that will get you into trouble.” “That’s what Daddy Damien said.”
“Because he is right.” Although if she had asked me when I was younger, I probably would have told her to beat the crap out of Kade.
She pouts at me as a tiny crease appears between her brows. “I can’t wait to be a grown up.”
I laugh, “Come on, you can stay with me and Luca. One of your Dad’s can collect you later.”
“Are you going to tell them?”
“I think you should, but I can be there with you.”
It’s late when Damien and Dane arrive. I wasn’t expecting both of them, but maybe I could talk sense into both of them.
“Dorothy is asleep. She can stay for the night. We need to talk.” I wanted Dorothy to tell him, but I wasn’t waking her up after it took me so long to convince her to sleep. She was one hundred percent positive that Kade was going to kill her and I wouldn’t notice
“Has she said anything?” Damien mutters as he takes a seat at my small dining table.
I tell them the conversation I had with Dorothy.
“He called her poison?!” Dane asks in disgust
“She even said she doesn’t know what that means so it’s unlikely she made it up. I don’t know if it’s because she is a Hunter by birthright or if there is something else going on, but….”
“I will handle it.” Dane replies. “She is part of this pack whether they like it or not.”
“That’s not going to put her mind at rest. That girl cried herself to sleep tonight. She’s probably gone right back to square one.” Right on cue, she starts crying.
“I’m going to take her home. Maybe a familiar bed will help.” Damien frowns and disappears up the stairs to find her.
I sigh and glance up at Dane, “You haven’t said anything about Evrin.”
“Neah told you?”
I nod, knowing was crossing over into dangerous territory by challenging him. “Is that why you haven’t spent any time with them todays that why you have been making excuses about going home? Because he can shift?”
I don’t wait for an answer.
“She’s sad and I know you feel her sadness. She thinks you are disgusted by Evrin being able to shift.”
“Not true.”
“But you came here with Damien when you didn’t need to. You could have gone home to her. Home to your boys.”
Dane shakes his head at me. “I’ve been on duty, I don’t want the news of Evrin getting out.”
“That’s why you have been avoiding going home?”
New Book: Veiled Desires of the Alpha King Novel
Dayson was the alpha of the largest pack in North America. Powerful figures from other packs sought to offer gorgeous girls as potential mates for Dayson. He steadfastly rejected these advances, he was not a pawn to be manipulated. But eventually there came a mysterious girl he could hardly say No. Who was she?