Chapter 19
Alice
This is the one scenario that I wanted to avoid at all costs. This is why I brought Mira to a park farther away from our apartment. To see Darian holding our daughter fills me with a strange emotion. Fear is followed by something unknown, a tense feeling that causes the pit of my stomach to twist.
But he lets her walk away.
He doesn’t scream at me, he doesn’t blame me. After all the reactions I once imagined, I saw none of them. Instead, he’s angry that I endured the pregnancy alone?
I have never wanted to hear his explanation for what happened that night. I always knew it would be filled with lies to paint him in a better light. Perhaps it is the shock of seeing him with Mira that has me struggling to speak, giving him the opportunity to talk.
And when he does talk, I have no choice but to listen.
I want to blame Mary for the thoughts she has put in my head. I need to blame somebody because I’m beginning to believe what Darian is saying. I want to cover my ears and drown out his voice. I don’t want to hear his explanation, but the more he talks, the more my body quivers.
At the same time, though, I can see Willow manipulating the situation. Her hatred for me has always been endless. I never understood what fueled it since she always had everything and I had nothing. But if I ever did get something that gave me the slightest bit of happiness, she wanted to take it from me. She was in constant competition with me, watching me for any sign of joy and then ruining it. It was like she needed me to be unhappy.
If someone goes out of their way to cause you misery, it’s their problem. That is what I always told myself, but it never made me feel better. Willow was always in a position of power because of her father’s status in the pack, and she used it to hurt me over and over again. It didn’t matter where I went; she would find a way to get to me.
“Let go of me,” I finally say, hoarsely.
Darian releases me, but he doesn’t move away. “I can prove it, Alice. My conversation with Willow, my conversation with the witches, everything is recorded. I knew how much you and Willow hated each other. That day, she told me the white witches were coming and I had to denounce you publicly. I knew you would never believe me, so I kept recordings of every interaction I had with her in those days.”
He runs his fingers through his hair, and I notice the bags under his eyes. He looks tired, as if he hasn’t slept in days. Even at the business dinner the other night, his appearance was unkempt. He looks like a man struggling with his life.
“Once it was all was over, I thought I would get to talk to you,” Darian tries to explain, speaking fast as if worried that I’m going to break into a run to avoid this conversation.
He’s not completely wrong; I’m certainly tempted. But my feet remain rooted to the ground.
“I knew you weren’t going to trust me, but if faced with the evidence… I was going to send you somewhere safe, Alice. That was the plan. I was going to hide you till I dealt with the witches and Willow. I don’t know how things got so out of hand. After what happened in the ballroom, my father pulled me, Willow, and the witches into his study to figure out what was happening. Even then, Willow tried to go renege on the deal we made. She wanted the witches to drag you back and brand you in front of everyone. She was almost desperate to see it happen. My father put an end to that idea, but by the time everything was over and I tried to find you, you were already gone.”
When I don’t say anything, he reaches into his pocket and takes out his phone. “If you don’t believe me, I have it all on here. Give me an hour, Alice. Just one hour. I’ll show you what really happened. I didn’t betray you—”
“I don’t need to see it.” The words are torn from me. “It won’t change anything, Darian.” Despair fills his face, followed by a hopelessness that makes me look away. I don’t want to see that miserable look in his eyes. Not when I’ve been the one suffering all this time.
“You still think I chose Willow because I wanted to hurt you?” His voice sounds wretched and pulls my gaze back to him. His expression makes my eyes burn with tears, but I hold them back. I won’t feel sorry for him. I don’t want to feel anything for him aside from hatred. But I’m also not going to lie to him.
“No. Mary has been advocating for you over the past couple of days, so maybe she’s gotten through to me. Even if I were to believe you, Darian… Let’s say I do. There’s no place in my life for you. I don’t want you in that way anymore.”
“But we’re fated mates.” He grips my arms. “We can get past this.”
“Get past it?” I ask dully, a humorless laugh bubbling out of me. “I can understand your version of what happened, but I can’t forgive you for it. I can’t forgive you for all those nights when I worked myself ragged to put food on the table for our daughter. I can’t forgive you for those nights I broke down in the toilets I was scrubbing, eight months pregnant, hungry and exhausted. I would go two or three days without eating, Darian. Because I didn’t have the money and because I didn’t have the strength to work as much as I needed to cover rent, school fees, and food.”
I’m trying to control my emotions, but I can’t. Even though I am a successful lawyer now, I will never forget the years of torment I endured.
“I can’t forgive you for when Mira got sick and I had nobody to turn to. What happened that night changed me. I’ve learned not to rely on anyone. It was a harsh lesson, but one I needed to learn. I don’t have it in me to love you or forgive you, but I can understand what happened.”
“Alice—” he begins, but I shake my head, taking a step back.
“If they’re looking for me, I can’t stay here anymore, Darian. You’ve implied that the white witches and Willow are working together. If Willow ever discovers Mira’s existence, she will stop at nothing to torture our child. And you better understand that now. She’ll use the white witches if she has to, or she’ll use her status as queen, but she will hurt Mira because hurting my little girl will hurt me.” I turn around to leave, but Darian stops me. Feeling his warm hand wrap around mine makes my eyes flutter shut. “Let go of me, Darian. I can’t stay here any longer.”
He releases my hand but immediately comes to stand in front of me. “Please. I’m asking you to trust me just one more time.”
I look at him, my jaw set. “I made that mistake once, Darian. And it cost me everything. I told you, I’ve learned my lesson.”
“Alice.” He blocks my path as I try to walk away again. “I’ll divorce Willow. I’m working on eliminating the influence of the white witches. They won’t be able to touch you. Nobody will be able to do anything to you. Let me protect you this time. I know I failed before, but—”
I’m staring at him, stunned. “Divorce Willow? I’m supposed to think you’ll leave the queen of the Wolf Kingdom for me? For someone who has been branded a dark witch? You expect me to believe that?” I let out a skeptical snort. “You’re not going jeopardize your kingdom over somebody like me, somebody you know that nobody will accept. If you want to make up a lie, Darian, at least make it believable.”
“What do you want me to do?” he pleads. “How do I get you to trust me? You won’t look at the evidence; you won’t take my word. Tell me how to fix it. Because I can’t do this anymore, Alice. I cannot live without you, and I especially cannot live without our daughter. I need you both. I’ve been living in a hell of my own making for seven years now. I won’t go back to it.”
I stare at him, hardening my heart. “I feel sorry for you, Darian. And the reason I feel sorry for you is that you’re married to Willow. I wouldn’t wish her upon anybody. But the truth is, even if I were to believe that you’re unhappy and you want a way out, and that I am your way out, it’s not going to end well for either of us. If you divorce her, you’re going to cause a rift within the Wolf Kingdom. I don’t think you can afford that. You clearly haven’t thought this through. And I don’t want to expose Mira to any of the backlash.”
I watch him look over to where Mary and Jimmy have taken Mira. His expression is conflicted. I can see the heartbreak all over his face, but in his eyes, there is a cold, calculating look. If I believe that the Darian I knew seven years ago was the real him, then he has changed. That Darian never had such a look in his eyes.
He has switched up his angle really quickly. From pleading to analyzing.
When his eyes return to rest on me, he’s frowning. “She’s my daughter, Alice. Her existence cannot be concealed for long.”
“If I could hide her for seven years—”
“Yes, but I didn’t know about her for those seven years, did I?” he says quietly, his green gaze piercing me. “You kept her from me. She doesn’t even know me. She doesn’t know her own father, Alice. What do you think is going to go through her head when she sees other children with their fathers, fathers who are present in their lives? You can fill the hole to some extent, but you cannot be a father to her. Even if you fulfill every emotional and physical requirement, she is still going to wonder, and she’s going to feel that absence in her life. I would know, as should you. I didn’t have a mother, Alice. You didn’t have either of your parents. We both know what it’s like.”
My mouth is dry as I tear my gaze from him and look in Mira’s direction. He’s not wrong. I do know what it’s like. But the threat to Mira is too much for me to risk.
“What if she’s like me?” I whisper without thinking. “What if the witches claim that she’s also a dark witch? What are you going to do then? Hand her over to them?”
When I hear Darian suck in his breath, I belatedly realize what I have done.
“Are you serious?” Darian’s voice is uneven as he grips me by my upper arms, forcing me to look at him.
“I—No, of cour—”
“You’re lying.” He sounds numb as he stares at me. “She has the mark, doesn’t she?”
I try to push him away, but his strength is far greater than mine. “No, she doesn’t!”
He searches my eyes. “You’re saying I won’t find it if I search her?”
“You touch my daughter—” I begin, my upper lip twisting.
“I think you mean our daughter,” he hisses. “She’s mine, too, Alice. Just because you hid her from me all these years doesn’t make her any less mine. In the shifter world, I have more rights to her than you do.”
The blood drains from my face. “Are you threatening to take her from me?”
He’s quiet for a moment, his fingers still pressing into my arms. “No.”
But the threat has latched itself onto me. “If you even think of taking her, remember, she’s not registered as a shifter. She’s a human child. And I will fight tooth and nail to keep her. You cannot take my daughter from me, Darian. I will not let you take her from me and give her to Willow or the witches.”
For somebody who claims to be calm in dire situations, I’m falling apart. My worst nightmare is coming true. I have to get out of here. I have to take Mira and leave. I never should have listened to Mary. Despite everything, Darian still managed to find out about Mira, and now he wants to—
Darian gives me a quick shake, growling. “I told you, I will not take her from you! I will not keep her from her mother. But if she carries the dark witch bloodline, Mira is not safe from the white witches’ coven. They are already looking for you, and they will keep at it till they find you. And once they do, they won’t hold back. They won’t care that Mira is a child. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
His voice is urgent, and I can see the fear in his eyes.
“I–I should take her and run.” The panic builds within me. “Europe. We can build a new life there.”
“You think they won’t find you in Europe?” Darian scoffs. “The white witches are spread out over the entire world. Different covens, different rules, but the same goal: to destroy the dark witches. It doesn’t matter where you go. Once they catch a whiff of her, they will never stop hunting you. Even more than they already are because, with Mira, I now have two weaknesses, and the witches will try to exploit both of them.”
“Weaknesses?” I’m trying to follow him, to think past this fog of fear and worry.
“Ever since Willow discovered that you have the dark witch bloodline, you have been my weakness. Both her and the white witches have used it to their advantage to get their way. Now, with Mira, they will have two weaknesses to use against me.”
Darian lets go of me and sighs. He looks weary, as if the weight of the world is on his shoulders. I have to stop myself from touching him. He tucks his hands in his pockets, and for the first time, I see his head droop.
“Willow was convinced I’d grow to love her once she got me in her bed and I gave her my mating mark. She was cocky, arrogant, and she tried to woo me. She did everything she could think of, even dyeing her hair the same color as yours. On our wedding night, she discovered that I had no intention of ever touching her. She couldn’t force me to sleep with her. She tried threatening you again, but I told her that if she went after you, no matter where you were, I’d publicly divorce her.”
His back is to me now, almost as if he can’t look me in the eye.
“All this time, the only reason she has sat on that throne beside me is because it was the only way I knew to stop her from looking for you. The white witches wanted to instate Willow as the queen for reasons unknown to me. What I do know is that Thomas Elvin has had dealings with them that span years. But if Willow or the coven knew how to get to you, they would have captured you years ago, and Mira with you.”
When I don’t say anything, he turns around to face me.
“I should’ve handled that situation better. I should’ve done something, even if it meant involving my father. But I felt cornered because Willow had already contacted the white witches before confronting me. Even if I had gotten rid of her, the white witches were already aware of your existence, and they would have done something to you. All of this is my fault, Alice, but I need to do the right thing now. Surviving without you has been hard. It’s been next to impossible. I’ve been existing, but I haven’t been living. The day I first saw you again, it felt like the chains that had been holding me down finally broke. It felt like I could breathe again.”
He sits down on the bench now and looks up at me.
“I never ripped out our fated mate bond. I never gave Willow my mark. The bond between us let me know you were alive somewhere because I could feel it. Even when I began to convince myself that you were gone and that I was just imagining the bond’s existence, it was still a source of comfort. I—I know you spent all these years hating me. I spent them breaking over and over again, living an incomplete life, reliving what took place in the ballroom in my nightmares, feeling like I had killed you with my own hands.”
My heart is beating at an uncomfortable pace, the wealth of pain in his quiet voice fueling my own. “Why not make it easy on yourself? Why not just give Willow the mating mark? You didn’t have to live like this.”
The flicker of anguish in his eyes shows me the torment this man has endured for years, and it has me blinking away tears. “I could never willingly touch the woman who put you through that hell. She laughed about it later, on the day of our wedding. She warned me during the ritual that if I so much as lifted a finger to help you, the witches would kill you. She made me her puppet to hurt you. I may have been the prince, but I was helpless. And you suffered as a result.”
I sit down beside Darian, staring straight ahead, tears burning in my eyes but not yet falling. “But you did marry her. She got what she wanted.”
Darian’s smile is cold now, humorless and empty. “No, she didn’t. She thought she’d won. Two birds, one stone, right? She got rid of you, but she has never gotten more than a title from me. She isn’t allowed in my bed. She isn’t allowed to touch me. She has no power in the royal palace. Even the servants detest her. She tried to punish them once, and I punished her. She spent a week in the dungeons without food and water for striking a servant, and then two weeks for attempting to fire Jimmy.”
I can see out of the corner of my eye that he is looking at me, but I do not respond.
“I haven’t made life easy for her, Alice. She has become a laughing stock in the kingdom because it is obvious to everybody that she doesn’t have the king’s favor. I’m being harassed by alphas and betas who are parading their daughters in front of me in the hope that I may choose a mistress or another queen. There are rumors that Willow is unable to conceive. Still, she is persistent. She believes I will roll over eventually. But she can’t do anything. She can’t use you against me because you aren’t there.”
“But if she finds out about Mira—”
“I’ll protect you both this time,” Darian vows, his tone dark and heavy. “Alice, I need to be in Mira’s life. I’m going to divorce Willow, but if you don’t want to expose Mira to the Wolf Kingdom, I won’t force you. It’s probably safer at the moment, anyway. But I need her to know that her father didn’t abandon her. I’ll do whatever you say; you have my word. I want to get to know her.”
I could say no, but despite my better judgement, I’m once again being dragged into this whirlpool of emotions that I thought I escaped a long time ago.
When I’m silent again, he says, “Alice?”
“She has never asked about her father,” I finally murmur. “But she will. I know her. She’s smart. I don’t want her to think that she was abandoned, like I was by my parents. I know how that feels when the people you love turn their backs on you, leaving you wondering if the fault lay in you, whether you weren’t enough. I don’t want her to think that, ever.”
“I won’t hurt her,” Darian says in a low voice. “I want to meet her properly. I want to love her, spoil her, be in her life in every way.”
My hands twist together nervously. “This—If I let you meet her, it doesn’t mean anything has changed between us. I’m not—I’m too badly messed up inside, Darian. I only have room in my heart for Mira. That’s all. There’s no space for anybody else. So, if you think that once you divorce Willow, things will work out for you and me, they won’t. I will always be waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
He’s quiet for a few seconds before asking, “And what if I prove to you that it won’t? Will you give me another chance then?”
I look over at Mira, who is sitting on one of the swings as Jimmy pushes her higher and higher. My daughter is laughing hysterically. For her, I would do anything.
“Just prove that you can be a good father to Mira, Darian. I won’t begrudge you taking another woman after Willow. I know you need an heir. You have every right to—”
“It’s either you or no one.” Darian’s voice is filled with finality.
“You want to be foolish, that’s on you. I’ve already told you: I’m not that person anymore, and I don’t have room in my life for anyone.” I get to my feet. “I understand what happened, Darian, but I can’t undo the damage that resulted.”
He also stands up, and before I can stop him, he seizes me by the waist, pulling me toward him in a kiss so heated that my toes curl. For one moment, one glorious, dazed moment, it’s just him and me, one of his hands on my back, the other in my hair, holding me to him. His mouth is hot and wet, and it shoots a spark of need to my lower belly.
Just one kiss, and I feel the wet desire in my panties.
It’s not a sweet or tender kiss, but one fueled by hunger and a desire so fierce that it burns me. My hands aren’t pushing him away; they’re holding onto him for dear life. His mouth moves against mine, his body hard under his shirt.
I was sure that the long dry spell I have endured meant I didn’t need a man’s touch. All these years, no one excited me, no one made me want to “let loose,” as Katherine once put it. As it turns out, it was Darian’s touch that my body needed in order to wake up.
The giggling of children has me pulling away, feeling flushed and hot. I look over at four kids, who can’t be any more than five years old, tittering and pointing at us. As soon as they see me watching, they scatter.
My chest is heaving as I try to catch my breath.
“I was sure you’d at least slap me,” Darian murmurs.
I don’t miss a beat, using all my strength to punch him in the stomach.
“Oof!” he groans, doubling over. “Spoke too soon.”
“Don’t ever do that again,” I warn him, wishing I looked as dignified as I’m trying to sound.
He just laughs amid the groan. “Do you really think I’m going to stop trying to win you over, Alice? You’re not the only one who has changed in the past seven fucking years. I want to get to know my daughter, but I also want you back.”
“Well, tough luck,” I growl at him. “It’s not happening.”
He straightens up, rubbing his stomach. “You pack a mean punch, Alice Lane. But I’m not giving up. And before you say anything, remember, I spent seven years shackled to Willow.” His voice is dangerously soft. “You have no idea how patient I can be.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “That sounds like a threat.”
He just smiles at me in a way that warms my blood.
Why do I feel like I just got played?