44. Why did I answer the phone?
44
WHY DID I ANSWER THE PHONE?
Ryder
He didn’t believe me. Ivor thought I was the liar in all of this and I didn’t know how to make it right.
I got it, the reasons why he believed Kellan over me. I’d been so quick to side with him for so long, forgiving Kellan’s sorry ass every time he let someone stick his dick in him or he sucked someone off. Ivor saw all of that. Everyone did. It was far from the best of me.
But still… I thought Ivor and I had worked through it. That maybe he would see the real me and understand that I could never do something like that to him. That I loved him.
Three days had passed since our animals came face to face. Three days when I saw how truly I’d lost Ivor. Fuck Kellan and his bullshit lies.
I tried to call the rat bastard again. Maybe I shouldn’t. Maybe that was part of the problem. Even in the huge shitstorm that was my break up, it was Kellan I was calling, not Ivor.
Not that I could call Ivor. He blocked me and made Daire promise to not even speak about him, much less let me into their place.
No one from Sunshine Manor was giving me the time of day except Martin and Toby and even at that, Martin had a coldness to him. Not the same kind of rage that Seb had, the rage that led to violence. But his displeasure was there.
After five rings, the phone went to voicemail and I hung up. There was no need to leave a message. I’d already left far too many. I caught my reflection in the phone. At least my eye was starting to look almost normal.
When it started to buzz in my hand I almost dropped it, Kellan’s name scrolling across it.
“About time, asshole.” It wasn’t the best way to answer the phone, but it made my point. “Why are you such a lying piece of shit? Why? You were the one who left me and then you decide to what… play with me like prey? You aren’t even a freaking lion. You have no excuse to be doing what you’re doing. Fucking none.” My voice had reached a screaming level. I couldn’t control it. I don’t think I’d ever been as mad at anyone as I was with Kellan. Not ever.
“Ivor was never good enough for you,” he said. Wait? What?
“That’s not any of your concern. You weren’t good enough for me is what you’re saying.” I needed to get out of here. The walls were closing in around me as we spoke and knowing Kellan as I did, this conversation wasn’t going to get any better.
“Bullshit. I was the best you ever had. You told me more times than I could count.”
I grabbed my keys and walked out of my place. I needed air. “Do you ever tell the truth?”
“You know it’s true. You loved me in your bed.” And that was when I heard his voice coming from two places; my phone and in person. The fucker was here… in the hallway. No wonder he was saying such bull shit. He was hoping for an audience, for some drama. Gods, I fucking hated that we shared the same damn air.
I slid the phone in my pocket. “You can leave now and don’t come back.”
A door opened. Great. We had an audience.
“Leave him alone.” It was the new guy, Seb clattering down to the second floor, and he was barking the order at me, not the person who deserved it. “Stay away from Kellan. He doesn’t deserve your shit.”
He was so wrong there.
“My shit? You're the man who decked me. Not really sure you have room to talk.” I still didn’t understand what the deal was with that. That night hadn’t felt like an escalation to violence kinda fight until his fist slammed into me. “I don’t have time for you two.”
I stormed towards the door, the last thing I heard before I left was, “Is he the one who knocked you up? Is that your baby daddy?”
Fuck everything—except Kellan. Because someone fucking him was exactly how we got into this mess in the first place.
Micah
Elune had fallen asleep on my chest as I rocked in my chair. She was so beautiful it almost hurt. All of the books said I should put her down, set her in her crib so I didn’t have a difficult time with bedtimes in the future, but I couldn’t bear to do it.
She was so peaceful, so content, so perfect. I was sure there would be a day when she would do something that would upset me… it was the way of things. But at this moment, it didn’t feel possible.
“I love you more than the sun and the stars,” I cooed and I continued rocking.
My phone started to ring and I inwardly cursed at myself for leaving the ringer on. I fumbled around until I could get it open enough to silence it and saw the word ‘Professor’ on the screen. He never called. Or rarely. In any case, I found myself doing an Accept call without thinking.
“Professor,” I whispered.
“Is that sweet baby of yours sleeping?” he asked. He was a father. He got it.
“She is. What can I do for you?” I raised my voice slightly. The books also said to keep noise at the same volume to help with sleep later on and as a rule my mate and I did that, but phones felt different somehow. Maybe it was being around too many humans and hearing them almost shout their conversations.
I might spend too much time reading books about parenthood. At least I got out of the social media groups. They had me so paranoid about everything I could barely sleep.
“I was just checking in.” There was something off about his words. “Seeing how she is doing. I’d been thinking about when you came to me after you discovered your mate’s pregnancy.”
I’d been so freaked out at the time by how supposedly I could never get a non-unicorn pregnant, that I went straight to him. In hindsight that hadn’t been the best idea. It led to awkward follow-ups like this. Even the calls while Archer was pregnant felt almost forced, like he and I were something to be observed in a test tube.
I was a guy who met his one true love, the one fate set on this planet for him. That was it. There was nothing special about me.
“I was talking to some of my colleagues.” My stomach dropped. I should’ve known he would. Not once did I ask him not to. Why didn’t I ask him not to?
“Historians?” I clarified.
“And some scientists I work with.”
“Scientists?” Nothing about this felt good.
“Your daughter’s birth is something to celebrate, but also something we can learn from. For so long our kind has thought her birth impossible and that has led to our population dwindling. But if unicorns can mate with other shifters, why would they roam the world searching for a unicorn and possibly never mating?”
I hated that he had a point. “What does this have to do with me and Archer? Do they want to interview us?”
“Maybe, but more… they want to run some tests on Elune. Nothing in vasive, just to see what it means to be of mixed lineage.” That sounded too sci-fi, dystopian mash-up for my liking.
“Other shifters mate without concern for their mate’s animal. I’m sure it’s the same.” It had to be, right?
“We think so, but we’d like to do the tests to make sure. Maybe I could email you the information and you could speak with your mate about it?”
“Okay.” Not making a decision felt like the best choice. “It’s the same one I’ve always had.”
I hung up and went back to rocking my sweet girl.
She was perfect. Absolutely fucking perfect. So why was I so scared of them doing tests on her?
Because what if she wasn’t perfect? What if they discovered something awful, something that would rotate our world on its axis? What if… what if everything wasn’t as amazing as it seemed and this was all a mirage?
I waited for Archer to come home to open the email. I was going to let him decide, my brain wasn’t in a good enough place to do so. He read everything, taking his time so as not to miss any detail.
When he set the phone down I knew before he spoke the words. He wanted to do this.
“I vote yes,” he said.
“I’ll call him.” It was the hardest phone call of my life.