Chapter 27 - Elias #2
“Is there something else you wish to say?” I asked, my voice filled with warning. If they so much as looked at Emma the wrong way right now, I would tear them limb from limb.
Romulus cleared his throat. Dorian stared fixedly in the water, brow knitting together in annoyance. Everyone watched, waiting to see how the elders would handle the next few moments. I did, too. Knowing their next action would help dictate how the rest of the town saw Emma.
“I believe we owe you an apology,” Thaddeus said to Emma as he gave her a low bow. “It seems that we were wrong about you on several levels.”
She raised one eyebrow, one hand stroking Grace’s hair as she leveled her gaze at the elders without saying anything for a long moment. The elders shifted uncomfortably. Romulus’s face turned a brilliant shade of red. I had to bite back the smirk that wanted to creep up my face.
“Thank you for the apology,” she finally said, and the elders visibly eased. “I think it’s best if we put all that animosity behind us, don’t you think?”
The barbed edges that came with the question left very little room for interpretation: drop the hostility from here on out, or she’d make their lives hell.
Once again, I had to admire her spirit.
“I believe that is the best for everyone involved,” Romulus responded.
“Good.” Emma stumbled to her feet. “Now, if you don’t mind, I want to go lay down for a month.”
“That will have to wait,” I said, glancing at the crowd, all trying to press in. “Right now, I think you have a bunch of new fans waiting to thank you.”
***
The rest of the night was a bit of a blur. People kept coming up to thank Emma, or me, or both of us. Rachel took Grace home early, but it was several hours until we were finally able to extract ourselves and get to the house.
“Feeling better?” I asked after she had changed clothes.
“Exhausted,” she said. “And in need of a drink.”
“Here, you should rest on the couch,” I said, guiding her over to it.
She glanced up at the stairs. “I should go check on Grace,” she muttered.
“She’s fine,” I said, gently pushing her down until she was sitting on the sofa. “I went ahead and checked on her. She’s out like a light.”
“You did?” she called after me as I dipped back into the kitchen. I returned with a bottle of her favorite wine and two glasses.
“Of course. She’s out like a light.” I filled both glasses nearly to the brim and handed one over to her.
Emma took it, but still glanced up, biting her lip. “She’s always been a restless sleeper.”
I gave a half-laugh as I came to sit next to her.
“She’s going to be worn out after everything tonight.
I can promise she won’t have any energy to shift.
” When she still looked uneasy, I added, “Tomorrow, I’m going to take her out running before I get to work.
There are some great places for young wolves to run, and I think she’s going to love it.
That way, she’ll get a lot of that energy out of her. ”
“You will?” she asked, and I couldn’t read the strange tone that accompanied the two words.
“Of course. If you want, I can also talk to the woman who helps train young wolves. Normally, she only takes kids who are at least nine, but I have a funny feeling she’s going to have an influx of requests for exceptions coming up.
And she knows me. Plus, after what you’ve done for the town, I’m sure she’d be happy to take in Grace.
It’s an after-school program. I think Grace would like it. ”
Emma didn’t respond. Instead, she stared at me with an almost bewildered expression. My smile faltered as I tried but failed to read her expression.
“Emma?” I asked. “What’s wrong?”
“You would really do all of that for Grace?” she asked, her voice small, still mildly confused.
I tilted my head, taken aback. “Of course. I happen to like Grace a lot. She’s a smart, brave kid.
And she deserves all the help she can get.
I think learning to hunt in a pack with kids your own age is useful.
But I also wouldn’t mind training her myself at the same time.
” At the stunned look she was still giving me, I raised an eyebrow.
“Something wrong? Is there something else you’d prefer? ”
Emma bit her lip, looking even more nervous than normal. Her eyes darted as she seemed to come to some conclusion. She took a generous swig of wine before placing the glass on the end table. “Elias, there’s something I need to tell you,” she said.
Unease rippled through me at the words and the hesitant expression on her face as she bit her lip, barely able to look at me.
“What is it?” I asked, trying to keep the unease off my face, not sure how well I succeeded.
“It’s about Grace.” She paused again. “Specifically, about her father.”
I frowned, my jaw tightening. Was she about to say her father was a shifter in another pack who would want to train her himself? Or a human who didn’t know about our world? She had said he was out of the picture, but that had been before we were truly open with one another.
“What about him?” I asked, trying to keep my tone level.
Emma took another deep breath.
“There is no other guy,” she said. “Grace is your daughter.”
The words didn’t register at first, then they sounded so absurd that I almost thought she was joking. It was only when I saw the genuine earnestness, the anxiety radiating off her, that I realized she was telling the truth.
Grace was my daughter.
I stared like an idiot, my mouth going slack.
“She is?” I finally managed to croak. When she nodded, I swallowed, trying to get over the blow that had just rammed into me long enough to speak as she watched me, terrified.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked.
“Because I was afraid,” she said. “I didn’t want Grace to be disappointed. I didn’t want to be disappointed. I didn’t know what type of person you were when you walked back into my life.”
“She was my daughter,” I said, trying to keep my voice even. “I had the right to know.”
She sucked in a breath as she stared at me. “You didn’t. Not after you kicked me out of your house and more or less told me not to ever speak to you again.”
The words, a slap in the face, seemed to take most of her strength, because she crumpled. But they hit home. She had a point. That at least cut through some of the anger. I kept quiet, still trying to let the knowledge that I had a daughter sink in.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” she stammered when I still hadn’t said anything.
“I know I probably should have, but at first, I wasn’t sure what kind of father you would be, and I didn’t want to let Grace down.
And I was afraid of what would happen if you knew, especially with everything else going on.
And then, once I started getting to know you again, and seeing the type of person you really are, it had already been so long, and I didn’t know how to bring it up, and the longer it went, the harder it became to say anything, until I just… ”
I pushed myself to my feet, running my fingers through my hair as my head continued to spin.
At first, frustration and anger rippled through me.
I had missed the first five years of my daughter’s life because Emma hadn’t bothered to tell me.
I had never even had a say in any of it.
She had taken that decision away from me.
I had always wanted kids. And for the last nearly six years, I had had one just a short drive away in the town over.
And I had asked her. Or, at the very least, I had given her a chance to tell me. That first day after the mating bond, when I had asked her about Grace’s father. If she had told me then…If I’d known…
What? Would I have accepted Emma as a mate if I’d known? Demanded I have a say in Grace’s life after I’d rejected her mother?
If I hadn’t treated Emma the way the morning after that party, then maybe she would have stayed in town. Maybe she would have told me, instead of hiding it. And then I had barged back into her life after years of not contacting her, not going after her. Of course she wouldn’t want to tell me.
Five years. I had missed the first five years of my daughter’s life.
I stared at Emma, and I didn’t have to see her worried expression to know how terrified she was.
I could sense her anxiety radiating through the mating bond.
That cut through my anger, and I remembered again how I had treated her when we were younger.
She probably found out she was pregnant right before she left, less than a month after we’d had sex, when I had rejected her.
Of course she wouldn’t have told me. She hadn’t wanted anything to do with Silver Falls or me.
“Well?” she finally asked.
“I’m just…give me a bit to process,” I said.
She nodded, biting her lower lip as she stared down. “I can understand you being mad.”
I was angry. She was right. But one look at her beautiful face, and the realization that she had only been trying to protect her daughter, cut through that.
I may have been upset, but I was smart enough to recognize that what happened next would dictate the rest of our relationship.
I wasn’t the kid I had been six years ago.
I wasn’t going to make the same mistakes I did back then.
I wasn’t going to risk my relationship with my mate or our daughter.
And that bit of clarity cut through the final bits of anger running through me.
I bent down to kiss her. “I’m not mad,” I said.
“Shocked? Absolutely. A little disappointed that I didn’t know sooner?
Of course, because I’d loved to have bragged about Grace long before now, and I wish I could have been there for the first few years of her life.
Am I mad? Absolutely not. I understand why you would do it.
And after the way I treated you when we were kids, I can’t exactly blame you for any of it. ”
She blinked, staring at me, her lips slightly parted as she took in my words.
“Grace is incredible,” I said. “I’m honored that she’s my daughter.
And I’m honored that you are my luna. You two are the most important things in my life now, and I’m not going to do anything to hurt either of you.
And I fully intend to make up for the years of being absent from both of you.
I consider myself lucky that I get a second chance. ”
I pressed my lips to her, gripping her head tight, unwilling to let her go as I tried to convey a dozen different emotions in that single gesture.
“I love you,” I said when I finally forced myself to pull away from her.
“I love you, too,” she said.