Chapter 4 - Hannah
“Mommy?! Who is that?”
I turn to my little girl, who won’t stop yanking on my hand until I’ve given her my attention.
But even as I tear my gaze away, I can still feel the shock vibrating through my body, trembling in my fingers, turning my breath unsteady.
Clarissa is as spooked as I’m feeling, and I muster every ounce of inner strength I possess to snap out of this daze and focus on my child. I know she can sense my uneasiness, the instability of my emotional state.
“I don’t know, Bug.” It’s not a lie. Not when I could have been mistaken.
There’s no way Conan Becker could be here in Augusta. No way our eyes met, and the years apart crumbled to nothing when he spoke my name. No way my heart could beat the way it did in the past.
“But you do know me,” a deep, baritone voice whispers as if he’s practically breathing down my neck with sadness, and I instantly straighten up, gasping.
“Mommy?” Clarissa frowns and stiffens beside me. I pull her closer so that she’s halfway hidden behind me as I turn to face him.
Conan Becker.
In the flesh.
I blink fervently, a part of me hoping that I can blink away the image of him. There’s no way he can be real. Logically, he is. But I refuse to believe it.
My blood runs cold when his eyes meet mine, the dark depths like gateways to an abyss I can’t lose myself in. Not again.
It’s happened before, and it’s been eight years since that mistake.
I’m grateful when Clarissa tugs on the hem of my knitted sweatshirt.
“Yes, Bug, I know this man…” I tumble over my words, tearing my eyes from him with much effort as I turn my attention back to Clarissa. Forcing a lopsided smile on my face, I crouch beside my daughter, but if I thought I was escaping Conan, I was wrong.
Six feet of muscle stands towering over both of us now, mint and masculinity so strong in the air, it’s almost nauseating. Eight years in a witch coven does that to you, I tell myself.
But it’s mostly the resurgence of emotions I had buried when I was exiled that come surfacing now, and I don’t want my daughter to see me get angry.
“I knew this man, a very long time ago,” I tell Clarissa, and she turns her face to fix him with deep inspection, her eyes raking slowly from his sneakers to his face, where the fierceness of her eyes sharpens.
“Can we help you, mister?” she asks with as much bold authority as a seven-year-old can manage as she crosses her arms and tilts her chin up at him.
I bite my bottom lip to stifle my laughter and how proud I am.
Conan chuckles and rubs his nape with a hand—something he always did when he was nervous.
Why is he nervous?
He’s the one who made sure I was exiled and left out in the cold…
“I didn’t think I’d find you here,” he mutters with a hint of amusement in his tone.
“I didn’t know you were looking.”
“I wasn’t,” he whispers, not removing his eyes from my face as I stand up.
I can hardly reach his shoulder, even in heels. “Good. I wasn’t expecting you to. It’s been a while.”
“Eight years, four months, and…” His voice tapers off into an audible gulp, and I notice the way his eyes soften as he turns his face to the side and coughs into a fist. “What are you doing here?”
I try not to linger on what I just heard—like he’d been counting the seconds since I was banished from the pack. “I live here. With my daughter.”
Conan nods slowly. “So, are you one of them? A witch?”
“That’s none—” I stop myself for Clarissa’s sake, tossing her a smile while discreetly taking a sniff of her scent.
No trace of wolf on her.
Good.
As I’m trying to find a more polite way of telling him off, Molly comes jogging forward and steals Clarissa into a big hug and spin.
“Little bug!” she whistles through the air, and Clarissa loses the tension and giggles freely. “Hey, Hannah! I see you’ve met the alpha I was telling you about.”
My eyes widen with horror.
He’s the scrumptious young alpha with a dark, brooding presence and “big dick energy?”
My jaw drops.
“I’m sorry,” she drawls as she casually ghosts her fingers across his exposed forearm, batting her eyelids at him and tilting her head to one side. “I didn’t get your name, Alpha.”
“Conan,” we both say at the same time, and I inhale sharply just as Milly frowns at me.
“Milly, would you mind taking Clarissa to the market and watching her for a while?”
Milly, still shocked and confused, nods hesitantly, mumbling incoherently under her breath.
“Mommy…are you okay?”
I reach out and cradle her cheek, then press a kiss to her forehead.
“Yes, Bug. I’m fine. I just need to catch up with an old friend.
I will tell you all about it when I find you later.
” I glance at Milly and mouth a “thank you” to her before she sets Clarissa down and the two walk off toward the village’s main center.
I don’t turn to Conan until they’re far ahead, and Clarissa stops glancing over her shoulder every few steps.
“What are you doing here, Conan?”
“I was invited to Augusta, to the conference.”
Realization dawns, and I nod slowly. The fourth werewolf pack is Iron Breath.
Is that why Amalia spoke in riddles?
She knows…
“Cool. Well, I live here now.”
Conan doesn’t bat an eyelid. Instead, he nods thoughtfully. “That is pretty cool. And what about the girl?”
I frown, internally dreading this conversation but maintaining my composure, my defenses. “What about her?”
Conan gulps. “H-how—I mean, who’s the—”
“Her father?” I chuckle lightly to hide my nervousness as I cross my arms. “Well, you wouldn’t know him.”
Another white lie, but it’s only to protect myself and my daughter. It’s hardly untrue. The man I lost my virginity to and conceived a child with was not the same man who left me a letter the next morning and then sent his troops to banish me from the pack.
The man I was in love with, the man I created a child with, is not the man standing in front of me right now.
Eight years later, and he’s grown out his hair, his beard, his eyes have aged with the weight of being the leader of a pack plagued by demon attacks.
That’s why he’s here. To enter this alliance with the others, because he clearly needs their help. His eyes weather the storms he’s carrying, and I hate that I feel tingles in my fingers, as if I’m supposed to feel sympathetic for him.
Conan hangs his head as if the information is too unbearable to face. “Right,” he says, voice sounding choked. “As long as you’re happy.”
“I am very happy here, thank you.”
Conan lifts his eyes only a fraction, watching me through the veil of his dark lashes. “But there aren’t any men in Augusta, are there? Only witches, right?”
I’m about to respond with something witty, a buyable reason why Clarissa’s father wouldn’t be in Augusta, when I hear the deliberate clinks of heels on the pavement approaching us.
Lifting my head, I see Amalia coming forward, clothed in layers of white and gold, her ash-blonde hair braided down one shoulder like a warrior entering battle.
If she knows…
I have never prayed harder for her graceful, elegant tongue not to say anything about Clarissa, or me, or Conan. I can only plead with her through my eyes, fixed on her quietly.
“Hannah, my dear…” she smiles charmingly as she reaches out for my hand. “I see you have met our latest guest. Alpha Conan Becker, from the Iron Breath Pack out in the Bitterroot Valley.”
“Hannah and I—” Conan begins, but I cut him off abruptly as I step between him and Amalia.
“We’re just having a chat, Sister Amalia. We have met before.”
Amalia nods slowly, thoughtfully, her eyes twinkling with wonder as she flicks her gaze to him, then back to me.
My heart hammers in my chest now, especially when Amalia smiles.
She’s pretending.
Oh, boy!
She’s pretending not to know. Which means she knows. And I can’t tell whose side she’s really on.
“Well, Alpha Conan…Hannah Young is one of our very gifted witches.” She draws me into her side with an arm slung across my shoulders. “She wields both fire and air magic.”
Conan’s face pales as if he’s seen a ghost, and my heart is ready to beat right out of my chest.
High Priestess Amalia Waters isn’t blowing smoke up my ass. She’s setting fire to my whole existence. And it burns on my cheeks when I can’t even look up, too embarrassed.
“Well…” Conan finally breathes. “That is particularly interesting, Sister Amalia.”
Amalia nods, still wearing her smile. “I’m sure it is.
I’m glad you met my brightest star. I can assure you, tomorrow night’s meeting will be interesting, too.
” She steps aside and gestures to the village.
“Please, Alpha Conan. Go ahead and enjoy the festivities we’ve prepared for the conference.
Shanice, in the corner, has prepared donuts. They are divine.”
Conan nods, his lips pressed into a firm line as he walks away. He doesn’t say another word, much to my relief.
It feels like I can finally breathe again.
“Shanice? Do you really think that’s a good idea, Sister Amalia?”
“He is a charming one, Alpha Conan. Perhaps he can change Shanice’s mind about werewolves before the conference. Ease her tension.”
I turn toward Amalia, extinguishing the flames of my anger with the reminder that she’s been there for Clarissa and me all these years. I shouldn’t be upset with her. But I am, and I’m trying to fight it.
“Why did you tell him about my powers?”
Amalia’s smile fades, and her expression becomes worried. “Did you wish to hide your powers from him?”
“N-no. I mean, yes. It’s none of his business.”
I still can’t tell how much Amalia knows.
“Well, it is my business when a potential ally starts questioning which powers my witches have. If you know who he is, and you have met him before, then you know he is from a werewolf pack that has certain abilities outside of mere shapeshifting.”
I nod slowly. “Yes. I know. But what does this mean? What does it have to do with me?”
“Oh, nothing really, my darling.” Amalia takes my hand, and we begin walking down the path toward the night market.
“But Alpha Conan is here to represent all the Bitterroot Valley packs. And their council would not have sent him if he were not smart. They have already brought us a prisoner of this war with the demons, and the Bitterroot Valley packs have magic. I cannot help but suspect that he will not enter this alliance without making sure it is worth his while.”
Slowing down when I see Conan stopping at Shanice’s stall, behind Clarissa and Milly, who wait in line for their donuts, my heart begins pounding again.
He’s watching her closely. As if he can sense that she is his daughter.
Thank Goddess she’s been taking her potion so her scent remains masked!
“So you’re parading us like we’re supposed to be useful to a bunch of werewolves?”
Amalia chuckles. “Of course, not, dear Hannah. I am simply assuring our most important guest that he will not go wrong with this alliance. Shanice and others like her might not agree, but we need the wolves to fight this war as much as they need us. It is time we accepted that.”
I purse my lips and nod hesitantly, still unsure if Amalia knows more than she’s letting on. But I decide not to pry. If there’s one thing I have learned over the years, it’s to trust Amalia’s judgment and believe that she will tell me exactly what I need to know when the time is right.
And I have nothing to worry about now.
The quicker the conference is over, the faster Conan Becker will leave Augusta, and we can return to how things were before he visited.
The only thing I’m afraid of is the can of worms that was just opened, and how unbelievably attractive Conan still is after all these years.
How am I going to survive this weekend?