Chapter 14 - Hannah
Breakfast is on the table, and Conan is nowhere to be seen.
Not that I was expecting him to join us. After all, I only prepared two plates.
“Will the mister be coming, Mommy?” Clarissa asks, and I pause when I’m about to lift my fork.
“His name is Conan, and he’s the alpha of this pack, Bug.”
Clarissa watches me carefully. “He’s like Nico’s dad?”
I nod. “Yes. An alpha. The leader of this pack. And I don’t think—”
Our conversation cuts abruptly when Conan enters the kitchen and says nothing when he grabs an apple from the fruit basket and walks away without a word. Both Clarissa and I are silent until he leaves through the front door, and then she giggles when he’s gone.
“Yeah. He is like Nico’s dad. Grumpy.”
I can’t help but giggle, too, even if a flicker of remorse clutches my chest for a brief second. Conan is either angry about this morning, about me avoiding him, or still angry that I kept Clarissa a secret from him.
Either way, he’s upset.
But so am I.
I’m upset with myself. I can’t believe I threw myself at him so easily last night. What was I thinking?
It’s not like one night of passion could ever remove what happened between us in the past.
And it was all because he broke the promise he made to me.
“Come on. Eat up, Bug,” I encourage her with a smile. “We’ll get ready for the day, and then I’ll ask Dorothy to visit.”
She nods and returns to her meal, and I’m just about to do the same when there’s a knock on the front door. I lift my head and frown.
“Maybe Dorothy knew we wanted to see her,” I say. “You go on, Bug. I’m going to get the door.”
Clarissa continues eating, and I head to the front door, wearing a smile and expecting to find Dorothy there.
Instead, a gorgeous, tall, brown-skinned woman appears when I open the door, her chocolate-brown eyes glowing from the smile she wears, her long, black hair swaying in the wind with the slightest movement.
“Hi, you must be Hannah,” she says as she sticks out a hand toward me. “I’m Annika, Alpha Heinrich’s mate.”
I raise my brows in surprise as I shake her hand. “You’re the Silver Stone Luna, aren’t you?”
“So, you have heard about me,” she winks, and I giggle lightly.
“Not nearly enough. But I know who Heinrich is. I was an Iron Breath wolf before.”
Annika frowns, inclining her head. “You’re a wolf?”
“Barely,” I tittered. “I was a shiftless omega. Until I discovered that I was a witch. And I don’t know why I’m telling you everything.
I only just met you, and no one else knows that we’re back.
Except for the pack’s seer, Dorothy. She took care of me when I was younger, because I was an orphan and—”
The rest of my words are muffled by the hand I press to my lips, my brows raised in shock. I don’t know what just happened, why I blurted out all that information to this woman I just met. A stranger.
Except, there’s nothing strange or unfamiliar about her.
It’s her eyes.
Definitely her eyes that feel warm. Gentle. Familiar. As if I’ve known her my whole life.
“Don’t worry, Hannah. Your secrets are safe with me. We are cut from the same cloth, and there’s a reason we’ve both been brought to the valley. I’m just like you. Well, I’m a witch, but nothing like you. I heard about what you did the other night. That was quite impressive.”
“Oh, it was nothing!” I blow through puckered lips and flap a dismissive hand through the air. “Oh, I’m being a terrible host,” I say as I step aside and hold the door open. “Please, come inside.”
“Thank you, Hannah,” Annika smiles, the morning light catching her caramel skin so perfectly that her flesh appears golden. Ethereal.
Wow.
She’s really beautiful.
Heinrich sure is a lucky wolf.
“I don’t know why, but it feels like we’ve already met,” I say as I close the door behind her.
Annika giggles. “I have that same feeling, but it’s mostly because I have seen you before. In my vision, I mean.”
“Care to tell me more about it? Over breakfast, if you’d like.” I point toward the kitchen, and Annika nods.
“Sure. I haven’t had anything to eat yet. Heinrich and I are visiting because Conan wanted to discuss something with him. So I thought I’d visit you. After all, you’re a fellow sister, and technically, you’re the newest addition to the witchy trio, even if you were a part of the pack before.”
“Witchy trio?” I giggle as I show Annika to the kitchen.
“Yeah. The three lunas of the valley alphas, who all happen to be witches and descendants of the Ashclaw Pack.”
I nod thoughtfully as we enter the kitchen, and Clarissa is still seated at the table, even after she’s finished her food.
“Mommy? Who is she?”
“Bug, this is Annika,” I say as I step behind my daughter’s chair. “Annika, this is Clarissa, my daughter.”
Annika’s eyes widen with pleasant surprise as she stands across the table and reaches out a hand toward Clarissa. “Wow! You are a carbon copy of your mother, Clarissa. You’re both so beautiful.”
Clarissa giggles and blushes as she shakes Annika’s hand. “Thank you.”
I place my hands on Clarissa’s shoulders, and she turns her face to me.
“Annika is joining us for breakfast, Bug. But I see you’re done eating. Do you want to wash up and dress for the day in the meantime?”
“Sure, Mommy,” Clarissa says as she slips off the chair and looks up at Annika. “You are very pretty, too. I like your hair.”
Annika smiles and crouches in front of her, and while the two of them chat and Annika allows Clarissa to touch her hair, I prepare another plate. By the time I’m done, Clarissa has wandered off to get ready for the day, leaving Annika and me alone in the kitchen.
“So, what was this vision all about?” I ask when we’re both seated.
“I’m sure Conan told you about us. Sophie and me, I mean.”
I nod tersely. Conan and I have barely spoken about anything, always at each other’s throats instead of discussing the important things. But Dorothy told me more about what’s been going on in the valley for the past three years, so I’m not completely out of the loop.
“I know about you and Sophie,” I concede. “I’m just curious about your vision. I guess since you saw me, it’s why I feel like we’ve met before.”
Annika nods. “I suppose that makes sense. I knew I’d recognize you. I just didn’t know you were part of this pack before. But in my vision, I saw you leading the Iron Breath wolves to the demon portal. It was near an old sawmill tower.”
“Milford…?” I say thoughtfully. “Is that where the demons are entering from?”
Annika shrugs. “That’s what we suspect. But Conan spoke to Alpha William from the Blood Mill Pack. Currently, there haven’t been any strange sightings or anomalies in Milford. Unless the demons are doing well at hiding it. They have been adapting, getting stronger. Getting smarter.”
“Perhaps your vision foretells the future,” I suggest. “Maybe the portal is elsewhere, and the demons are planning on moving it to Milford. It would explain why we’ve been experiencing attacks up in Helena Valley.”
“That’s the theory we’re running on for now.
The coven is still trying to interrogate Marcus Hale.
If the demons were using humans and cut a deal with Hale, then they must have a leader.
A mediator between both worlds. We just need to figure out who it is, so we can stop this before it gets out of hand.
The last thing we need is for the threat to get out of control and bleed into the human world. ”
I nod thoughtfully. “Humans don’t know about our existence. It needs to stay that way.”
Annika sighs. “I sure hope so. I have a sister out there, and I worry about her safety. I can only imagine how stressed you are. You have a daughter.”
Gulping hard, I take a sip of my orange juice, noticing the way Annika stares at me curiously.
“She’s not just a witch like you, is she?”
“What do you mean?” I frown.
“She’s a wolf, too. But not just any wolf,” Annika sets her fork down, shifting the mood in the room. “She’s an alpha’s child.”
“How do you know this?”
“I can smell it on her. I’ve been around Conan long enough. Does he know?”
“He just found out…” I grimace, and Annika nods.
“So, you two have history?”
I nod slowly, finding it easier than I expected to tell Annika the truth about what happened eight years ago.
“...I woke up the next morning to find a note on my fridge. He said he couldn’t go through with it—making me his luna.
That his grandfather would never accept it because I was a shiftless omega.
Next thing I knew, Elder Bernard barged in, blaming me for the missing gemstone and then banishing me from the pack.
I had no reason to fight it. So I yielded my place in the pack, my home, and accepted being kicked out.
When Sister Amalia found me, that’s when I learned I was pregnant with his child. ”
Annika gasps, brows raised with surprise. “And he only found out about Clarissa once he found you in Augusta…”
“No,” I shake my head solemnly. “He found out about her only when we got here.” I continue to explain the potion I’d been using to keep Clarissa’s wolf hidden.
“And if you figured out she was Conan’s child so easily, then it’s a good thing I’ve been using the potion to keep her hidden.
It would have caused too many complications, anyway. ”
“So, Conan found out accidentally?”
“Yes,” I sigh, hanging my head. “You can imagine how upset he was.”
Annika reaches a hand out and places it over mine. “I noticed this morning. You’re still angry with him, aren’t you?”
“Of course, I am.”
“That’s why you kept Clarissa a secret from him, even after discovering that you’re fated mates, and after the mating ritual.”
“Yes. He hurt me too much in the past.” I look up with tears clouding my vision now.
“He broke his promise to me, Annika. He got what he wanted, and then he threw me under the bus as soon as the sun came up. If he didn’t do that, I would have gone to him for help.
I would have asked him to defend me. But it was too late. ”
“Elder Bernard is…a scary, grumpy old man. I can only imagine what he was like when he was the alpha of this pack. He must have been very hard on Conan.”
“Yeah, well, Conan should have left me alone if he knew it wouldn’t work, instead of making empty promises to me. Now we have a child together, and even though we’re mated, everything is a mess.”
“Things will get better,” Annika assures me, squeezing my hand gently. “You just need to give it time.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that, Annika. He hates me because I kept Clarissa a secret from him, and it’s only been a few days. I hate him because he hurt me, and eight years later, it still hurts.”
Annika sighs. “Well, if you’d like, I can spend the rest of the day with you and Clarissa. If you’re not ready to let the others know about her, I’d suggest you stay indoors until you and Conan sort things out. They’re bound to scent her, just like I did. Just like he did.”
I nod nervously. “And if her wolf isn’t hidden, it means it won’t remain dormant forever. She’ll figure out he’s her father soon enough.”
“Then perhaps you and Conan need to iron out your differences before that happens. For her sake, the two of you need to talk. If what Dorothy said was true, that it wasn’t like that for him, that he believes you left of your own free will, then there’s clearly a misunderstanding, and it needs to be cleared up. ”
***
I’ve spent all day mulling over Annika’s advice, and my mind races with ideas of how to approach the subject with Conan.
But when he returned home at nightfall, he didn’t say a word to me.
We’ve been having dinner in silence, save for the casual chat between father and daughter, while Clarissa remains unaware of what he is to her.
He’s kept his promise not to tell her the truth, and he’s clearly making an effort to form a relationship with her.
That’s probably why he brought home hamburgers and French fries for dinner, courtesy of Heinrich and Annika, who picked some up on their voyage to the human world to make sure that things were still calm out there.
No demon sightings have been reported in the city, and the attacks remain isolated to wolf and witch territory.
For now.
“Mommy, I’m tired,” Clarissa yawns when she’s done eating her dinner. “I wanna go to bed.”
I nod as I’m about to stand up, but stop when Conan raises a hand.
“Don’t worry. I’ve got this,” Conan assures me. “I’ll tuck Clarissa in tonight.”
“Really?” Clarissa’s eyes shimmer with excitement. “Are you gonna tell me a bedtime story?”
“Yes,” Conan chuckles. “Yes, I am.” He glances at me with an unreadable expression as he stands up. “Would you like to hear the story about the boy who cried wolf?”
“I never heard that one before!” Clarissa beams with excitement as she skips toward the hallway. “Good night, Mommy!”
“Good night, Bug,” I call back, then sigh when the two of them leave the kitchen.
My heart plummets to the floor, a sinking feeling overpowering the unease that had been there the whole night.
I can’t sit here and wait for him to come back, so instead of tending to the dishes, I wander down the hallway and stop just outside Clarissa’s bedroom door, listening to Conan telling her the timeless fable. My heart pounds, a lump lodging in my throat by the time he nears the end of the story.
“…No one trusts a liar, even when they’re telling the truth. The end.”
“Wow! I really liked that story, Conan! You gonna tell me another one tomorrow?”
“Yes,” Conan concedes with a lighthearted chuckle. “Good night, kiddo.”
“Good night, Conan.”
There’s shuffling as Clarissa settles underneath the blanket, and Conan sighs before he rises to his feet and walks toward the door. He turns the light off, then steps outside, stopping when he finds me in the hallway.
“Don’t worry, I didn’t tell her anything,” he says, eyes sad.
“I know,” I whisper back, my heart lurching from hearing him tell our daughter that tale.
No one trusts a liar…
It couldn’t be truer for either of us.
And perhaps that’s why we can’t even look each other in the eye now. We’re both wallowing in regret, and my heart aches from the distance between us.
It shouldn’t be like this.
“That’s not why I came here,” I admit as I hang my head, wringing my hands together nervously. “I think it’s time we talked. Like adults. For her sake especially.”
Conan nods, then sighs. “You’re right. Let’s have a drink in the dining room.”
I nod in agreement, then follow Conan down the hallway to the dining room, hope sparking in my chest.
Perhaps we can finally put our differences aside and be the parents Clarissa deserves. Just be amicable for her sake.
Even if deep down, I wish we could have been more.