35. Moving Day
Moving Day
“One month,” Alpha August growls. “You lasted one month before breaking the agreement you made. With me, with the Council.”
“Fuck the Council.” I snarl back.
I don’t give a fuck about the Council. The only thing I regret is not biting her sooner.
“No. Fuck you!” he yells, and the vein on the side of his neck bulges.
I haven’t felt like a kid in years, getting into trouble by fighting with my brothers, trying (somewhat successfully) to dominate the teachers at school. But I refuse to let him make me or my mate feel bad about this. He can yell at me all he likes. I’m the one who bit her after all.
I take a step forward, ready to interject, but his rant continues.
“No mating ceremony. Not a single signed legal document.”
Wow. He is spiralling.
“Are you not happy for me?” Angel asks, her voice timid and full of hurt.
She stares at him with wide eyes and an expression that makes me want to cuddle her and simultaneously stab the cause of it.
Alpha August freezes mid pace. He walks over to my Omega, my mate, fuck I love saying that, and holds her face in his hands. A growl fights its way up my throat, but I push it down. She needs this. I can control myself for a moment.
But the second we are alone, I’m covering her in my scent all over again.
“I love you. I want you to be happy. I know you’re happy. I just worry.”
My anger dissipates. My Angel, so loved and cared for, and I would want nothing else for her.
“I’ll keep going to school if that’s what you and the Council want.” She stares up at him, and I can see him folding.
“I was never going to wait, and I wasn’t going to spend my heat alone.”
Alpha August’s face begins reddening, and the hot, simmering scent of disgust fills the air. Evangeline doesn’t seem to notice, or based on the small twitch of her lips, is enjoying his discomfort a little too much to stop.
“Frankly, I’m surprised that it didn’t happen sooner. But I suppose, with how often I use scent deodorisers, things got a little delayed.”
“Eva. Honey. Please stop talking,” he begs.
She puts on her best innocent face, looking up at him from under her long eyelashes, and fluttering them like she can do no wrong.
“Why?”
“I’m practically your father. I don’t want to think about, let alone talk about, your heat.”
“You are my father.” She says bluntly.
I swear I see the old man wipe away a tear.
* * *
The truck is filled with her belongings, and we sit in silence on our way to her new home. I can’t wait for our lives together to start. Every day with her, waking up next to her, watching her fill our home with love and brightness that I didn’t know I was missing before her.
“Do you really think he is mad?” She stares out the window, but the tightness of her shoulders tells me she really does care about what Alpha August thinks about our mating. I wish we were on my bike so I could have her close and not the world apart these seats feel.
“No.”
I’m confident in that.
If he were really bothered, I would be dead right now. I know the man cares about the rules, but I’ve seen him break them a dozen times for her, and I know he wouldn’t hesitate to do it again if he needed to.
“How do you know?”
“He could never be mad at you. Not really. He loves you.”
A hopeful scent of lilies leaks from her, and I smile internally, knowing that I had something to do with it.
“Do you think the Council will be mad?” She sounds more excited than worried about that prospect.
I’m rubbing off on her.
“Fuck, I hope so.” I smile.
She laughs, the sound fills the car, and I never want to replace it.
We arrive quickly, and she runs off with Apollo, claiming that he missed her too much and so she couldn’t possibly help to unpack.
Like I was going to let her touch a single thing.
The one thing I do need her to do is nest. I know now why she disliked the one I had previously built.
It’s nothing like her shed. But she needs something here, and only she can make it.
Box after box, I make my way back and forth from the car to the apartment.
All while she lies on the floor, Apollo resting his head on her stomach.
I love seeing her in my space, our space.
The love she has is endless and all-consuming.
I get why Apollo wants to spend every second with her. I do too.
The last box thuds to the floor, and I unceremoniously kick it to the side.
I can deal with it later. No offence to my girl, but she has collected a lot of useless junk.
Not that I would ever stop her or tell her that.
She can fill our home with tchotchkes. I can’t blame her entirely.
Some of it I bought for her. She thinks she is subtle.
Lying on my chest and whispering all the things she wants, like I would ever say no.
“Angel?”
“Yeah,” she replies without moving a muscle.
I can’t help the chuckle that bursts out of me. She is adorable.
“I put everything you will need to nest in the smaller bedroom if you want to start?”
She jolts off the floor, sending Apollo scrambling after her, a frightened look on his face. She runs past me, skidding to a stop and placing a kiss on my cheek before taking off again.
I stare after her. I never want to stop watching her.
My hands begin to shake, and I clench them into a fist. I’ve been dreading this.
Slower than necessary, mostly to put off the inevitable, I walk to my office, shutting and locking the door behind me.
Not that it would stop my girl. She has made it clear that lock breaking is a skill she cherishes.
Mostly it’s to keep this conversation locked away.
I don’t want to taint our home with this memory.
The phone rings. It’s louder, more ominous than I’ve ever realised.
Today, with one phone call, I’ll turn people’s lives upside down.
“Hello. Williams residence, Alpha Audrey Williams speaking.”
They even sound alike.
I swallow roughly past the tightness in my throat.
“Hello. You don’t know me, but—I’ve found your daughter.”
The line goes silent. I can’t move. I force my eyes closed and listen to the choked breathing on the other end. This is it. The moment.
“What?” a croaked voice asks.
“Evangeline. She’s an Omega, twenty-one years old. She was taken from a park when she was six. She has long black hair, pale skin and green eyes.”
Harry suggested that I keep to the facts.
They have been waiting for this call for fifteen years, but the moment it happens, they won’t hear a thing I’m saying.
Part of me wishes I could pretend I didn’t see what I saw.
That I could just be mated and look after her.
But I won’t do that to her. She deserves to know where she has come from.
The line buzzes. Silence fills the air.
“Hello. This is Omega Hugh Williams. My mate says you have my daughter. If this is a joke—”
“Omega Williams, I assure you this is not a joke.”
Though I kind of wish it were. I would do anything to keep my mate from this kind of pain.
“What is her scent?”
“Spice.”
“It’s really her…”
I keep quiet, letting him process the inevitable, world shifting information. His breathing rattles and heaves.
“I know this is a lot. But I was hoping you would come and visit her.”
This is going to be hard enough. It would be easier if it were in her home, with her mate and Alpha August.
“Yes. Yes, of course. How—how is she?” he asks, desperate for any information about her. Been there.
“She is amazing. She’s beautiful and strong. So talented and kind.”
I could keep going. Spend hours listing all the ways in which she surprises me with just how unique she is. But my voice hesitates.
“But?”
Fuck.
How do I explain to a father who has spent fifteen years grieving and hoping for his daughter, that she doesn’t remember him?
“When she was taken, she escaped. Taking the lives of her captors. That trauma and the horrors she suffered while with them changed her. She doesn’t remember anything. Nothing about that day, nothing about her life before. She thinks she killed her parents that night.”
“How did you find us?”
“I saw her memories when I mated her.”
“You. She. Our little girl has a mate?” His voice is quieter. A man realising how much of his daughter’s life he has missed.
“She’s my scent match. We’ve been courting and mated recently. When I saw her memories, I knew I had to find you. But mating has been a big change for her, and I wanted to give her time to adjust, and I didn’t want to get her hopes up just in case—”
“In case we had forgotten about our daughter.”
He doesn’t sound mad, more resigned.
“Precisely.”
“What is your name?” Now he’s starting to sound like Alpha August.
“Alpha Cassius Atwood.”
“Well, Alpha Atwood, we will be seeing you soon. Thank you. And—take care of our little girl.”
“Always.” With everything I am.
I rattle off the details of their visit, sending them Harry’s information so they can coordinate, and put the phone down, slumping back in my chair.
“Cas?”
I spin. Evangeline stands by the now open door, a floppy teddy I bought for her clutched in her hands and a loyal Apollo standing by her ankle.
I leap to my feet. Eyes wide, a guilty rusted metal sweeps over us, and I can’t tell if it’s from her or me.
“Angel.”
“Who—what? Why were you talking about me?” She stammers.
I take her hand, cupping her cold and shaking fingers in my palm. I think she heard more than she would like to admit.
“Let’s sit.”
I walk her to the lounge, tugging her onto my lap and holding her close. The teddy trapped between our chests.
“There’s no good way to say this. I know you will have questions and need time. Whatever you need, I’ll be there for you.”
Tears stream down her face, but she doesn’t look or move away from me. Her trust in me warms my soul.
“Okay,” she says.
Minty nervousness cuts through her spicy scent. I thread my hands through her hair, stroking and scratching her scalp. The action makes her relax into my arms, and my scent coats her skin.
“I found your parents.”