Chapter 50
Alec.
I stumble back in shock when the little girl ran inside, screaming for Sadie. Screaming for her mama. Her body collides with that of Sadie, and she lifts her up by her armpits. I didn’t see her face because her back was turned to us, but I couldn’t fucking deny the pull towards her.
My heart begins to race. Blood is rushing through me at the speed of light. I could feel sweat pool under my arms as I continued watching her.
Through the fog, her scent hits me hard. My lungs constrict, and it becomes so fucking hard to breathe. It’s so hard to draw air into my fucking lungs. Ice filled me, completely freezing me on the spot.
It can’t be.
I kept repeating the words in my head. I blinked, trying to erase the image. Maybe I was seeing things. Maybe I was hallucinating. Deep down, though, I knew that I wasn’t.
The feeling I felt three years ago and earlier settles deep inside. It is etching itself in my bones, my heart, and my fucking soul. It’s like it was tattooing itself in the very basis of who I was.
“Alec, are you okay?” Jason asked, but I couldn’t pull my eyes from the little girl.
No, I was definitely not fucking okay. I was far from it.
That’s what I wanted to say, but my lips weren’t moving. My mouth couldn’t form a single fucking word. I was rooted by shock. My fucking mind wasn’t even working. How then could I answer him?
“Everyone out!” Sadie’s voice filled the room. “Martha, please take Aspen for a little while.”
A woman steps forward to take the little girl from Sadie’s arms.
So that was her name, Aspen. It suited her.
“But Mama, we always eat together,” Aspen complained, trying to hold on to her mother.
“I know, my love, but I have pack work to discuss.” Sadie ran a finger down her chubby, rosy cheek before giving her a kiss. “I promise, once I’m done, I’ll come read you a story book.”
“About the strong princess and the dragon?” she asked, hope filling her voice.
Sadie nodded. “Yes, baby. I’ll read you that one and any other you want.”
“Promise?”
“I pinky swear”
Seeming satisfied with her mother’s answer, she nods her head before releasing Sadie’s neck. My two officials and I gasped in shock when she turned.
“She’s ours,” Knox whimpered, his tone registering shock.
There was no denying it. Her green eyes, her pouty lips and her round face. She looks like my mini-version. She looks like a girl version of the child I used to be.
1/4
Chapt
We were strangers to her, so she didn’t pay us any attention. We don’t exist in her world. What she doesn’t know is that she is starting to exist in mine.
Her scent and her eyes were pulling me, roping me in. A familial bond was wrapping itself inside me. It was similar to the one I had with Piper, only that this was stronger. Stronger because she’s mine. My daughter.
“Why are you acting so surprised?” came Sadie’s growl. “It’s not like you didn’t know about her.”
My chest tightens. My throat clogs and I’m unable to speak a single fucking word.
I now understand. I understand what I felt three years ago and just a few hours ago. The last time I saw Sadie, she had told me she was pregnant. I didn’t fucking believe her.
Months later, I felt that shift. That is an unexplainable shift.
“The pain and that shift. That was the bond settling in. We didn’t know it. We couldn’t explain it, but that’s what it was,” Knox whispered while pacing in agitation.
He was fucking right. It’s always said that when a pup is born, the father feels the pain of a new bond forming. He feels pain as the bond settles in, attaching itself to his soul.
A bond between a father and his pup is different. With the mother, it’s there immediately after conception is complete. With the father, it’s formed when the baby is born.
It all made sense now. At times, I would feel a kind of longing that had nothing to do with Lola. I felt the need to search the entire world for something or someone until I found them. It drove me so fucking crazy, not knowing why or what I was longing for.
“You kept his child hidden,” Micah growled. “There is no denying that that girl is Alec’s child. They fucking look alike!”
Sadie turned those deadly eyes toward him.
“Don’t fucking get into something you have no idea about, and don’t you, for a fucking second, accuse me.” She takes a deep breath in an effort to control her anger. “Why don’t you ask him, Micah? Ask him what he fucking did when I told him I was pregnant.”
My eyes continue studying Sadie. Gone was the girl I knew. Her face used to be round, but not anymore. Exercise and lots of training will do that. My eyes focus on the scar on her face. The one I gave her.
“What is she talking about?” Micah turned to me in confusion. “You knew she was pregnant, yet you didn’t say anything? You still wanted her dead?”
“It wasn’t like that,” Jason jumped in.
“It was exactly like that!” Sadie snapped, fire burning in her eyes. “Since he doesn’t want to admit what he did, I’ll tell you.”
Her friends were behind her, offering her support, just like mine were.
She began. “I came to his office a few weeks after escaping. I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to tell him of the baby. A baby that I don’t even remember how she was conceived. My friend here convinced me it was the right thing to do. I didn’t want anything from him, just to let him know that he was going to be a father. You know what he did after I’d told him, Micah? He plunged his hand in my chest. He wanted to rip out my fucking heart.”
“What?” Micah stammered.
“Yes, your precious alpha is a fucking monster. He insulted me and degraded me by calling me names. If I remember correctly, his exact words were, ‘You are a slut, and I would never let my child have a hoe as a mother’ That’s what you said,
2/4
Chapter 50
isn’t it, Alec? Right before you tried ending my life and that of my unborn child,”
My hands fucking tremble as I run them through my hair. I try to banish the memory. A Memory that refused to be silenced. A memory that wants to prove what a bastard I am.
“If you don’t believe me, you can ask Jason. He was there too,” Sadie adds, and Micah’s eyes turned to said man.
“Why would you refuse to believe her?” Micah asked.
“Why would he?” Jason answered with a question of his own. “Sadie was obsessed with Alec. She’d wanted him for a long time. Piper had told us that. She was on the cusp of losing everything. Of course, she would have done everything to stop that, including lying that she was pregnant.”
The glare that Micah sent his way was frightening. “Sadie has never been a liar, and there was a fucking possibility since you slept together. You two had unprotected sex; you told me that yourself when you couldn’t find any used condoms in the room when you were checking it for evidence.”
I could feel agitation rising inside me. I had a daughter. A daughter that I almost killed with my bare hands. She didn’t even know that I existed. That she had a father.
“Even if you didn’t believe her or feel the pup, the least you could have done was take her to a doctor for a pregnancy test.” Micah added.
“What did you expect? He was bitter over his precious mate, so he almost killed me for her sake. I can forgive anything, but I will never forgive you for trying to kill Aspen. For trying to end her life before it even began,” Sadie said.
Her words settled inside me like lead. Dragging me down with their weight. Fuck! How could I have messed up this badly? Why wasn’t I able to sense her in Sadie’s womb? It should have been fucking possible.
The crashing weight of my actions was suffocating me. Robbing me of the very air I needed to live.
“As if that wasn’t enough, he fucking labeled me a traitor. Do you know how fucking hard it was to stay alive just to make sure that my baby girl had a chance to live? Do you know how many my friends and I had to kill so that word doesn’t get back to you that I was alive? Do you know all I had to do to stay alive? I stayed alive for her. I built this fucking pack for her. To protect her from you!”
Words have never fucking hurt me like they did right now. She thought that I was a danger to my own daughter. Fuck!
Anger was radiating from her, and her eyes kept changing color.
“She is his daughter, Sadie; he would never hurt her.” Micah tried to calm her, but it was useless.
I took note of the ease of communication between the two, even though my fucking world was exploding around me.
“That’s where you are wrong, Micah; he has already tried it once. What’s to stop him from doing it again? And let’s be clear: She’s not his daughter. She’s mine. He is nothing more than a sperm donor.” She turned and glared at me. “I hold grudges, so you’re very fucking lucky, Alec. If it wasn’t for the favor, I owed Micah for helping me escape, you would have been dead for ever daring to kill my daughter.”
Her words about Micah ring in my ears.
What the fuck?
