Fated to the Warrior Wolf (The Hunted Omegas #3)

14. Gael

FOURTEEN

Gael

I clutched the roses so hard, I was pretty sure my palm was bleeding from a thorn or three. But at the moment, it felt like all the breath had gone out of my lungs, and that was more important than a little stabbing.

I’m the father was the headline, but I haven’t been with anyone else for more than a year and a half was a pretty damn great follow-up. My wolf preened, proud of the fact that we’d wooed her when no one else had been able to.

Asinine, maybe, but he was all alpha. And I couldn’t lie and say there wasn’t a sort of male satisfaction at that fact for me too.

I didn’t want anyone else touching what was mine .

And she was mine. Even if she was mad. I would do what it took to make it up to her if it took me nine months.

Hell, if it took me nine years .

I wasn’t going to let the mother of my child hate my guts forever if it killed me. But I was putting the cart way ahead of the damn horse here.

“Can we talk? In private,” I added, eyeing the trio of women clustered around her like I was about to tear her head off .

Maybe just her clothes.

I shot that thought down. We needed to actually talk. We were having a child together.

“Uh, sure.” I hated the nervous look in her eyes, the stiffness in her shoulders that told me she was far from comfortable with me. But everyone started somewhere, and if our start was rocky, it didn’t mean we wouldn’t end up exactly where we were meant to be.

I realized as we left the patio that I was still holding her flowers in a death grip.

“Here,” I said as I awkwardly passed them over, noticing with chagrin that I’d mangled the stems pretty badly, and there was, in fact, blood dripping off my palm.

“Actually, no, let me get you some new ones. I messed those up.” I tried to take them back, but she twisted, scowling at me.

“I don’t want another set. I want these.” She lovingly caressed one of the petals, a small smile on her lips that made me want to kiss her.

Score one for the red cape .

“Okay.” I swiped my palm over my black pants, knowing the small punctures would heal in no more than a minute.

“Where are we going?” she asked a moment later when she looked up.

I had forgotten that she didn’t already know the castle like the back of her hand from endless childhood state visits. “There’s a quiet spot on the third floor, perfect for uninterrupted conversations. I used to hide up there as a kid when we visited and the events got to be too much.”

She blinked at me as if I’d just spoken gibberish.

“I’m sorry, I’m just imagining, like, a super-ritzy werewolf ball with lords and ladies in evening wear, but shifted in their wolf forms.”

I threw my head back and laughed at the image. “You’re not far off, frankly, and if the people had been shifted, it would have been more honest about their true intentions. Packs in this part of the world are cutthroat. There’s too much baggage, too much bad blood between the different rival packs.”

She nodded, biting her lip between her teeth in a way that sent an instant shot of heat to my groin. But I couldn’t afford to think with my dick on this one.

We took the stairs in silence, both of us thinking too much, until we arrived on the third-floor landing.

“So, this is the same side as the family wing?” She asked, looking wide-eyed at the opulence even in the wide hallway.

“This is the east wing.” I took her by the shoulders and gently turned her. “That side is the family wing.”

She nodded, getting her bearings.

“Lead the way, Magellan.” Leigh smiled at me, a real, full smile for the first time, and it stopped me in my tracks. The sun from the windows made her hair look like spun gold, picking up her beautiful tan and giving her an ethereal glow. She took my breath away and made me want to do very, very dirty things with her. “You okay there, slugger?” She lightly punched me on the arm, and I quickly jolted into action to cover up my staring.

“Of course, we’re almost there.” I hurried ahead, cursing my distraction as I pushed open the door and held it for her.

“Oh, it’s a library! Like a real, honest-to-Goddess, Beauty and the Beast library!” She stopped in the middle of the room and spun around, taking it all in with an excited bounce to her step. “The girls are going to flip when I show them this. Assuming there’s not an angry beast who pounces on unsuspecting women who wander in here?” She playfully arched an eyebrow at me, and I shook my head.

I want to pounce on you, but I’m not angry. I want to push you up against that wall of books and make you scream my name.

“Should we sit?” she asked, pointing at the window, where a pair of tufted armchairs sat in the soft glow of the stained glass window. It was a pastoral scene, altered so that the shepherd had a wolf’s head and paws, signifying our shifter nature. I’d never paid it any mind, but now I was acutely aware of it, given her comment about the shifted ball.

“Yes, let’s sit,” I murmured, trailing her like a dog on the hunt. Her coffee-and-cream scent filled the air and made me want to lean in and sniff the crook of her neck, where her pulse beat the strongest.

My wolf rumbled his pleasure at the idea, and I found with shock that I was rumbling as I stared at her across the low table.

She blinked in surprise, but then melted into the seat with a grateful sigh.

“Is it weird that I like that so much? It’s probably weird. I’m going to blame the hormones.” She waved toward her perfectly flat, toned stomach as if that explained everything. Which it kind of did.

That was probably the best segue I could have asked for, and the perfect way to bring the conversation around to the real issue we needed to discuss.

Our baby.

“Have you been feeling any better? I’m sorry you’ve been sick.”

“Yes, Brielle has been working her omega juju on me, and it gives me relief for most of a day at a time, which is great.”

“I’m glad,” I said, and I was. I hated the idea of her misery, when it was my fault and I couldn’t do anything about it. My hands flexed into the chair’s cushions at the reminder of how helpless I was in all this. I was the passenger here, and I was used to being in the driver’s seat of my life.

She nodded, eyeing me cautiously. “I want you to know that I meant what I said. I didn’t sleep with anyone else. I’ll still let Brielle do the blood test, because you deserve to know for sure after what I said, and I don’t expect you to just trust me. But the baby’s yours, and I know that’s what the test is going to say. I’m sorry for what I said. Sometimes when I’m angry, I blurt out stupid shit, and it’s immature and awful, but it’s true.”

I blinked at the sudden onslaught of words. Was this what she wanted to tell me last night, before I’d so rudely cut her off to keep my distance?

I was an idiot. And an ass.

“I should apologize too,” I said, swallowing hard. It might have been stupid to remind her of the original reason she was angry at me, but if we really wanted to start fresh for our child, we needed to clear it all out.

“What for?” she asked, leaning forward in the chair again. “You’re right to want a paternity test, and I?—”

I shook my head, and her words stopped midstream. “For the knot, Leigh. It’s never happened to me before. I didn’t know it was even possible outside a fated mate bond and a heat. But we had neither, and honestly, I didn’t realize what was happening until it was almost too late, and when you pulled me in… I lost control. And I’m sorry. I should have said that the very next morning, but you were so angry, and Shay was shot. I let our circumstances be an excuse, when I should have manned up.”

She daintily tucked a lock of blonde hair behind her ear, giving herself a moment to think. “I think you’re wrong.”

I started to argue, but then decided to shut up and let her talk.

“I think I might have been in heat and not known it. So I owe you an apology too. If I’d been paying closer attention, we might not be in this mess at all.” Her hand dropped to cup her belly, and my throat tightened as the motion suddenly made it real for the first time.

My baby was in there. If I thought about that too long, I was going to get emotional, and I didn’t think either one of us was ready for that. I scrubbed my hand over the old scar on my cheek and fastened onto anything else that would get me back on solid ground.

“You think you went into heat?”

She shrugged one shoulder, looking sheepish. “I’ve never had one before, and it must have been mild, but yes? Both of my friends had told me I was hot at least once in the days before, but I brushed it off because I felt fine. The flu just burns right through us, you know?”

I nodded. We’d all had brushes with human viruses, and she was right. We’d get a slightly elevated temperature, but our immune systems burnt it all off without any other symptoms.

“So I wrote it off. But I was so horny .” She laughed, the sound bright and a bit embarrassed as she looked away. “I think it’s safe to say we were both having experiences we didn’t expect.”

“Like me accidentally knotting you,” I said with a wince. A male wolf’s knot had only one purpose: breeding. During a heat, our rut got triggered, and eventually, it would result in a knot. Looking back, that was exactly what happened, though neither of us had experienced it before, so we didn’t know. Hell, I’d never been in rut before. Though in hindsight, with her saying she might’ve been in heat… it was all crystal clear.

Damn .

“So, you’re not mad anymore?” I asked. We’d both been caught unawares, but I truly regretted knotting her unexpectedly. Did it feel incredible? Absolutely. Who wouldn’t enjoy spontaneous orgasms? But it was a very intimate experience, usually only shared after bonding with your fated mate. To go for a one-night stand and end up tied together for an hour…

She shook her head, barely meeting my eyes. “I was mad at myself, not at you. One of my best friends in the entire world had been shot with wolfsbane, and while she was fighting for her life , I was having the best sex of my life. I felt so guilty. I was just taking that out on you in the only way I knew how. ”

To my horror, she started to cry then, angrily dashing away the tears as they streamed down her cheeks.

“I’m sorry, it’s stupid. I know she’s fine now. Fuck, she can’t die, so she’s better off than all the rest of us. I really wish I didn’t cry so much, now. It feels weird, like I’m not myself.”

“It’s okay,” I murmured, reaching across and taking her hand in mine, letting my thumb rub soothing patterns over her soft skin. “The baby’s making her presence known, right from the start.”

She smiled at that, ducking her head.

“Yeah, I guess she is. These pregnancy hormones are not playing.”