Chapter 52 OBLIVIOUS FATHER (1)
GALLAHAN’S POV
I knew I was dampening the festive mood in the Glass Dome, but I didn’t give a flying fuck.
I meandered my way through the mingling and celebrating crowd that huddled into smaller groups of friends, a menacing glower stuck on my face.
I easily spotted Zuleika and Maliya, standing at the sideline near a deserted table, like they were a pair of wallflowers. Still, they stood out from the sheer absence of joviality that the others clearly had.
“Gallahan, were you able to talk to Willa?” Zuleika asked as soon as I was within hearing range.
She handed me a goblet of mead, her eyes looking at me questioningly.
“Disaster,” I grumbled before chugging my drink empty.
The sweet liquid slid down my throat smoothly as I silently half-wished it was a strong whiskey instead.
“Oh… But did you see your children?”
“No,” I answered tersely.
Maliya sighed, picked up the decanter of the mead and refilled my goblet.
“Don’t they have anything stronger than this?” I complained beneath my breath.
Still, I drained the drink swiftly.
“Of course not,” Maliya answered, pouring more mead into my emptied goblet. “It’s a celebration with a lot of children around. It would be unwise to serve beverages with too high of alcohol content.”
I grunted.
“So, what happened?” Zuleika prodded. “And why the hell are you bleeding?”
“You guess,” I answered vaguely with a scowl still etched on my face.
A horrified look descended on their faces.
Zuleika then said, “Please tell me you did not lay a heavy hand on her?”
“Of course not,” I vehemently denied, taking offense that she would even think I wasn’t above physically hurting my mate. “She was the one who got physically aggressive. I limited my attack with just words.”
“So let me get this straight,” Maliya piped in. “It was a verbally violent confrontation, then she got physically aggressive towards you?”
“Yeah.”
My answer brought a look of genuine confusion on Zuleika’s face. “But why? I don’t think she’s the type to just attack someone.”
Maliya snorted. “Gallahan is not just someone. I mean, every other person here probably wants to attack him.”
I sighed, rubbing a hand on my forehead before letting my fingers run through my hair. “I may or may not have threatened her and her family. And I may or may not have told her that I would wage war against her.”
Zuleika and Maliya gaped at me like I was the world’s biggest idiot, and I couldn’t even fault them.
Maybe I really was the world’s biggest fucking idiot who loved to shoot his own foot.
And maybe Willa could see it too, and that could be why she refused to give me a fucking chance.
“Men are unbelievably stupid and useless,” Maliya said with a disappointed shake of her head, but she remained staring at me, seemingly in awe of my ability to ruin things.
Zuleika was no different. Her brows were drawn inwards, and her lips were slightly parted in shock and confusion. It was like she was looking at an unknown foreign specimen, wondering if it had brains or not.
“Yeah. This is why it’s better to simply look at men from afar,” Zuleika said softly.
“Agreed,” Maliya replied without missing a beat.
Zuleika then clinked her half-full goblet against the glass decanter that Maliya was still holding.
“Judge all you want. It’s quite helpful,” I grumbled sarcastically as I shifted my attention to survey our immediate surroundings.
“But seriously, Gallahan.” Zuleika huffed a big sigh. “I thought the plan was to find Willa and work things out between the two of you. We’ve ended the fucking war so you could be together, but now you’re threatening her with another one? Are you stupid?”
Maliya snorted. “Clearly, he is. All those books he reads are for naught.”
“I know, okay?” I said, sounding both exhausted and resigned. “My emotions just always get the best of me when it comes to her. It doesn’t help that the past six years had accumulated a lot of frustrations inside me, adding to the weight of my anger and longing.”
Zuleika pinched the bridge of her nose, as if I was giving her a big headache. Then when she dropped her hand, she threw me the nastiest glare she could and said, “We’ll have to rethink how we’ll go about this. Because clearly, you wouldn’t be welcome here anymore after the stunt you’ve pulled. Ugh. I still can’t believe you threatened her with a war. The very reason you couldn’t even be together in the first place all those years ago!”
I groaned, feeling like absolute crap the more Zuleika repeated my mistake. I quickly drunk the mead in my goblet with just a few gulps, then I snatched the decanter from Maliya to drink directly from it like an uncivilized lout.
“Goodness me,” Zuleika mumbled. “Why do I even put up with you?”