Chapter 87: Inseparable

Louis

There was something different about Daphne Redhawk.

To tell the truth, in the last year or so, I’d barely spared a glance at the girl. I might not have noticed her at all, if she were not my daughter’s most trusted friend. She seemed like the typical college girl, pretty, young, fresh, busy with her own things.

Until she walked into that dining room, and I just knew, immediately.

Something was different.

It was like the moment she walked in the room, my wolf went on alert. All of my senses pinged, and I became hypervigilant. When she walked to the table, and I caught a whiff of her scent, I knew… she hadn’t smelled like that before. She’d always had a sweet, light scent, like oranges and cream. Nice, but not particularly noteworthy. But now there was a heady mix of cinnamon and spice. You wouldn’t think they would go together nicely, but goddess, it was like olfactory ambrosia.

I couldn’t get enough of it.

A scent hasn’t hit me like that since… I looked across the table at my daughter. She looked so much like my late mate, that sometimes it hurt to look at her. Her mother, my mate, had been gone for sixteen years.

I struggled to stay calm and composed during the meal, but I felt all kinds of emotions threatening to bubble up and overwhelm me. They didn’t call me the mad king for nothing, and I still had moments where I feared my sanity would fail me again. I focused on taking slow, even breaths, and regular mechanical bites. But I couldn’t stop looking at her.

When had she grown so beautiful?

I could feel the uncertainty shimmering around her, and I was surprised that her family wasn’t picking up on her anxiety. Only my daughter seemed to notice that she wasn’t eating with as much gusto as usual. I couldn’t help myself, I needed to touch her. I needed to comfort her. I needed to know.

I casually put my hand on her back.

And that felt… different too. It wasn’t the shower of sparks and fireworks that I remembered. I didn’t get that electrical buzz I used to get when I touched Bella’s mother. Instead, I got a slow, warm, tingle. It felt so nice that I couldn’t break away from it, and I started to rub slow circles across her back.

I know she felt it too, because she almost choked when my fingers made contact.

My brain, my wolf, my body, my heart were all in conflict. It couldn't be a mate bond. It couldn’t be a second chance, not after all these years. After all, I’ve seen this girl plenty of times, and if there was a mate bond, I would have known it the first time I shook her hand.

And if it was a mate bond, did I even want to acknowledge that? I had loved and lost before, and it had all but destroyed me. I wouldn’t survive it a second time.

Not to mention the fact that the girl was young enough to be my daughter, give or take a few years. She was just about to step out of university with her masters, she hadn’t even begun to live yet. The last thing she needed was a broken old man like me. Not that 44 was that old, in werewolf years, but to a young woman like Daphne, it would probably seem ancient.

When the meal was finished, and Daphne pushed away from the table, I stepped beside her and offered her my elbow. “Shall we?”

She looked at my proffered arm, and then up to my eyes with a look that was both wary and surprised. “Um, okay,” she agreed, and slipped her small hand over my arm. Immediately I felt the warm sensation spreading, even through the fabric of my shirt. I tried to ignore it as I led her toward the door. What we needed to discuss needed privacy that we wouldn’t find indoors. We walked together down the stairs and out to the gardens.

Valiant Mountain didn’t just grow pretty flowers, they had massive vegetable gardens, orchards, and out beyond the back of the grounds, they had orchards, vineyards, and berries. I really admired how the alpha brothers had created a fully self-sustaining community. They had education, agriculture, industry, and a strong military force.

When we were out of sight of the house, Daphne dropped her hand away from my arm, but remained in step beside me.

“I know you can feel it, Daphne,” I stated without preamble.

She didn’t break stride, and she didn’t look up at me. “I don’t know what I feel.”

“But you do feel something.”

“Yeah.” She kept walking past the beds that were just barely beginning to sprout with the spring planting.

“Daphne,” I reached out and snagged her wrist to stop her. “We need to talk about this.”

She sighed heavily and turned to face me, and I could feel, as much as I could see a sadness and a heaviness in her eyes. “You’ve had a fated mate,” she said, and her words poked me like sharp needles. “Does this feel like a mate bond to you?”

I closed my eyes for a moment, reliving the memory of the first time I touched my mate. “No.”

She blew out a breath. “Yeah, I didn’t think so.”

I reached out and touched her cheek, and that warm mellow feeling spread down my arm, stirring my blood. She responded, turning her face into my hand like she craved my touch, and she whimpered a little. “There is something though.”

She curled her fingers around my wrist, and just held it for a moment, and then she firmly pulled my hand away and down. “This can’t happen.”

I ran my hands through my hair and looked up at the sky, as if the soft fluffy clouds could give me some answers. “I know. I’m too old, too broken–”

“No, its not that,” she said quickly.

“It’s not that?” I echoed cluelessly.

Her lower lip trembled, and she bit down on it merciliessly. She blinked hard a couple times before she lifted her face and met my eye again. “I’m pregnant.”

The words hit me like a boulder in my chest.

“I just found out, I haven’t even told my family yet,” she confessed.

“And the father?”

She looked down, scuffed her shoe on a bunch of clover. “He’s… He’s gone.”

Gone. That had so many possible meanings, but clearly, none of them were good.

“The pregnancy,” I said, as understanding dawned on me, “It’s changed your scent, that’s why you seem different.”

Her brow wrinkled up. “Is it that obvious already?”

“Maybe not to everyone,” I said, and again, couldn’t help but reach out to her, to sooth her, to sooth myself, to see if that feeling was still there. It was. In spades. I ran my hand up and down her spine, and she was stiff for a moment, and then she relaxed, and let herself lean into my body.

Goddess it had been a long, long time since I had held a woman in my arms.

“I don’t want this,” she whispered.

The words hurt, but at the same time, I agreed. “Me neither.” I couldn’t face the fear of losing someone I loved again. I couldn’t risk being consumed by the darkness again.

“You are too old,” she said into my chest.

“You are too young,” I agreed, letting one hand test the texture of her hair.

“I think I’m in love with someone else,” she contnued to confess.

“I don’t think I’m capable of loving again,” I countered.

“You are the king,” she pointed out.

I smiled down at her. “I am a mad king,” I reminded her. And because I was positively insane, I leaned down and touched my lips against hers. They were soft, and warm, and hesitant, but as she kissed me back, my heart started to beat hard in my chest, and I felt my body stir awake for the first time in a long, long time.