Chapter 39 THE OTHER SIDE OF THE DOOR
GALLAHAN’S POV
When I came to my senses, I found myself lying prone on a soft brocade couch, the back of my head pounding in ache.
“Fuck! What was that about?” I grumbled, putting a hand against my forehead.
“Let me ask you,” Zuleika seethed from where she sat on the armchair, which was adjacent to my couch. “What was that about, you prick?!”
Uh oh?
Maliya’s temper had always been quick to rise, but Zuleika, who had a great grip on her emotions, rarely got infuriated to this degree.
My behavior must’ve pushed all the wrong buttons for her to be boiling in anger like this.
As if on cue, my memories of meeting Calisto came rushing back to the forefront of my mind, his terrified face flashing vividly and hitting me like a punch in the gut.
“Fuck. I made a scene,” I said as I got up into a sitting position.
Dread over leaving a terrible first impression to my son coiled in my stomach, and pain unravelled further in my head, as if punishing me for scaring him.
Zuleika didn’t answer, but she gave me a scoff, making her anger loud and clear.
“You almost made a fucking scene,” Maliya corrected, and her face, her choice of words, and her tone showed just how unhappy she was with my behavior earlier.
“I didn’t mean to,” I defended.
“The boy was confused and terrified, Gallahan! What were you thinking?!”
“The woman claimed him as her son, and she was taking him away. It didn’t sit right with me. And I tried, okay? I tried reigning in my inner wolf, but it was hard as fuck when it was getting all furious, frustrated and protective in one go, melding its thoughts and emotions with mine. That was… That hadn’t…”
“That hadn’t happened since you were fifteen,” Zuleika finished, her tone sounding a lot calmer.
After all, they knew about the first time I lost absolute control over my wolf when I was five, and they were there when it happened again when I was fifteen.
They knew my past like a book memorized page by page, line by line. That was why sympathy and worry were now etched on their faces, replacing the rage and displeasure.
“Tonight being the Ascension Rite probably didn’t help either,” Maliya remarked as she moved to sit beside me.
I hummed as I dropped myself against the couch’s backrest.
With closed eyes, I focused on emptying my mind, dispelling the haunting memories of the night of my own Ascension Rite. Images of meeting a man who looked exactly like one of those blasted creature hunters were also shoved back to the deepest and farthest crevice of my mind, with the hope that they would never come out again.
“She wasn’t a werewolf,” I muttered, remembering the woman who had held Calisto protectively from me. “That must’ve set my wolf off even more.”
Zuleika, who had moved to take the spot on my other side, patted my head.
“We can still go back, you know. We’ll think of another way to meet your children. Because your temper and state of mind may not work for you favorably tonight.”
Maliya hummed her agreement and gave her own comfort through squeezing my wrist. “She’s right, Gallahan. If you lose your temper and your control again, Willa might just use it as a reason to keep your children away from you.”
“And on top of that, if your children see you in such a state, they might form a wrong impression of you. Kids are impressionable, Gallahan.”
“Be honest with me. Do you believe it too?” I asked, staring blankly at the coffered ceiling. “That Calisto is my child?”
“Yes,” Maliya answered without missing a single beat. She then added, sounding ridiculously certain, “And so is the girl in the painting.”
“There is just no logical explanation for it, Gallahan,” Zuleika piped in, threading her fingers through my hair, slow and gentle. “How could you know Calisto even before you met him? You have painted his exact likeness, from the way his hair laid mildly untamed on his head, down to the shade of his skin and the shape of his face.”
Zuleika’s serene smile made another appearance on her face.
“A divine intervention, a higher power pulling the strings of fate, a cosmic alignment, nature just putting things to rightness,” she enumerated with a tone that was as light as air, as if the blood of a seer that coursed in her veins was bubbling to the surface. “Who knows what could be behind it, but how and why else would you paint two children you haven’t even met yet? Choosing to look for Willa in Ascension Rites and being right about it could’ve been just a coincidence. But the painting? It couldn’t be explained by serendipity or luck.”
A laugh that resounded with equal portions of joy and relief burst out of me.
Joy for the fact that Willa and my children were now within my reach.
And relief for the assurance that I hadn’t been driven mad at all. That I was still sane as any other person in this estate.
‘Estate,’ I thought as I jolted into sitting properly.
“Where are we?” I asked, finally taking in my surroundings.
The room was capacious to the point of being obscenely lavish. On the opposite side of where we were, there was a king-size canopy bed with tasteful deep burgundy sheets and drapery. A floor-to-ceiling window stood on its east, and a tall lacquered door was on its west.
“Alpha Wendell Alfiero had hospitably lent us rooms. This will be your room, while Maliya and I will share the bigger one with two queen-sized beds. That door,” Maliya pointed at the door a couple of meters away from the bed, “leads to the lounge room that adjoins your room to ours.”
“Right. And how long was I out like a fucking light?”
“Not long actually. We dropped you on the couch just a couple of seconds before you woke up.”
“Thanks,” I said sarcastically. “Must’ve been why my head is fucking pounding.”
Zuleika chuckled unapologetically. “You’re welcome.”
I decided to drop the matter and threw another question instead. “Did Wendell Alfiero say anything when he saw me all unconscious?”
“Nothing,” Maliya answered with a smirk. “But there was a clear disdainful sneer on his face.”
“Great. Just fucking great.”
Suddenly, my nose was assaulted with a familiar scent. And despite the upset that was making it mildly tart, it was still so achingly familiar that it stirred my inner wolf into agitation once more.
“Willa,” I gasped out, shooting up from the couch, as soon as the recognition clicked in.
“Gallahan?” Zuleika asked, sounding equally confused and wary.
But I didn't have it in me to pay her any attention, and like a feral animal, I followed the scent, and it led me to the door connecting to the lounge room. But I found it locked.
I could break it. That option was always available. I chose not to, though. Because I couldn’t afford to make my reputation worse than it already was.
“Zee, Mal… Please.”
Zuleika sighed, heavy and loud, as if trying to expel at least an ounce of her exhaustion over my antics. Still, she made no complaints and unlocked the door with a wave of her hand.
But then her brows furrowed. “Wait.”
She rose from the couch and murmured a spell beneath her breath. Maliya, sensing something I didn’t, also stood and began to chant softly.
It took them nearly a quarter of a minute before they finished.
“Damn. Whoever put the enchantments there must be paranoid as hell.”
“Thanks, Zee. Thanks, Mal. I owe you one,” I said as I faced the door and tried to open it again.
“One? You mean A LOT,” Maliya grumbled.
But I didn’t offer her any response anymore because right there, standing at the center of the lounge room, was my fated mate.
Willa.
“...no longer as bad as his past has painted him to be. Anyone is capable of growth and change, Willa,” said the woman who was with Calisto earlier.
Willa, still blessedly beautiful as the night I met her, refuted her.
Then, before I could think twice, I joined their conversation, saying, “Too late for that, Willa.”