Page 9 of Alpha’s Secret Baby Girl (Nightfall Island Alphas #1)

The graveyard was a small plot of land adjacent to the shrine of the Moon Goddess, where the Elder Priest resided and answered the questions posed to him.

It was also the duty of the pack to bring him offerings every day, whether it be food, clothing, or their time to clean up around the massive mausoleums that dominated the graveyard.

Rafael pulled to a stop next to his family’s mausoleum.

It was made of white-grey granite and built in the style of a Greco-Roman temple with tapered Doric pillars lined up on each side.

Marble statues were placed in the eaves, depicting beautiful, half-naked women meant to represent the Moon Goddess and her daughters, who were believed to look after the dead.

“Here we are,” Rafael said. He glanced at Gwen. Her face was initially turned away, staring at the building, but she twisted to look at him. Her green eyes were wide, her plump lips pressed together. Confusion knit her brows together, and she quickly looked away.

Lianne pushed against his seat. “Lemme out.”

Rafael had to laugh. He remembered how much he hated being confined in a vehicle at that age. He slid out of the two-door car and pulled his seat forward so Lianne could climb out of the back. She looked around with interest.

“There’s a lot of pretty houses here,” she said.

“They aren’t houses, sweetie. They’re mausoleums,” Gwen said, taking Lianne’s house.

Lianne frowned. “What’s that?”

“A mausoleum is a building where people are buried. You see, since we’re on an island, there’s too much groundwater to bury people in the dirt, so each family builds a mausoleum instead.

” Gwen’s gaze moved past the grand buildings to the small mausoleum at the back of the graveyard, the one made out of plain stone cobbled together with whatever materials could be found on the island.

That was where outcasts, including Gwen’s mother, were interred.

Rafael rubbed his hand over the back of his neck. He had been concentrating on making the circumstances of the living outcasts better in the pack. His next project was to make a better space for them after death. The old building appeared to be on the verge of collapse.

Lianne pressed into Gwen’s leg, her earlier enthusiasm disappearing. She looked around suspiciously. “Why are we in a graveyard?”

“My parents passed away,” Rafael told her.

Why didn’t Gwen tell her that they were dead?

It must have been confusing for Lianne, thinking she was going to visit her grandparents, only to arrive at a graveyard instead.

Annoyance surged. Gwen should have said something before they left.

“But there are pictures of them inside.”

He led the two of them into the mausoleum, past the crypts which held the skeletons of his ancestors, to where his parents had been laid to rest. Small circular portraits sat just beneath them. One was the stern, forbidding face of his father, the other his mother with her normal world-weary smile.

Gwen spoke first. “I didn’t know they passed. I’m sorry for your loss.”

Rafael briefly stiffened. She didn’t know?

His jaw tightened, and he had to bite back his response—that losing Isabel was a great loss, but his father’s death had almost been a relief.

The guilt he felt over that was difficult to explain.

His father had been terribly abusive and didn’t deserve to be missed.

But at the same time, Rafael had hoped that somehow, he’d find the right words to tell Randall exactly how much his actions hurt and that it would somehow magically get better.

At the very least, he hoped to rescue his mother.

And now? Now it was too late for that.

“There was an accident. My father was driving at night. He lost control of the vehicle somehow and crashed.” Rafael didn’t say the worst part. There was no indication of anything wrong with the car. It could have been on purpose. “I got the call and came back to take my place as the new Alpha.”

Gwen nodded slowly, her shoulders sagging. “That makes more sense then—”

She cut herself off, glancing at Lianne. The six-year-old had wandered away, tracing her finger along the carved design between the crypts.

“I did my best. Off the island. I worked hard to get my business off the ground,” Rafael murmured, keeping his voice low enough for Lianne not to overhear. “I wanted to make something of myself that wasn’t tainted by him. And I looked for you.”

Gwen wrapped her arms around herself. “Why?”

“Because what I said that day wasn’t true.

I was worried about what Randall would do to you if he knew how much I really cared,” Rafael told her, his voice growing thick.

“You weren’t just entertainment to me, Gwen.

I wanted you to know that. But after it became clear you didn’t want to be found, I let it alone. ”

She was quiet, her arms tightening. She opened her mouth, then turned away. She exited the mausoleum, her footsteps quick. Lianne was quick to join her. Rafael followed, and once outside, Gwen pointed at the run-down outcast mausoleum.

“That’s where Grandma is buried. Why don’t you run up ahead and take a look? But don’t go inside,” she said, smoothing her fingers over Lianne’s fuzzy blonde waves.

Lianne nodded enthusiastically and took off.

Gwen turned to Rafael and lifted one pale eyebrow. “Are you coming?”

He nodded once and fell in step beside her.

“I’m not sure I believe you. It’s convenient to say you didn’t mean it seven years later with a daughter in the mix,” she said, softly. And he thought, maybe a bit regretfully, like she wished it wasn’t the case.

“Truthfully, if I’d known you were pregnant, I would have looked harder for you,” he admitted.

Gwen shrugged. “I managed well enough without you.”

“You did,” Rafael agreed, struggling to keep the emotion from overclouding his tone. “But I lost six years of my daughter’s life. I didn’t get to hold her as a baby, watch her learn to walk, or figure out how to talk. If you had told me—”

“I didn’t tell you because I was afraid of your father.”

Rafael’s shoulders slumped. He wanted to tell her that he wouldn’t have let his father do anything, but the truth of the matter was that he hadn’t even protected himself from his father, not until he left the island.

He’d been ground beneath his father’s authority to the point where defying him felt like an impossible choice.

Could he really blame Gwen for feeling the same way?

“For what it’s worth…” Gwen toyed with the sleeve of her shirt. “I wish things were different.”

Rafael nodded, his heart heavy. “So do I.”

***

They spent the day out on the island, visiting all of Rafael’s favorite haunts.

He amused himself with the thought that soon, Lianne would be running off into the woods to build forts or make up her own legends about the rocks and caves that she would find.

She loved the forest, inspecting every leaf and twig with care.

When she accidentally knocked over an old, rotten tree, she burst into tears and raced back to Gwen.

“We’ve been out too long. We need to get back to town and get some lunch,” Gwen said, picking up Lianne.

“I can carry her,” Rafael offered.

Gwen shied back as though she expected him to grab her daughter and take off.

He didn’t offer again. After lunch, they drove back to the house.

Lianne fell asleep in the back seat. This time, Rafael didn’t offer.

Instead, he lifted her out of the car. Lianne lay her head on his shoulder and put her arms around his neck, sighing lightly.

She was sleeping again by the time he carried her to her room upstairs.

Gwen joined him, carefully taking off Lianne’s shoes before they tucked her into bed together.

Rafael smiled at his sleeping daughter, his heart swelling with pride and love. He was glad that she had connected with him so quickly. He’d been worried that it would take longer to win her over. Worried that Gwen would be more obvious in her dislike toward him, and that would influence Lianne.

Speaking of Gwen… she tapped his wrist and jerked her chin toward the door. They crept back downstairs, where Gwen made a cup of coffee and collapsed into an armchair in the living room.

“Next time you want to show Lianne around the forest, I think I’ll have to stay home. I’m not used to the uneven trails anymore.” She frowned into her cup, her shoulders tense.

Rafael took a seat himself and studied her.

She hadn’t shown any signs of discomfort in the forest. Was this actually her saying that she trusted him to be alone with Lianne?

“It wasn’t just about showing her, though,” he said slowly.

“I want to spend time with you, too. I know that the circumstances are less than ideal—”

Gwen snorted.

“Alright, that’s an understatement,” Rafael admitted, dragging his hand through his hair.

“But I still hold to this being the best plan. I can’t protect Lianne from whatever danger is in your visions if she’s not here.

And no matter what work I’ve done, the pack would not be kind to her if we weren’t married. ”

He didn’t mention how the pack wouldn’t be kind to Gwen, either. She would only say she didn’t care what they thought about her, and it would devolve into an argument again. Focusing on taking care of Lianne was the best approach.

“I didn’t intend to raise her with the pack.

As soon as I knew I was pregnant, I decided I was never coming back.

I wasn’t going to make her live through the same treatment I got,” Gwen answered, her voice hardly above a whisper.

“I tried to convince Kira and Chelsey to leave, too. We stopped talking so much because I realized I couldn’t make that choice for them. ”

Rafael let out a heavy breath. He gazed at the floor, tracing the geometric patterns on the rug with his eyes. “I know how you feel.”

Gwen snorted.

“I do. Our experiences were different when it comes to the pack, but I know what it’s like to watch someone in an abusive relationship refuse to leave.”

At that, Gwen grew silent. Rafael risked a look up at her face. Her eyebrows were pulled together, and she chewed on her lower lip. Her hands were wrapped around the mug of coffee so tightly that the tips of her fingers were white.

“My father,” he said slowly, fighting down the discomfort at such a sensitive topic.

“He never raised a hand to us. But he was abusive. He treated his family like he treated the pack. My mother wouldn’t leave him, no matter how much I begged her to.

I’m more like him than I care to admit sometimes.

That night when he confronted me in front of the pack, I should have told him to go fuck himself. ”

Gwen let out a shaky breath.

Rafael stopped, searching her face. Did she believe him?

Did she think he was lying to make himself look better?

He pressed on, hoping that she saw how genuine he was.

“I’m sorry for how I treated you. I know that we were both in a different mental space back then, but I wish I hadn’t kept you hidden. I wish I stood by you.”

“I don’t know what to say to that.” Gwen broke eye contact and stared out the window.

“You don’t have to say anything. I had to tell you. There are seven years of assumptions and silence between us; the only way to bridge that divide is by being honest.”

Gwen nodded once. “I will think about this. Thank you for your honesty, Rafael. I can’t promise that it will make a difference. I can see that you’ve put a lot of work into this pack. You’ve made changes, and for that, I do believe that you’re working to distinguish yourself from your father.”

Rafael’s stomach twisted into a knot. His wolf whimpered, wanting to go to his mate, but he held himself back. He heard the unspoken words. “But?”

“But you still forced me to marry you. That’s not in the past, and it doesn’t matter that you keep saying that it was for the best.” She stood, the coffee still in her hands. “You made a decision and didn’t care what I had to say. That is no way to treat a person that you claim to care about.”

And with that, she turned and walked away. Rafael didn’t follow.