Page 26

“Emin, what the hell are you doing?”

Veva is in the casting room, working on the Amanzite, so I’ve been pacing in the hallway, thinking. I glance up when Dorian comes down the hallway, looking at me like I’ve lost it.

“What?”

“You’re talking to yourself. You’re going to scare the new recruits.”

Aidan appears behind him, grinning. “Nah, Emin doesn’t scare me. Now, those psychics—”

He fakes a shudder at the idea of it, and I catch his gaze.

“Careful. Veva is one of those psychics .”

Dorian watches me carefully. Someone comes down the hall with a cart, and we move to the side to let them through. Inside the casting room, there’s the hushed sound of them working together, the gentle emanating pulse of the magic seeping out through the cracks in the door.

“So…” Dorian starts, eyes flicking from me, to the door and back. “Wanna tell me what’s going on there?”

Aidan watches, curiosity in his gaze, and Dorian looks between me and him.

“Unless you…?”

“Nah,” I sigh, waving a hand in Aidan’s direction. “It’s fine, but—”

Another person rolling a cart goes past, and we fall silent until they’re gone. Then, I say, “I’d rather not talk about it in the hallway.”

“Heard,” Dorian says, gesturing over his shoulder. “Follow me.”

I hesitate, looking at the door, not wanting to leave Veva, but Dorian gives me a look. “We’re in the pack hall,” he says, pointing to at least three of the guys in this hallway alone. “She’s in good hands. Going upstairs isn’t going to change that.”

Still, I don’t want to leave, but the idea of talking to Dorian about this feels right. So I follow him up the stairs and into his office.

“Really?” I ask, laughing at the name plate on his desk. “We’re really going to have this discussion in here? It looks like a principal’s—”

I’m cut off when he goes to one of the bookcases, tips out a book, and opens a secret door.

“What?” Aidan laughs, bringing his hands to his head. “No way—those are real?”

Dorian shrugs, laughing as we step through. “Perks of being the alpha leader. They asked what I wanted for my office…”

“And you said, speakeasy?” I laugh, turning and taking in this secret room—all lush leather and dark wood. In fact, it looks oddly close to the casting room. “Did the casters put this together for you?”

“Like I said,” Dorian shrugs, “perks of being the alpha leader. And, just to clarify, we had this done before the problem with the Amanzite started. I was not pilfering magic for my own personal gain—”

“Calm down, goodie two-shoes,” Aidan laughs, putting his hands behind his head and kicking his feet up as he drops into a leather chair. “Nobody here is going to tell on you. I’m definitely going to have one of these when I’m alpha leader over at the Grayhides.”

“Feet off,” Dorian says, his voice nearing a growl, and Aidan sits up, looking a bit sheepish. “You’re not an alpha leader yet, Grayhide. I’d make sure to keep that in mind.”

Aidan nods, and I watch as he scoots back in his seat, his head turning to take more of the room in. It’s odd watching him, thinking about how young he really is. Sometimes, like when he’s training, he seems much older than his twenty and change.

Dorian moves to the other side of the room, mixes each of us a drink. When they’re dispersed, he looks at me over the top of his glass and says, “Well?”

Well.

I reach into my pocket, feel the little box I’ve had in there since yesterday. It belonged to my grandmother, and she gave it to me before she passed. Said it would go to my wife, when I found her.

“Well,” I say, clearing my throat and pulling it out, popping it open so they can see the ring. Aidan jerks back like I’ve pulled out a gun, and Dorian very slowly sets his drink on his desk.

“Woah,” he says, eying the box. “Uh, is that for…?”

“Veva.” I swallow, nod, and tuck it back into my pocket, feeling the weight of it there. “I didn’t tell you this before, but…she’s my mate.”

“Okay,” Dorian says, frowning and crossing his arms. “That would have been good information to know.”

“I know,” I rub my hand over the back of my neck. Dorian is my leader, but that information was also private. He eyes me, then rubs his hand over his jaw.

“Don’t you think it’s a bit…premature? For that? Even if she is your mate…?”

“Well, there’s more, actually.” I cough, look to the ceiling, then go on. “I told you that Veva and I knew each other in high school?”

Dorian picks up his glass. “Yeah.”

“Well, yeah. We knew each other. For two years.”

He pauses with the glass to his lips. “ Two years?”

“Yeah.” When I close my eyes, I see a montage of it.

The first time we found ourselves together, assigned to cleaning the home economics room together the end of sophomore year.

“Two years. And…I denied it to myself back then, but I knew she was my mate. She came to me one night. Said she needed to tell me something. I thought she was going to finally say it, point out the connection between us. But my dad…” I pause, glancing over at Aidan, seeing his confused expression.

But Dorian knows exactly what I’m talking about. And I don’t have the energy to explain about my dad right now.

“Anyway, he came to the door, and it was like he knew —I mean, we had never met at my house before. So I made her leave, basically pushed her out the window—”

Aidan sucks in a breath, and I amend, “I was on the first floor, man.”

“Oh.”

“You said you thought that’s what she came to say,” Dorian says, his eyes on me. “What did she really come to say?”

I bite my lip, glance at Aidan again, making sure the threat in my gaze is apparent. “This doesn’t leave the room.”

He mimes zipping his lips, and it almost makes me laugh.

“She was going to tell me…she thought she was pregnant.”

Dorian is staring at me with a deathly serious look. “She thought she was pregnant? What does that mean? She wasn’t?”

I shake my head, “I’m not sure. I didn’t…ask. I don’t know if it was a false alarm, or if she lost it—” I cut myself off, the idea of it too much to think about. The idea of her, in pain like that.

“Emin.” Dorian’s voice is so quiet, I almost don’t catch it. He clears his throat, finds my gaze. “Is it possible that…is it possible that Sarina is that baby?”

“I already told you.” I shake my head. “Sarina is eight. The timeline doesn’t line up.”

“But…what if she isn’t eight?”

Of course, I’ve thought it. She looks so much like me. I want it to be true. But—no.

“Veva wouldn’t lie about that.” I’m shaking my head too quickly; it starts to give me a headache. So I stand up and start to pace. “She wouldn’t. Not…not when I asked her, point blank. She wouldn’t keep my own child from me like that.”

Dorian holds eye contact with me. “Even if she thought she was protecting Sarina?”

I run my hand through my hair, shake my head again, and make for the secret door.

“Emin—”

“Gotta go,” I mutter, searching for the book that’s going to let me out of here. “They’re going to be done soon.”

Dorian doesn’t chase me out, but lets me go. I’m just pushing out of his office, and into the hallway, when I run into the last person I want to see in here.

“Emin,” my father says, straightening up when he sees me.

“Can’t right now,” I say, moving to push past him, but he steps in front of me, holding his hands up.

“ Emin.” He sucks in a breath of air, squares his shoulders. I look more like my mother, but I see myself in him, too. His chin, the shape and set of his eyes. “Son.”

This is already too much, I can tell.

“Dad—”

“Just hear me out,” he says, the words coming out in a whoosh. “I’ve been trying to talk to you for ages now, and I—”

When he shakes his head, it’s like looking into a mirror, and I realize where I got the gesture. From watching him do it growing up.

“I’m sorry.”

I blink, trying to process the words. Coming from his mouth. “ What ?”

“I’m sorry,” he says again, hands still held up. “For—for everything. I realize now that the way we raised you and Kira—we forced your sister out. We failed her. And, maybe you turned out okay, but I can see now how our behavior affected you. Now that your mother—”

He stops himself, and I see genuine grief there for the wife he lost. The wife he maybe never had. My mother, who betrayed us.

“We don’t have to talk it through now.” He lowers his voice. “But I would like to—I’d like to have a relationship with my children. With my grandchildren. If that’s something you’d be open to.”

I let out a quick, disbelieving breath. Of all the things I thought would happen today, getting an apology from my father was not one of them.

“Maybe,” I finally manage, before I actually do push past him.

He doesn’t say a thing. Apparently, that’s enough for him, for now.