Page 35 of Losing My Siren Luna (Hidden Cove #1)

“You know my father?” I said in a stunned whisper. I can feel my throat clogging with pent-up emotions. All I’ve ever wanted was to find my father, and this man is telling me that my father not only knows about me, but he is waiting for me.

“ See,” Val’s voice rings excitedly in my head, “This isn’t the same life! Your father never knew you in your first life. This life is different.”

I feel like Val’s excitement is more about the possibility of Lachlan being different than about my father knowing me, but I chose to ignore that for now. I don’t want to argue with her again. Not when I’m standing before a connection with my father.

Cedric smiles at my stunned expression, then nods. I throw my arms around his neck, my tears spilling free, and after a few seconds, I feel his arms hugging me back, rubbing my back soothingly as I cry.

I can feel that familiar magic from the sea from Cedric's touch, but that relief is short-lived.

“Luna!” Cherum yells, and then I feel his familiar protective hand on my shoulder.

“Cherum, please,” I turned to stare at him, only I couldn’t see well with my tear blurred vision. “Please, just stop. Let me talk to him in peace. Please.”

Cherum looks between us uneasily, and then groans. “Luna, you hanging on another man, a naked man at that, is not something I can condone.”

Gosh, he’s right. I let my arms drop and tried to dry my tears on the sleeve of my dress.

I was so excited about finding another siren, and then about having a connection with my father, that I didn’t think about how this scene could affect the pack and affect Lachlan.

I don’t want Cherum or my other guards to get in trouble with their Alpha because of me.

Cedric stands unwavering beside me. “Why don’t you speak with your Alpha? He should have been aware that I was coming to help Elelira today.”

What?

I exchanged a shocked look with Cherum, then stared back up at the siren man, wondering what other revelations he might hold.

“One sec,” Cherum grumbles. It seemed he'd decided to do as Cedric suggested. “Don’t you move, you flounder. If you hurt her or try to take her, so help me, I’ll spear your arse and fry you over a spit.”

Cedric smirks, “Noted.”

“ Do you think they make spears strong enough to hold a man the size of this man?” Val asked in my head, almost making me giggle.

I resist the urge to ogle Cedric, though Val wants me to get another good look at him as she decides how big of a spear he’s carrying himself.

“ For reference later,” she tells me, “ It would be nice to know that our mate is more manly than this man.”

“I hope we never find out,” I growled at her. I don’t want to see Cedric's weaponry, and I sure as it gets don’t want to ever see Lachlan’s. Not after what happened this morning.

“ Aww, come on. I know you’re curious too,” Val snickered.

“ Not even a little bit,” I groaned, but I felt my neck and cheeks burning as the thought of my mate's naked body and what it could possibly look like flints through my mind involuntarily. Darn it, Val. I didn’t know she could be such a pervert.

“You okay there, princess?” Cedric asks, staring down at me with a crooked smirk.

I nodded, averting my gaze anywhere but at him. Him being naked didn’t bother me before, but with Val spewing nonsense in my mind, I’m not able to ignore it as easily.

“Are you, um, going to the castle to stay with us?” I asked to try and focus on something else, and also because I’m genuinely curious.

I don’t know if he plans to stay for just a few days, or if he is going to return to the sea after seeing that I’m alright.

I don’t want him to go. Especially now that I know he was sent here by my father.

“From this day on, I will not be leaving your side, princess. I will be with you until the day you gain your magic and your fins.”

“Oh,” I said, trying not to let my happiness show.

I rest my hand on the necklace hanging from my neck, my fingers tracing its delicate pattern.

He said this was what called him here. It called for help or something such as that.

Does that mean that my father was the one who gave it to Lachlan to give it to me yesterday?

“This necklace,” I looked up at Cedric, thoughts of him being naked all but forgotten now that my thoughts were focused on my father. “Was this a gift from him?” I asked.

Cedric reaches for the pendant and lifts it slightly so it can rest against his palm.

“It was. For reasons I can not yet speak of, he can not be with you, or let the world know you are his daughter, but he wanted to leave you with something for you to call for him, or use his magic if there was ever a need.” He goes silent for a moment, then shakes his head, “He didn’t expect for there to be a need this quickly.

If he could take you to the sea with him now, I know he would, but without your magic and your fins, it just isn’t possible. ”

My father wants me? He wants to take me away?

My heart beats excitedly for a minute, then dwindles back to its normal beat, then drops when another thought pops in my head. “If my father knew about me, why didn’t he come to save me sooner? Why didn’t he come back for my mother?”

A sad expression crossed his features, “He only learned of you recently, Elelira. He wasn’t even aware of your mother’s death until, uh, maybe a few weeks ago?

Maybe months? The timeline is iffy, but it hasn’t been long.

He has been searching for a way to get you to him, but it will take you gaining your magic for him to finally bring you home to where you belong.

This wedding and his access to you through your new husband was the only way for him to build a bridge to connect you in some way to him. ”

So, he didn’t know about me? This is so different from my first life and I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around all the changes.

My dad wanted me with him after finding out about me.

My anxieties about having the same fate as before while trying to find information on my father lifts with this news.

I won’t meet the same cruel death if I have no reason to ever return to my uncle’s pack.

“ See,” Val said mockingly in my mind, “ I told you this life was different. I don’t agree with him taking you away just yet, though.”

I want to growl at her, but hold myself back. “Don’t start with that. Lachlan is still the same demeaning jerk he was before. You and I both know that though Killian may be alright, Lachlan, the one in control, is still not someone we can be with.”

“He might be sorry for what happened this morning. You know the rumors about his anger,” Val tried to reason with me.

“ Yes, but his anger was not just at me. He was horrible to Yasmin as well when she didn’t deserve that. I can not trust a man like that and do not want to keep him as my mate.”

“I don’t want to lose my mate, Ela! You are punishing me and Killian while you remain set on rejecting Lachlan,” Val cries.

I can feel her worry and the pain she feels at the thought of losing the mate that she just met for the first time yesterday.

A mate that seemed to want her as much as she had always longed for him.

“ He knew, Val. He knew at least since yesterday who my father was and that the necklace was a gift from him. He kept that from me. How can I trust a man like that? He held information from me pertaining to something I had desired more than anything for as long as I can remember, and he didn’t tell me that my father contacted him.

He didn’t tell me that my father sent the necklace as a gift.

Thinking back on it, it was almost like he was trying to hide who the necklace came from.

You want me to commit my life to someone who doesn’t have the decency to tell me that my father was looking for me?

That my father was with him at some point, because where else would he have gotten the necklace? ”

“You don’t know that,” Val tried to argue, though I could feel that she was trying to convince herself as well. “ You don’t know that Lachlan was aware that the man who sent you the necklace was your father.”

I remain silent for a few seconds while I try to work things out in my head. “ If Cherum comes back and tells us that Lachlan knew of Cedric’s arrival, that proves I’m right. That proves he had communication with my father.”

I can feel her worry in my head, because she knows I’m right.

I find myself hoping just as much as she is that I’m wrong.

I’m still holding on to a fraction of hope that Cherum will come back over and tell us that Lachlan didn’t know anything about Cedric being here, and that he was unaware of there being a siren in his land.

That hope dies as Cherum walks back over to us waiting for him on the beach and we see all the hostility gone from his expression.

“What did your Alpha say?” Cedric asks with a confidence that makes me gulp nervously while waiting for Cherum’s answer.

“Aye, he said he knows of you and to bring you along. We just have to find you some clothes first. The orphanage does not have any that could fit a fellow of your, uh, size, so I have a guard riding this way with some now.”

“Is my nudity offensive, Delta?” Cedric smirks.

“Yes,” Percy was the one to answer with a growl.

I can’t even find the humor in their conversation about nudity and offensiveness now, my mind reeling and my heart sinking, as well as Vals, knowing our mate has broken our trust impossibly more than before.

~

Lachlan POV

“Where are they?” Killian growls in my head.

He’s restless, fearful of what this siren man might be telling our mate.

Fearful of what she may be telling him. He was fearful that the naked siren she was clinging to and crying on, as Cherum told us, might be able to accomplish in the single hour I gave them to get home what I may never accomplish in the next two years. Not with the rate we are going.