Page 41 of Losing My Siren Luna (Hidden Cove #1)

Lachlan POV

I knew this was coming, but my stomach still drops to the floor when Lira asks me that question.

“The necklace?” I repeated her question, anxiety eating at me. How do I tell her with the damn blood oath in place? I feel my throat closing up just thinking about telling her about her father. “Didn’t, uh, Cedric tell you?”

She presses her lips together, staring at me pensively for a moment. “He did. He told me that my father was the one that told you to give it to me. Is that true?”

Thank goodness she asked a yes or no question.

Open-ended questions seem to be where I get hung up on the oath.

“Yes,” I murmur, pleading with her with my eyes not to be mad at me.

We were just caught in the first decent moment where we were both laughing so carefree, almost like the events of this morning hadn’t happened.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she whispers, looking disheartened.

This is going to be the hard part. How do I tell her without telling her that I couldn’t tell her?

“ Quit talking in riddles and just try to get her to answer her own questions,” Killian tells me, " Ask questions back or be just vague enough to where she asks the questions more directly.

She knows about her father. If you need to, just tell her to ask the fish since he won't be held to the same oath as you.

" Killian is coming to the forefront of my mind, ready to take over for me if I get overwhelmed or start to panic.

“I couldn’t,” I simply told her. It’s the truth, and also isn’t forbidden by the blood oath.

“You couldn’t,” she furrows her golden eyebrows, making an adorable little ‘v’ between her eyes. “Did he tell you not to?”

I rub my hands over my thighs nervously, then nod before looking up at her through my lashes.

Screw Cedric. If he could have just explained everything to her, then I wouldn’t be in this predicament.

He probably wanted her to be more mad at me, though, so he didn't tell her everything on purpose. Stupid fish. Her father sure didn’t seem to mind the thought of taking her from me early either.

Cedric could have helped explain a bit if he really thought mate bonds were important.

“Why would he do that?” she asks, “Why couldn’t you tell me? Did he want to hide himself from me?”

“I truly don’t know,” I muttered softly, tensing with every word in fear the oath would stop me from speaking. “I….I just did what I was told.”

She looks down at her hands again, that bottom lip she has a habit of chewing on and abusing being gnawed on once again by her top teeth. “Did my father not want me to know about him? Did he….did he not want to see me?”

“No, Lira,” I quickly went to her, kneeling on the ground before her and taking her hands in mine.

Killian warned me a half a second too late not to scare her again by touching her or approaching her too fast, but luckily she didn’t pull away frightened.

She looks so somber and mournful about her father that it hurts me to see her like that.

I went to her without even thinking. “I don’t think it was that.

I think Cedric can answer those questions better than I can, but I truly don’t believe that that is the case.

Why give you something that was meant to protect you if he didn’t care? ”

She smiled sadly, “Cedric said something similar. I just….I just don’t understand why you wouldn’t tell me that the necklace came from him. If he wants to protect me, then why not take me with him?”

My throat swells and my heart races, but it’s not from the blood oath. It’s from fear at hearing that she still wants to leave me and escape with her father. Killian is mewling like a kicked puppy in my head, his pain just as evident as mine.

“I don’t want you to leave me, Lira. I don’t want him to take you,” I told her honestly.

She looked startled for a moment. “Is that why you didn’t tell me about my father?”

“What? No. I really just couldn't. I'm not…I’m not allowed to.” I almost breathed a sigh of relief that I could actually say that statement.

She gave me a dubious look. “You’re not allowed to? How can he ban you from telling me? Did he use magic or something to prevent you from saying something? Because I don’t see how someone could not allow you to do anything, Alpha.”

I stared up at her brilliant emerald eyes, lost in the fire in them for a moment. Even her anger is beautiful.

“That’s exactly it, Lira.”

She startles slightly, looking down at me wide-eyed. “He used magic on you?” she asks, and I nod. “So, it’s not that you didn’t tell me, but you couldn’t?”

Again, I just nod, praying that she believes me. I hope that my little progress with her doesn’t backslide again. I don’t know if my heart could take much more.

“Okay,” she whispers, gripping my hands back.

“Okay?” I repeated. “You believe me?”

The left corner of her mouth turns up a bit, and she nods. “My Lycan told me that if I tried to blame you for something that isn’t your fault again she was going to sing old-time ballads off key on repeat in my head for the next two years.”

I laugh breathlessly, feeling relieved that her Lycan is at least sticking up for me. I felt like I was fighting against everyone in my damn castle to get closer to Lira. It’s great to know that the one who is closest to her and constantly with her is arguing my case.

“ She’s my mate. She said it for my sake, dumb butt. Of course she’s going to fight for me. I’m not a dumbass like you, ” Killian says, but I know he is teasing me. He’s boasting with pride to hear about Val telling Lira not to blame me.”

“Thank you, Val,” I grinned, rubbing my thumbs on the back of Lira’s hands. Her eyes twinkle and I know it's Val watching. A deep purr came from Lira's chest, making her blush. My smile was so big that it felt like it was about to break my face.

Lira giggles, and the sound makes me want to sing. Actually, it makes me want to do anything I can to hear the sound again, including spilling tea all over the front of me over and over again if that is what it takes.

She looks down at our hands and shivers slightly.

The mate bond. Hell, I can’t wait to experience the sparks and tingles that come with the mate bond too.

I keep running my thumbs on the back of her hands and watch her body shift and her face contort each and every time.

The bond is getting to her. Now that her walls aren’t as high up and she isn’t fighting me, the mate bond is working its magic on her.

I might have a chance to win her over after all.

“ Earn it,” Killian growls at me, “ You don’t win her. Earn the right to receive her love. I won’t tolerate you manipulating the mate bond she feels to weasel your way in. You earn her. Do it the right way, Lachlan.”

“I know, jerk. I’m just saying, it's nice to know the mate bond can affect her. I’ll still be working my ass off to be a man worthy of her love.”

I have to. She still has thoughts of going back to the sea with her father. I can’t let that happen. I can’t lose her. If she chooses her father over me, I would be powerless to stop it.

“Thank you for having tea with me,” she whispers softly, “I feel better about things after talking to you.”

A smile erupts on my face, “I’m glad. I want you to always feel like you can talk to me.”

She smiles shyly, her eyelashes fluttering nervously, making her emerald eyes sparkle like jewels. “I’ll try,” she murmurs, “You are my husband, after all.”

I wish she had said mate. If she had said mate, I could have agreed and then the biggest secret, well, one of the biggest secrets I’m being forced to keep from her, would be out in the open and maybe our mate bond could grow even more.

Maybe all this fighting against myself could end because the blood oath wouldn’t have as strong of a hold on me.

But she said husband, and all I can do is agree to that term for now.

“Well, wife,” I grin at the term while I’m wishing I could say mate, “What do you say to a walk around the castle grounds before dinner?”

She smiles beautifully at that, “Sounds lovely.”

~

Elelira PO V

“ Thank you,” Val whispered to me in my head.

She was happy that I gave Lachlan a chance to explain himself a little, and I didn’t start accusing him of the worst-case scenario right off the bat.

I wanted to, but the connection between Killian and Val in the bond is undeniable.

That’s the only explanation for why I was feeling the way I was towards Lachlan.

Why I was getting flustered with all of his actions and why I couldn't bring myself to fully hold on to my negativity and wariness towards him.

Maybe if our Lycans had met in our first life our marriage could have been like this. Maybe that’s what is different in this life compared to the other.

This life, I wasn’t an annoyingly eager blushing bride with high expectations staring down the aisle at our wedding when we first met.

I was the complete opposite. I know I was cold and indifferent, and I will not apologize for that.

I think I had the right to be after what I had been through in what felt like just hours before waking up here.

I would have to be insane to be eager to repeat the past all over again.

I was leery and distant, wishing for nothing but to escape.

Maybe that is why he didn’t write me off right then, thinking I was nothing more than my uncle’s pawn.

Because I wasn’t eager for this. Then, with the reception, my indifference and disappearance may have intrigued him enough to find out why I had left, and then last night, our Lycans meeting for the first time.

Maybe, just maybe, his Lycan felt a bit of the fated mate bond that connects us.

If Killian is longing for Val like Val is longing for him, then I can not separate the two of them. Not yet, anyway. Not unless Lachlan gives me a reason to.