Page 15

Summer POV

Of course, I knew that Gabriel wanted to talk about Grayson—about why I didn’t introduce him as Grayson’s father. I’d kept trying to change the subject so he wouldn’t get a chance to ask this.

But we had to have this conversation at some point.

Gabriel stood against my aunt’s Jeep, waiting for me to reply. The sun broke through the clouds and highlighted his light-brown hair and brightened his green eyes. He brought his hand up to shield his eyes from the glare. My former Mate was wearing a white dress shirt and—with the help of the sun—I could see the tan skin of his taut stomach.

I looked away from him and shifted my weight from one foot to the other.

“Why didn't you tell him who I was, Summer? I thought when you agreed to stay here that you were going to let me have a relationship with Grayson.”

The broken expression on his face made my heart lurch, but I refused to pity Gabriel. Not after what he did to me six years ago.

“I never agreed to tell Grayson you were his father,” I said. “ When we talked about it at the hospital, I told you that we would take things slow. Ever since that conversation, I’ve been thinking about whether I was all right with you having a relationship with Grayson. And I decided I’m not. You sent me away when I was pregnant with him. You don’t deserve to know what a wonderful and caring little boy he has turned out to be. You lost that chance when you rejected our Mating bond.”

Gabriel ran a hand roughly through his hair.

“Summer, I only rejected our Mating bond because I was trying to—“

I cut him off with a sharp, sarcastic laugh.

“Because you were trying to protect me, right? Is that what you were going to say?” I demanded, my voice rising. “That makes you no better than my parents! Back then, everyone thought they knew what was best for me. But you wanna know what’s funny? No one stopped and asked me what I wanted to do. Nobody asked me what I thought was best for my life.” I tapped my chest.

My hands were shaking, and my heart was racing. I'd been holding onto this anger for six years and it was spilling out of me all at once. When Gabriel and I had spoken after I woke up in the hospital, I'd been too groggy to access all the bitterness for him that I'd been storing away. And when we talked while drinking coffee in the hospital cafeteria, I'd been focused on learning more about Gabriel's compound. Now, all of the resentment I’d held in my heart for my former Mate was flowing out like a burst dam.

“I know I should have talked to you before I broke our bond, and I will regret that for the rest of my life, but if I had known that you were pregnant I—“

This time, Gabriel had been the one to cut himself off.

Anger pulsed within me, and I wanted to punch a hole through my aunt’s Jeep.

“If you had known that I was pregnant, you wouldn’t have rejected our bond?” I demanded. “Would that have made a difference? Was I not worth anything to you? Was I not good enough to keep in your life? Did our Mating bond get in the way of your big dreams of living in a mansion and being the CEO of a successful company? Were you scared of having me as a Mate and ruining the way the people in this compound—and WaterLock—idolize you?”

Gabriel took a step to the side, as if he wanted to distance himself from me and my anger.

“Yesterday, you compared my compound to a safe haven,” he pointed out, his voice low.

“Yeah, that was before I saw your mansion and questioned your intentions. Did you really create this compound to be a safe haven or so everyone could worship you as their hero?”

In the back of my mind, I knew I was just throwing out words like daggers to hurt him like he had done to me six years ago. I wasn’t sure if I even believed the words I was saying. Didn’t Gabriel open up his residence to families whose loved ones were sick? Wasn’t that what he was doing for my family?

As he should—Grayson is his son.

Yeah, but if my mind was going to use that logic, didn’t Gabriel deserve to have a relationship with Grayson?

My head went back and forth, and my temples pulsed with pain.

“Can we please just keep who you really are a secret from Grayson for now? Just until we figure things out?” I asked and pinched the bridge of my nose.

A muscle ticced in Gabriel’s jaw.

“Is that really what is best for our son? To lie to him?” he asked.

My eyes narrowed, and I took a step toward him.

“Don’t you dare insinuate that you know what’s better for my son,” I said, acid dripping from my tone.

“Summer, I wasn’t—“

But I was already walking away from him, wiping a tear from the corner of my eye.

There was no way in hell I was going to allow him to see me cry.

***

“Grayson! Don’t get too close to the pool, honey!” I yelled.

My son gave me a thumbs up to show he heard me and strolled to the grassy area of Gabriel’s backyard, Goose following after him.

“Do you want any more salad, Summer?” Aunt Mia asked and held out the crystal bowl of Italian chopped salad.

I shook my head and took a sip of my lemonade.

It was the fourth day of living in Gabriel’s house, and Aunt Mia, Grayson, and I were just finishing up lunch. My son had already devoured his PB&J and had been excused from the table. Aunt Mia had been the one to suggest eating in Gabriel’s expansive backyard, which was complete with a fancy-looking grill, an inviting, huge pool, white lounge chairs with umbrellas over them, and a shaded area with a long table where my aunt and I were sitting now.

My mom was at the hospital visiting my father. The three of us had been taking turns sitting with him. Grayson occasionally came with us, but he was just a kid and got bored easily. He preferred to explore the many rooms in the house and play with Goose outside.

There was still no change in my dad’s condition.

Over the past few days, I’d barely seen Gabriel, which wasn’t surprising in a house this size. The few times I saw him coming toward me in the hall, I went the other way. Gabriel spent his days shut in his office, probably making his next billion dollars so that he could build another mansion.

I speared a tomato on my fork with more force than necessary.

I knew I wasn’t being fair to Gabriel. He had been charitable with his wealth and had not only used it to help WaterLock, but the rest of the kingdom, and the surrounding kingdoms, too.

But every time I thought about my former Mate, my heart—the place where our Mating bond had been—panged with remembered agony. It was like I was being slowly stabbed to death.

I sighed and set down my fork.

“Do you want to talk about what’s bothering you, sweetie?” Aunt Mia said and wiped her mouth with a napkin.

Her hair was swept back into a low ponytail, and there was a weariness to her eyes that had been there since my father’s attack.

“It’s…nothing,” I replied and looked over at Grayson and Goose instead of at my aunt.

“I’ve lived with you for the past six years, Summer. I know when something is wrong.”

I scrubbed my hand down my face. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to talk to my aunt. But my problems seemed so trivial compared to my dad fighting for his life in the hospital and the threat of Axel and the Rogues. Gabriel’s words from the hospital kept running through my head.

I don’t believe Axel will stop there. I think that once he joins the Rogues, he is going to share all of WaterLock’s secrets to help them take over our pack.

The first night at Gabriel’s house, I truly considered grabbing my son and going back to Aunt Mia’s farm, since Gabriel thought that there would be a full-scale attack on WaterLock. But then I thought of being ten hours away from my father, who was lying in a hospital bed, surrounded by machines that were breathing for him. Also, I considered the fact that Axel could be tracking our movements now. Would it be safe for Grayson and me to stay somewhere alone? Wouldn’t Gabriel’s secure compound be the safest place for us? When I talked to my aunt and mom about all of this, they agreed with me.

“Does your mood have anything to do with Gabriel?” my aunt prompted.

I nodded.

“I haven’t told Grayson that Gabriel is his dad,” I admitted and bit my lip.

My aunt’s eyebrows raised.

“I know, I know,” I said, raising my hands and leaning back in my chair. “I should tell my son. It’s the right thing to do.”

“That’s not what I was going to say.”

“It wasn’t?” I asked.

“No, I was going to say that it’s a big decision. I don’t know exactly what happened with you guys, but I do know that each time your father would give us updates about the pack and he would mention Gabriel’s name, you would flinch,” my aunt said.

I swallowed.

“I would?”

“Yes,” she confirmed. “I know that allowing Gabriel to have a relationship with Grayson would mean that he has to be in your life too, and that’s going to be extremely hard for you, but wouldn’t it be harder on Grayson if he never gets the chance to know his father?”

I sighed.

“You’re right. So, I have to go talk to Gabriel now?”

To my surprise, my aunt shook her head.

“No, you should go talk with Grayson. You should ask him what he thinks about all this,” my aunt said.

Of course.

Why hadn’t I considered speaking with my son? I had spent all this time preaching about how no one asked what I’d wanted to do six years ago, and here I was, doing the same thing to my son, repeating the cycle.

“Thank you, Aunt Mia,” I said. “I’ll help you clean up, then talk with him.”

“Nah, you go ahead.” She waved me off. “I’ll clean up. You go talk to Grayson.”

After I thanked her again, I walked toward my son and his dog, thinking about my aunt.

She had grown up in the WaterLock Pack like my dad, but when she met a boy named Edward visiting from Shadow Pass, she had fallen head over heels, married him, and moved to his farm.

One year later, Edward died from a Rogue wolf attack. He had been visiting his parents, who lived in the Tideridge Kingdom.

My aunt had never remarried. Honestly, I’d never heard her talk about being interested in dating. She focused all of her energy on keeping her late husband’s farm thriving.

Did my aunt’s tragedy make her wiser? Did she have to mature faster than many people? Had I done the same thing?

Grayson and Goose were lying in the grass. My son was watching the clouds drift lazily by, and he had his little hands splayed out on his stomach.

I plopped down beside them and smoothed my son’s hair away from his eyes.

“Can I talk to you, honey? It’s about something…important.”

My son took his eyes off the sky and gave me his full attention.

“What would, um…” I trailed off and cleared my throat. “Would you want to meet your father? If you could?” My voice was unusually high.

Grayson sat up so quickly. He almost knocked into me.

“Slow down, there,” I said and let out a shaky chuckle.

“Yeah,” Grayson said without hesitation. “I would want to meet him.”

“Oh, really?” I rubbed my hands on my jeans.

Just tell him it’s Gabriel. It’s better if it comes from you.

“Is Gabriel my father?” my son asked before I could tell him.

My mouth dropped open.

“H-how did you know?”

Grayson shrugged and lay back down.

“Gabriel and I have the same color hair and the same freckles.” My son paused, his face screwed up in thought. “Also, he’s letting us stay here while Grandpa’s sick, and he brought me Goose. Aren’t those things a dad would do?” he said, like it was obvious.

And maybe it was.

I lay beside Grayson, took his hand, and we watched the clouds float by.