Ditched Cheating Alpha, I Led My Daughter to Life's Peak novel Chapter 211

"We could adopt?" he offers. "When the time comes of course."

I shake my head. "I don't know. Don't get me wrong, I'm fine with adoption, but like I said, I don't want any in the first place... Maybe we could get an intern?" I look at him.

He stares at me incredulously, but he looks amused all the same. "An intern?"

"Yeah." I nod. "Like an apprentice or something."

He can't stop grinning. "So we'll appoint our interning apprentice as the next alpha?"

"Well." I smile. "I was gonna say apprenticing intern but-" I look up.

We're currently walking down a wooded path to the car. Onai and Ethel are up ahead. Axel and I fell behind a while ago. I hear shuffling in the bushes. Slowly the distance between our group diminishes.

Then the whining starts. Growls from the woods like before.

Onai waves them off. "Go."

It silences them, for a moment. Then their whining starts again. I smile. The wolves are back.

Onai sighs, waving again. "Go, I said."

Two wolves dart out of the bushes, rubbing against his legs. I wait for the third one, but it never comes.

My heart stops. "Onai."

He looks at me.

I look around. "Where's the third one?"

He looks at the two at his feet, then at me, seeming to just make sense of what I'm asking. "He's fine. He's by the car."

The wolves notice my presence then and come hurtling towards me. It's not as scary as the first time.

I prepare for them to rub against my legs, but Axel gets in the way. He growls. Not like a warning growl. Like a 'take one step closer and I'll kill you' growl. Even I flinch. The poor things run back to Onai with their tails between their legs.

The words leave my mouth before I can stop them. "They kept me safer than you did."

Needless to say, the walk back to the car is awkward and silent. Axel's still holding my hand, and the wolves are still at Onai's feet, but it's nowhere near peaceful. I want to say something, but I don't know what. I feel bad for what I said to Axel, but at the same time, what he said was out of line too. Even if it's how he felt, he shouldn't've said it in front of Onai. He's half wolf for pete's sake.

But still. I don't want to argue with Axel. Especially because he was just trying to protect me. I tighten my grip on his hand. He tightens his grip on mine, but he still doesn't look at me. Great.

When we make it to the car, I don't see the third wolf. Instead, I see a boy leaning against the driver's door. He looks like an identical copy of Onai, just a few years younger. The wolves run right up to him, seemingly forgetting the trauma they just went through. They rub their bodies up against him. The boy doesn't shoo them away like Onai, or just pat their heads. He all but drops to his knees and wrestles with them.

"Get off the floor, Luca." Onai pushes past the boy, opening the door.

The boy stares at Onai for a while, halfway buried by the other wolves, and then he looks at us, cautiously.

Silence. I can already tell he's not much of a talker, but he does as Onai says. He gets off the floor.

"Hey, Luca," Ethel finally says. "You've gotten even taller."