My Cheating Mate (Emma and Jeremy) novel Chapter 132

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Chapter 132

My Cheating Mate

Emina pov

or rather.

The afternoon sun was streaming through the living room windows when Lord Castellan arrived. I’d called him Jeremy had, through a secure channel Lord Castellan himself had provided months ago. A direct line that bypassed all pack communications.

Jeremy had stepped out to coordinate with my father in person no phones, no mind-links, nothing that could be intercepted. Just two wolves talking face to face in a room with no windows.

So it was just me. And Grace. And the vampire lord walking through my front door with that signature casual grace, like he owned every room he entered.

I was sitting on the couch when he appeared in the doorway. Grace was in the bassinet beside me, sleeping peacefully after her last feeding. I had my hands folded in my lap, my posture deliberately relaxed. Casual. Normal.

I was trying so hard to act okay.

Lord Castellan stopped in the doorway. Tilted his head slightly-that predatory gesture that meant he was reading something. Analyzing. Processing information that most creatures couldn’t even detect.

His eyes narrowed.

“Emma.” His voice was careful. Measured. “You’re not okay.”

“I’m fine.” The automatic response. The wall I’d been building all morning. “Just tired. The strike last night kept everyone on edge. Jeremy just got home-”

“Don’t.” He moved into the room, stopping a few feet away. Not sitting. Standing with that coiled readiness vampires always carried. “Don’t insult us both with lies. Your heartbeat is elevated. Your pupils are dilated. You’ve been crying recently–within the last hour-and you’re trying very hard to appear calm.” He tilted his head again. “Something has frightened you. Badly.”

The mask cracked. Just slightly. Just enough for him to see the crack-which, knowing Lord Castellan, he’d already seen before I even tried to hide it.

-we were past that now, in ways that made my head I looked at him for a long moment. Calculating. Not whether to trust him spin-but how much to reveal. How to explain what was happening without giving away information that might reach whoever was watching.

Then I decided. Jeremy and I had already agreed on this. Lord Castellan needed to know.

Without a word, I reached for my phone. Picked it up from the cushion beside me where it had been sitting since this morning.

Held it out to him.

He looked at the phone. Then at me. Something shifted in his expression-subtle, but I caught it. Concern. Real concern, not the calculated variety I’d seen from him before.

He took the phone.

I watched his face as he unlocked it-I’d given him the password earlier, anticipating this moment. Watched as the messages loaded. Watched as he began to read.

His expression didn’t change at first. The smooth, aristocratic mask held perfectly as he scrolled through the first message.

11**

*”She is a cute little dog.”

Nothing. Not a flicker.

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The swiped to the first photo. Emma in the kitchen. Nutsing Grace. I watched his eyes track across the image-cataloging details, analyzing angles, processing the implications with that centuries-old tactical mind.

Still nothing on his face.

The second message. The third. Each one worse than the last. The threats. The demands. The casual, deliberate cruelty.

His thumb moved steadily, scrolling through the conversation with mechanical precision. Reading every word. Examining every photo.

I watched him reach the photo of Grace sleeping in her bassinet. Taken through the window. By someone close enough to capture every detail of my daughter’s peaceful face.

Something changed.

It was subtle-so subtle that if I hadn’t been watching him with laser focus, I would have missed it entirely. A slight tightening around his eyes. A barely perceptible shift in his jaw. The kind of micro-expression that centuries of practiced control should have eliminated entirely.

But it was there.

He kept reading. The final message. The deadline. The demand.

*”Tonight. Eastern tree line. Midnight. Come alone. Bring her.”*

Lord Castellan lowered the phone slowly. Very slowly. Like a man disarming a bomb, careful not to disturb anything.

Then he looked up at me.

And I almost flinched back.

His eyes had changed. I’d seen vampires’ eyes shift before-that supernatural glow that emerged when emotions ran high or when their predatory nature surfaced. But this was different. This wasn’t the cold, calculating gleam I’d seen during battle planning or debt negotiations.

This was rage. Pure, ancient, barely contained rage. The kind of fury that had existed in the world long before humans had words for it. The kind that had driven civilizations to dust in centuries past.

His pupils were completely black-swallowing the dark irises entirely, leaving nothing but bottomless darkness staring back at me. The temperature in the room seemed to drop several degrees. The air felt heavier somehow, charged with something primal and dangerous.

I’d seen Lord Castellan angry before. Had seen him cold, calculating, threatening in his own polished wal

I had never seen him like this.

“Someone photographed your daughter,” he said. His voice was perfectly level. Perfectly controlled. Which somehow made it more terrifying than if he’d been shouting. “While she slept. In your home. While you were supposed to be under protection.”

“Yes.”

“While my warriors were stationed at your perimeter.”

“Yes.”

“While I personally guaranteed the safety of this pack and its members as part of our alliance.”

I swallowed. “Yes.”

He looked down at the phone again. At Grace’s photo. Something flickered across his face-that same unguarded emotion I’d glimpsed yesterday in the kitchen when he’d talked about his daughter. The daughter he’d lost centuries ago.