My Cheating Mate (Emma and Jeremy) novel Chapter 148

Chapter 148

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Chapter 148

1 looked at Grace, who’d successfully stacked three blocks and was clapping for herself with pure joy.

“Is that why you’re still here?” I asked quietly. “Because you think the threat is still active enough to need constant vampire presence?”

“Partially.” He didn’t turn from the window. “But mostly I’m here because I want to be. Because watching Grace grow up in a world where vampire-wolf cooperation is normal-where I’m ‘Cas’ instead of ‘the dangerous vampire lord’—it’s-” He stopped. Collected himself. “It’s something I didn’t know I needed until/I had it.”

The honesty surprised me. Lord Castellan dealt in careful words and political maneuvering. Unguarded admissions weren’t his style.

“You miss your daughter,” I said gently. “The one you lost.”

“Every day for eight centuries.” His voice was very quiet. “But Emma, Grace isn’t a replacement for her. She’s- He turned to look at me. “She’s proof that maybe I can do it right this time. That maybe I can protect someone who matters. That maybe all the political games and debt collection and centuries of maneuvering can actually be used for something good.”

Grace chose that moment to toddle over to him, blocks abandoned, arms up in the universal toddler demand to be held.

He looked down at her for a moment. Then, with movements almost hesitant, picked her up. She immediately grabbed his hair-her new favorite thing to do to anyone who held her.

“Cas,” she announced happily, yanking on a lock of dark hair.

“Yes, Grace. I’m Cas.” He adjusted her carefully, decades of vampire control allowing him to hold a squirming toddler without apparent effort. “And you’re a menace who pulls hair.”

“Hair!” she agreed enthusiastically, pulling harder.

I watched them-the ancient vampire lord and my daughter, having what passed for a conversation in toddler- speak. Something in my chest loosened. Something I’d been holding tight for the past year.

“The debt,” I said. “You’ve never mentioned calling it in.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

He was quiet for a moment, letting Grace investigate his face with chubby hands. “Because I realized something over the past year. The debt was leverage. A way to ensure your cooperation if needed. But Emma-” He looked at me over Grace’s head. “I don’t want cooperation extracted through obligation. I want-” He paused. “I want to be here because you want me here. Because Jeremy trusts me. Because Grace says my name and pulls my hair and doesn’t see a vampire lord. Just sees Cas.”

“So you’re forgiving the debt?”

“I’m-postponing collection indefinitely.” A slight smile. “I’m still a vampire lord who deals in debts and political leverage. I’m not quite ready to forgive centuries of conditioning. But I’m also not interested in forcing you into anything through obligation.”

Grace had found his ear and was now attempting to put it in her mouth. He tolerated this with patience that would have seemed impossible from the cold political creature who’d first walked into our lives.

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