My Cheating Mate (Emma and Jeremy) novel Chapter 176

Chapter 176

“He was already family. I just gold him to stop pretending he wasn’t.” Emma leaned back in her chair–comfortable, unpretentious. “Aldric–may I call you Aldric?”

“Please.”

“Aldric, can 1 ask you something directly?”

“I’d prefer it to diplomatic circumlocution, yes.”

“What specifically changed? When you read the Council’s intelligence about our alliance, what made you want to meet us rather than just vote to continue opposing us?”

He was quiet for a long moment. “The debt forgiveness,” he said finally. “Lord Castellan forgave a significanf life–debt because -and I’m quoting from our intelligence reports ‘what the family gave me in return is worth more than any debt.‘ That’s-” He paused. “In eleven centuries, I’ve never encountered a vampire lord forgiving a life–debt because family mattered more than leverage.”

“It was worth forgiving,” Cas said simply.

“That’s what troubled me. The simplicity of it.” Aldric looked at him. “Castellan, you were one of the most politically effective vampires in North America. Your debt collection was legendary. Your negotiating position was–considerable. And you forgave all of it because a family gave you a place in their lives.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Cas looked at Emma. Then at me. Something in his face that had no single name–the accumulated weight of five years of being Uncle Cas instead of Lord Castellan.

“Because the political position was lonely,” he said. “And the family wasn’t.”

Aldric absorbed that. Sat with it in the way ancient creatures sat with things–not quickly processing but genuinely weighing.

“I lost someone,” he said finally. Very quietly. “A very long time ago. Before I joined the Council. Someone who–who would have made choices like yours.” He looked at Emma. “Who would have offered a vampire lord a chair at the kitchen table and toid him to stop pretending it wasn’t already his.”

Emma’s expression shifted. The same softness she’d shown with Cas in that kitchen years ago, when he’d talked about his own daughter. “I’m sorry.”

“It was eleven centuries ago.”

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“That doesn’t make it smaller.” Her voice was gentle. Certain. “Aldric, the people we lose they don’t get smaller with time. Sometimes they get clearer.”

He looked at her with the particular expression of someone encountering something unexpected. “You’re–not what I anticipated.”

“What did you anticipate?”

“Political. Careful. A Luna representing her pack’s interests through practiced diplomacy.” He paused. “You’re just –honest.”

“I’ve had a lot of practice with difficult situations that required honesty instead of diplomacy.” She smiled slightly. “An unfaithful mate. Mercenary attacks. Hunter wars. Vampire politics. Somewhere along the way, I stopped having the energy for anything except straightforward truth.”

“The mate bond recovery.” He’d done his research. “The Council’s intelligence on your pack includes significant detail about the early years. The affair. The therapy. The rebuilding of trust.”

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“then you know the whole story isn’t pretty.”

“No. But it’s–reat. Genuinely uncomfortably real in a way that supernatural politics rarely are.” He looked at me for the first time with something approaching actual interest rather that assessment. “You destroyed something. Rebuilt it. Built something new from the wreckage.”

“We’re still building,” I said.

“Yes. I imagine you always will be.” He looked around the room. “Where’s the child? Grace. I expected her to be here.”

“She’s five,” Emma said. “Diplomatic meetings aren’t really her scene. Though she did want to send something.” She reached into her bag and produced a folded piece of paper. “She heard we were meeting someone who’d asked about her horse stable. She made this for you.”

She held it out across the space between them.

Aldric took it with hands that had probably held documents of genuine historical significance. Unfolded it carefully.

Grace’s artwork had evolved significantly in five years. Still unmistakably a child’s drawing, but with the particular Grace quality -everything labeled, everything intentional. The picture showed a block stable–two stories, as recently constructed–with small horse figures in each section. In the corner, a figure with very dark blue hair stood beside a smaller figure with brown curly hair.

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