Rebirth of the Alpha's Slave Mate (Samantha and Kade) novel Chapter 192

Chapter 192

Elena’s POV

“Mommy! You’re back!”

The little girl’s grip was so tight around my neck that I couldn’t breathe. Her tiny fingers tangled in my hair, breath smelling of sugar cookies and peppermint. A scent that would have once made me smile, but now it was only a grimace that twisted my face.

Mommy. She had called me “Mommy”.

But not because I was her actual mother. Only because I looked like Serena.

I gently placed my hands on her shoulders and held her away at arms’ length so I could look at her. She looked like the perfect combination of Kade and Serena-big blue eyes, inky black hair, a cherubine face and a button nose. Like Serena before everything went wrong.

My chest tightened painfully at the sight. She had to have been at least six, maybe even seven; that meant that Serena and Kade had conceived her very soon after Ivy died. Likely on their wedding night.

Conceiving a child on one’s wedding night was to be expected in our world, especially for a freshly mated Alpha and Luna pair. Kade needed an heir, and Ivy? Well, she had only been the sickly daughter of a slave. Hardly fit to be the future Alpha of Crescent Hollow.

This child, however, looked strong and healthy. Her chin appeared to be permanently jutted out just so, giving her that willful, prideful sort of appearance that was befitting of any future Alpha. Her posture was straight and her head was held high.

Even looking at me now, thinking I was her mother, she almost seemed to look down her little nose at me-the way a haughty little Alpha might address her subjects.

For a moment, I couldn’t stop myself from thinking about how my own child might have looked like this someday if Kade had only given her a chance. I could have healed Ivy, but he wouldn’t let me. He let her die instead. He took away her opportunity to be a little Alpha full of pride and willpower.

He took everything and created a clone of her with Serena.

“Mommy?” The little girl tilted her head, black hair briefly cascading into her eyes before she quickly shoved it back with her hand. Her fingers were sticky with what smelled like sugar, like she’d just had her arm elbow- deep in the cookie jar. “Aren’t you glad to see me? You were gone for so long.”

I clenched my jaw, if only to keep myself from saying something awful. I had to remind myself that this girl was just a child, completely innocent of her parents’ sins. It wasn’t her fault that her mother and father were both murderers.

Suddenly, a noise in the hallway cut through my swirling tangle of thoughts.

“Ivy? Where did you scamper off to?”

Serena’s voice.

Ivy.

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Chapter 192

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I blinked at the child, hardly daring to believe it. I thought for sure that it was a slip of the tongue, or perhaps that I had even imagined Serena saying that name. But the girl lifted her head, whipping it toward the door, and I knew it was her name.

“Your name is Ivy?” I blurted out.

She nodded, then pressed her finger to her lips and twisted away from me. She flashed me an impish smile before slipping out the door without a sound. I could only stare after her in complete shock.

Ivy. They had named her Ivy.

“Those fuckers named their replacement after my daughter,” I hissed to Ava. “They stole her name, just like they stole everything else.”

“But the connection just now… Didn’t you feel it?” Ava replied.

Right. The connection. Sure, I had felt it. I’d felt… something. But it wasn’t the bond I’d felt with Ivy when I’d first held her as an infant.

This child was not my daughter.

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