When We Were Mates (Demetra and Emris) novel Chapter 42

Chapter 42

Emris.

Demetra walks away.

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I watch her go, wiping her face more than once. Twice. Three times. Then she’s walking so fast it takes her only minutes to cross the entire field and disappear toward the woods bordering the property.

“Kids, go play…okay?”

Amira nods at me, all big eyes and messy tears still drying on her cheeks. She’s a cute little Demetra. If I was being dramatic… which I’m not, I’d say she has the same eye color as me. The curl of her hair looks a bit like mine when I was a young boy. Why am I noticing these things when I just told her I’d be her dad. Am I really thinking she’s my daughter too?

Her little smile. I could get lost in those eyes. Just like I can’t stand Milo crying, I couldn’t stand seeing her little lips shake. If she’s asking for a dad like Milo, that means Demetra hasn’t even introduced the poor girl to her father. Why? Why would she keep that secret from-

My wolf thumps.

The moment I look at it from this angle, I’m almost scared to even… to even utter it. If little Amira doesn’t know her father…

Could it be me?

I rise to my feet and spot Demetra just as she dashes into the surrounding woods near the landscape. I follow. I start stalking across the lawn, through the scattered guests who probably think I’m just heading to something else, but I’m not. I need to ask the question that only entered my mind a few seconds ago.

My heart isn’t just beating; it’s pounding, slamming against my ribs like it’s trying to escape my body and follow her. The thought forming in my mind is so massive, so world–altering, that I’m almost afraid to let it fully take shape. But it’s already there, clawing its way up from my gut, demanding attention.

And if I don’t get an answer, it’s going to make every bone, tendon, and muscle in my body snap. My wolf is thrashing under my skin, half–crazed with the possibility. Bones ache. Tendons pull tight. Muscles scream. All because of a question that only entered my mind seconds ago yet refuses to leave.

Amira… mine?

It would add up. It would make perfect sense. But was she pregnant? Pregnant when I sent her out of my pack? Pregnant when I threatened her? That morning…the morning Elena moved into the pack house I talked about keeping her to bear my pups. Was she already pregnant with my child?

“Demetra?”

My foot snaps a twig as I enter the woods. It’s not thick at all from where I stand. I can see sunlight clearly through the spaces between oak trees but the deeper I go, the denser it gets.

The trees close ranks around me. Branches reach like fingers. Shadows deepen, grows cooler, damper, thick with the smell of earth and cold leaves. Each step takes me deeper into green twilight until the sounds of the party fade to nothing.

Then I see Demetra, leaning against a tree like she can’t stand on her own. Both palms pressed flat against the bark, forehead almost touching, shoulders shaking with the force of something violent.

“Demetra?”

She jumps like I’ve electrocuted her, spinning to face me, but I’ve already seen everything. Her eyes are red–rimmed with tears before she can swipe them away. They fall in fat drops down her cheeks, catching the dappled light like tiny diamonds before disappearing into the collar of her pink dress. Her cheeks are crimson, as raw as Amira’s were moments ago, but

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15:54 Mon, May 11

Chapter 42

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somehow more devastating. And her lips… her full, perfect lips are actually trembling, quivering like a child’s as she presses both palms against her face trying to scrub the evidence away.

“You… you’re crying.” I say it like a question because I’m trying to understand this. The Demetra who told me she’s been with countless men. The Demetra who laughed in my face about other Alphas. That Demetra is crying in the woods like her heart is breaking.

“What are you doing here–”

“Why are you crying?”

“Why did you follow me in here!?” Her voice rises, that familiar glare snaps back into place. “Anyone could have seen us! Are you insane? Are you not thinking-”

“Shut up.”

She looks at me in shock, doing that scrunch thing with her face when she doesn’t understand something. I close the distance between us, leaving just one step of space. One foot. That’s all.

“Is Amira mine?”

I focus on her face when I ask it. Every micro–expression. Every twitch. Her first reaction is silence. I get complete, absolute silence. She stares at me like I’ve grown a second head or I’m a beast that crawled out of the shadows that shouldn’t exist. Her lips part but no sound comes out. Her eyes search my face for… what? A joke? A trick?

So I decide to push harder.

“It adds up. She’s five now. Exactly five years ago. And we had sex No protection if I remember correctly-”

“She’s not yours.”

I stare at her face for a sign of deception. But she was crying when I found he…genuinely crying, wrecked in a way that can’t be faked so I don’t know if the redness on her face is from my question or from whatever broke her before I walked in.

Demetra scoffs. “Yours?”

“Then who is her father?”

“He’s dead.”

“What?”

“He’s dead, Emris.”

“Who was he? And how did he die?”

She folds her arms, stops looking at me with that ironic glint in her eyes….the one that makes it impossible to tell if she’s telling the truth or just toying with me. “He was a one–night stand. A good guy who offered me a home after you sent me away. For the shelter he gave me, I opened my legs. Simple as that. And boom…baby. Problem is, he died before Amira was ever born. That’s why she doesn’t know who her father is.” She tilts her head. “Any more questions?”

“Give me his name.”

“I don’t want to.” Her mouth twitches and she moves to walk

past me.

“Why were you crying?”

She stops.

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Chapter 42

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“Because after everything, I realize I have to explain one day that her father is dead. That he never got to see her born. Never got to see my belly grow with her. Never got to feel her kick or hear her heartbeat or know that a piece of him was growing inside me.” She turns slightly, just enough for me to see her profile. “Do you want to know what the other part of it is-”

“I don’t even know what to tell her about him. Was he a good man? A bad man?” Demetra exhales. “Her poor mom was an orphan, a charity case who needed a roof over her head and fell in love with anyone who looked at her with a bit of sympathy. That’s why I was crying.”

My heart vanishes.

Gone. Just… gone from my chest.

Because though she’s speaking about someone else, if I put myself into that equation…if I look at what I did to her–it fits perfectly. I’m the one who sent her into the arms of another man. If I had just calmed the fuck down, if I hadn’t let my anger poison me, if I hadn’t been so blinded by my

“Thank you for the gift. But you down ego… none of this would have happened.

be promising Amira you’d be her dad.”

“She was upset.” My voice comes out calmer than I feel. This is the first time she’s actually breaking down, actually giving me information instead of lies and walls. “I can’t bear to see Milo upset. And when I saw her crying, I wanted to do everything to make her smile again.”

“Bless your heart.” Demetra looks exhausted. She doesn’t even lift her face to smile.

She moves to walk away but I grab her waist and pull her back, spinning her until her spine hits the tree bark. One hand on her hip. One hand beside her head. My body caging hers against the rough trunk.

She gasps. Looks up at me

those wrecked eyes.

And I don’t know what I‘

going to say next. I just know I can’t let her walk away again.

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