When You Were My Mate (Demetra and Emris) novel Chapter 88

Chapter 88

Alpha Emris.

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No wonder my wolf was so instinctive. No wonder he was soft in all the ways he usually isn’t when it came to that little troublemaker.

Five years.

Five years of her life, and I didn’t know I had a daughter out there.

In this moment, where the boundary between my divine fury and the world around me feels paper-thin, I can’t stop looking at Amira_no matter how much I hold her small hand in mine, no matter how much I memorize the curve of her cheek and the flutter of her lashes… I want her to wake up. I want her conscious enough to understand that I am her real father.

I am many things.

A monster, when I need to be. An Alpha, always. A Trybrid born with enough power to make fools kneel but never, a dead- beat father.

So now I feel…foolish.

The Moon Goddess herself could descend from the heavens and she could not strip me of this foolishness. This burning, aching. foolish need to have known sooner! To have questioned the connection I felt the first time I saw that little girl with her mother’s eyes and my stubborn chin.

It had to take her life being on the line for the truth to be ripped out of the shadows.

Amira Covenant is an Alpha’s daughter.

Older than Milo by conception, which makes her the sole heiress of the Black Covenant Pack. My daughter.

My blood. My very own seed. My legacy walking around in a tiny pair of sneakers and ribbons in her hair.

All the gods in the heavenly realm, aligned together, could not stop me from raging war on the Lion Pride Pack now. It is only delayed postponed until Amira wakes up. And by the time she does, I will make them pay in multiple folds. In blood. in ruin, in siege, in whatever language of suffering they understand best for keeping my child from me

For keeping her away from her birthright.

I should have been there to see her born. To hear her first cry. To watch her take her first steps, cut her first tooth, to hear her call me father before she ever learned the word for it

That loss sits in my chest like something rotten and alive. The memories I never had haunt me as I stare at her face now. The monitors beep softly as her chest rises and falls.

The door opens and feet stop in hesitation.

I smell Demetra…honey and rain.

I don’t look at her.

When her bastard of a father, he recapped me on the fact that Demetra left the city already pregnant. Do you know what I

feel?

Pathetic.

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And usually, when I feel pathetic, the reaction that comes out of me is gothic. Simply gothic. A side of me no one ever wants to see. And I bet, with my life, Demetra doesn’t want to see it either!

Fury.

Granted, she had no choice but to leave with my child in her womb. I can almost stomach that. But after coming back to this city? After seeing the connection between Amira and me…the way she lit up when I walked into a room, the way my wolf settled whenever she was near! Demetra had no right to keep it from me!

Her family had no right to try to marry her off and make my daughter call another bastard a stepfather!

“Do not touch her.” I say and I’m not commanding her.

I’m vowing it.

“I understand that you’re angry-”

“Be quiet. The words rasp out of my throat like gravel over glass. I’m on my feet and she’s backing away from Amira’s hospital bed.

“Or that will be the last thing you ever say.” I step closer. “You understand that I’m angry? Is that what you were going to say? I saw the way your eyes were devoid of light just because you thought Amira wasn’t going to make it. Now think about me. Think about the man who has been denied of his child for five years.”

Demetra wipes her eyes. She takes one look at her daughter, then one look at me.

I don’t even care what she has to say. I pull out my phone and make the call as fast as I can. Seth already told me the girl is healing quickly and that, once she stabilizes, she can be moved home.

That home will be my pack.

The line rings once.

“Yes, Alpha?”

‘Gather the housekeepers at once. Prepare a room. I’m bringing my daughter home.”

“Yes, Alpha-

Emris!

Demetra says my name like she expects it to stop me.

It doesn’t. I raise one finger to my lips, telling her to shush without even looking, and keep speaking into the phone

I take one more look at Amira, at the color blooming back into her cheeks and then I walk out of the hospital room Just for a moment to finish the call.

But as soon as I’m in the hallway, I hear Demetra’s footsteps behind me.

‘Let the pack know I have a daughter. Her name is Amira And I want you to contact a custody judge at once The one we used for the Morrison case. Tell him I need a hearing within forty eight hours”

You are not taking my daughter-

Demetra doesn’t even finish the sentence before I’ve got my hand around her throat and I shove her into the wall

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Chapter 88

Hard.

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She grips my wrist immediately, but I’m not squeezing to crush her. If I wanted to hurt her, she’d know it. I’m still being gentle.

“Your daughter?” I tilt my head. “You’ve been gone from Georgia so long you forgot who you’re dealing with. I’m not only powerful in theory, Demetra. I do this shit in real life. Go ask your damn father. Go ask your brother. Let them tell you that every fucking judge in this city is on my payroll.”

Her eyes widen.

“Go on,” I hiss. “You think you’ll still have custody when I show evidence of how you’ve been deceitful about Amira for five years? You hid who her father was for your own personal vendetta. You decided to marry a damn bastard so you could crown him with the stepfather title. You think any judge in this state is going to look at that and say, ‘Yes, this woman deserves to keep the child she weaponized”?”

Demetra’s lips part but no sound comes out. Tears slide down her face and land on my hand where it’s wrapped around her

throat.

That’s the only reason I let her go.

Just as I cannot stand seeing Amira cry, it’s the same for her mother. The same fracture in my armor…

“Emris, please, let’s talk! This is madness…”

Her voice might’ve worked on me once. Maybe even an hour ago. But now my last memory of her is trying to marry another man….is her sending me away from Amira when I should have been the first man at her bedside.

The least she could have done was let me see Amira.

The least.

“Madness?” I growl.

My hands come up to frame her jaw. I tilt her face toward mine until she has no choice but to look at me….until I can see whether those big brown eyes are stained with tears or not. They are.

“From this point on, if you want to see our daughter, you go through me. I will fuck up your whole pack until that ‘Pride’ in its name comes off. And if the Irish pack comes between us?” Damn terror will fall on them too. You calculated your steps. You thought the Irish pack could put my toes down. Check again. When has Emris ever had a boundary he didn’t cross? I got your territory in my own way. You think I cannot get my daughter too?”

I shove my phone back to my car and turn away.

Then Demetra grabs me.

Her hand catches my shirt, and before I can shrug her off, she falls to her knees in front of me, looking up like I’m the last thing on earth that can save her.

“Emris, please…” Her voice breaks on my name. “Emris, please look at me. I was wrong, okay? I was wrong I admit it. But please, look at me! Punish me, however you want. But don’t use Amiral”

“Get off me.”

“Emris- She hugs my legs against her chest and presses her cheek to my thigh.

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