Page 25 of His Rejected Alpha Mate
“Not just any man, though, your fated mate! And Dakota is lovely. How could you?” He sounded so damn hurt. “Even if you didn’t want him now, how could you keep what he is to me secret?” Kade looked like he was about to burst into tears. “You’ve been here for over two weeks and had so many opportunities to tell me that Kota is my dad.”
“Step-dad,” I said, automatically putting my foot in it further. I needed Kade to understand where I was coming from.
“Dad.” He repeated firmly. “Dakota was here looking after me when I was sick because you couldn’t be. He protected me when you couldn’t. Got fired because he came looking for me. If that isn’t dad behavior, then I don’t know what is.”
“He practically lived here until Kade met Blake.” Roan offered.
“Again, we’d seen each other once before.”
“Was that when you collapsed?” Roan asked.
“Collapsed? What happened?” I wanted to know every story, every little thing that had gone on while the council kept me apart from him.
Kade quickly outlined the visit to Blake’s office. “Dakota picked me up from the hospital. At first, I thought it would be weird because Kota had this crush on me —“
“What?” The word exploded out of me without my volition.
“So, it seems Dakota thought he had a crush on me when really his bear was saying he had to be close to me, probably because of you, right?” Kade turned towards me, his earlier frostiness forgotten. “Janet, from the sleuth, had this vision that told us that Dakota was meant to be a part of my life. Guess we know why now.”
“Huh.” I didn’t know how I felt about that.
“The whole time that he stayed here, it was completely platonic. I was very upfront about not being anything more.” He thought for a second. “Ha!” The sound was loud in the silence. “I called him Daddy Kota! How funny is that? I was right.” He chuckled to himself and I smiled.
“Considering how ill you were, you really recovered quickly. I think a lot of that was because of the care you got from Dakota.” Roan offered with an apologetic smile my way. “I seriously considered asking my council contact for help with you. You looked so ill and I was worried you wouldn’t get better. Then Dakota was here all the time and within days there was a serious improvement.”
“Okay, I should find it creepy that you were watching over me this whole time, but I don’t. I’m not going to look at that too hard. How did you know about how bad it was? Poppy saw me the day before and said nothing.”
“I may have paid the doctor off.” Roan mumbled.
“You what?” Kade and I spoke in unison.
“I’m not the only one,” Roan defended. “Rincoln had his people pay the doctor too, after they found out what your identity was.” Well, wasn’t that intrusive and entirely something that my ex would do? Thank The Luna he was gone from our lives forever.
“Putting that creepy-ness aside—“ Kade said.
“Hey! I needed to know what was wrong so I could protect you properly.” Roan frowned. I got where he was coming from. We had divided the council over Rincoln and his pursuit of us. Half had been in his pockets, buying information and favors, including a lenient sentence for his many crimes. From what I could tell, from information I’d gleaned over the years, only a small fraction of them were responsible for keeping us safe. His death for kidnapping Kade from his mate had unearthed most of his conspirators. Rincoln had left dossiers on all the council members among his things, making it easy to have them removed from power. A new council was rising, with my son as a representative.
“I was kidding, Roan.” Kade said gently, reaching for his guard’s hand. “You did what you could with the info that you had. The important thing is that all that is over.” He turned to me. “So, what are you going to do about Dakota? Don’t even lie that you aren’t feeling the pull. Are you seriously telling me you are going to avoid him forever and stay with this Silas guy?”
“Si and me… we have a good thing. It’s easy.”
“So it’s fear keeping you from making us a proper family?” Kade prompted.
“Look, it was a lot when we got here. I’d traveled, alone, for the first time in years. I was suddenly with no support with a young child in a strange place. Then all at once I had this massive man in front of me that’s my mate. Then there was the mess I made with you and Blake—”
“Papa—”
“No. It was bad, Kade. I just wanted something safe and familiar. Silas is that to me. It took us years to be like this. I didn’t want to throw it all away. Besides, we’ve done the family thing before. It all went to shit. Aren’t we better off now?”
“What if we could be wonderful? What if Dakota is what fate and the goddess say? Your missing piece. Our missing piece.”
What if indeed.
Approaching Heat
Jasper
Si:HeyJasper,sorryI keep missing your calls. It’s getting crazy here. I can’t say much about it though, the council doesn’t want to worry people. Shit! That’s probably too much information there. I should just delete this, but you deserve to know that I’m not ignoring you for any reason.
