Page 75 of His Rejected Alpha Mate
“I’m what?” He grinned.
“You’re right.”
“I thought that’s what you said. I need to store this in my memory because I’m damn sure I won’t hear that often!” His laugh was loud in the quiet room.
“Papa! Daddy! I’m hungry.” Angelica called from her room.
“I’ll go.” I tried to move.
Dakota jumped up. “I’ll go. I made extra eggs just in case.”
“You’re amazing.”
“Right and amazing! Best day ever.”
His laugh followed him out of the room.
Recovery
Dakota
Mybearbaskedindelight at having our family whole. The time apart from our mate was more difficult on my alter because he just couldn’t comprehend the idea of a highly infectious illness, wanting to fight whatever threatened our mate and cub. The human part of me had struggled with missing Jasper, but it was easier for me to be rational about it.
In the days following the mass wake up of all the remaining betas, we saw them recover at different rates. As the elves had surmised, the youngest took the longest, and it was a week before Angelica spent any time out of bed.
With things returning to normalcy, Jasper returned to the school to share lesson plans, just working a couple of hours a day. I continued to work from home so that I could be there for Angelica. Roan, Kade and Blake were all traveling to our house daily so that they could work with me and share the childcare duties. Kade wanted to work on his bond with his sister, so this was ideal. Having Angel come to the mansion where there were daily issues within the pack was a bad idea and I was grateful to them for saving me the stress of fielding questions.
For Roan, an escape from the house was necessary, with tensions still high between him and several alphas. Not even Chase could diffuse the situation, meaning it was pretty dire. Roan tried to be his usual upbeat self around Kade, but no-one was fooled. If Teárlach wasn’t staying above our garage, then I would have offered Roan the room to get him out of the mansion. As it was, we had the elf staying with us and the two beta guards we couldn’t seem to get rid of.
Grady and Trey were hinting at staying in the area permanently. Part of me wished it wasn’t true after that long, painful week with them before the sickness. Then I would catch a quiet moment between the pair. They were so in love and cared so much about Jasper and Angelica that I couldn’t help but soften towards them. Once they were more mobile, they made it possible for me to return to the mansion occasionally for work and to check on the factory in person, so they were useful to have around.
“Daddy, could I come see the factory one day?” Angelica asked. “I want to meet Shelby.”
I flashed a look over at Kade, and he fought to hide his laugh. Shelby had grown more colorful in her use of language since working for Sweetwater Brewery. “Um—“
“Please, Daddy!” When my daughter asked me like that, I was doomed. There was no denying her.
“Okay, but we’ll have to have a few people with us for when you get tired.” I glanced at my alpha, son, and Roan. “You’ve got too much to do for a factory visit.”
“How about you take the elves for a visit?” Blake suggested. “I know Hakeem wanted to see how it all worked.”
Kade muttered something about separating Axel and Teárlach, who were on yet another walk around the woodlands that wrapped around one side of the house. We often found the pair together.
“We can ask T when they get back.” I’d taken to shortening his name, much to his amusement. Ívarr wasn’t a fan of the nickname and I avoided using it in his presence. I hoped the elves would like to visit the sprawling factory just outside the compound. Jasper couldn’t carry Angel if she got tired, and I’d likely be too busy to carry her. Last time I’d visited, I’d ended up fixing a few machines, so I wanted to have my hands free. Angel liked the elves, having expressed more than once how pretty Teagan’s hair was. Though she admitted T was her favorite.
“We can help with Angel.” Grady offered.
Internally, I swallowed a groan. I’d wanted a few hours without them. My face was carefully blank. Years of working in customer service perfecting my mask.
“Actually, I wanted to go over paperwork for you joining the pack and the house that you were looking at.” Blake saved my day.
Thank you, alpha.He winked at me, unseen by the betas who were still the bane of my life. Then I realized what he’d said. “You’ve picked a house?”
“We think so.” Trey admitted. “It hasn’t been empty for long, so it doesn’t need much done to it. We should be able to move straight in once the sale goes through.” Those words were music to my ears.
“We really don’t want to take on a project right now.”
I made a sympathetic noise. “I get that. You’ve been through a lot.”
