Page 73 of The Return
“I’ll be going with Corey,” Dad said.
“Wait. What?”
He smiled and reached out to cup my cheek. It was something he hadn’t done since I was a little kid, and I kind of leaned into it. “Who better to protect your mate than your father?”
“But you’re the Alpha.”
He chuckled. “Please. You’ve been the Alpha for the longest time. I’m just a placeholder. The transfer of powers is only a formality, and we all know it. No one comes to me anymore—they all go to you. If they have problems, they don’t talk with your mother—they come see Corey.” The smile slid off his face. “I would die to protect your mate. Our son-in-law.”
Corey’s jaw dropped open, but then it was replaced by an anger I didn’t even know he was capable of. “Fuck that!” he snarled. “No one is dying for me, especially not someone I’ve always thought of as a second father.”
Dad smiled. “Really? I know how mad you are at me.”
“Was. Iwasangry, but not nearly enough to want you to die.”
He stood up and threw himself at my dad, who caught him in his arms and lifted him off the floor. Corey buried his face in Dad’s neck, while Dad stroked a hand over his back. This was what I’d hoped for when the time came. My family loved Corey, and I knew he returned those feelings.
“I’m sorry I was so angry,” he whispered. “You didn’t deserve it.”
“I did,” Dad replied. “I don’t have a lot of experience dealing with humans, and I made some really bad choices. Jonas told me I treated your family like children, and I did. We all wanted to protect you and keep you safe, and in doing so, we pushed you away. The fact that you knew our secret? That you kept it? That shows how mature you were. Are. You’re the perfect mate for Jonas, and we couldn’t be happier that you’re a member of our family.”
Corey sobbed, and Dad squeezed harder. I understood. Six years of thinking you’d done something wrong, of letting all that hurt and anger pile up, and now it was leaking out of him.
“Hey, baby?” I said, nudging Corey gently. “Don’t you think it’s me you should be hugging?”
He tightened his grip. “No, fuck off.”
I couldn’t help the laugh that burst out of me. “Okay, keep hugging him, that’s fine.”
He turned, and the redness of his eyes hurt my heart. I wanted to pull him to me, to protect him, to keep him safe. He should never be sad.
“I’ll make it up to you, I promise. I just need… I need….” And the waterworks started again.
I put my forehead to his back. “You need your father?”
Corey nodded. I knew he missed his own parents. He’d always been so close to them, so when they moved, he must have been devastated. I’d wanted to come back to hold him, but wasn’t allowed to do so. Dad said he had people keeping Corey occupied, so his mind—that beautiful, brilliant mind of his—would be kept busy. I hated it, because it should have been me comforting my mate, not others. That was part of the problem, though. I was too possessive of Corey, and Dad and Mom both told me I needed to grow up before I could claim him or it would lead to tragedy.
And, as always, they were right. Memories of Corey were enough to make me insane. Thoughts that he might be with someone else made me murderous, even if they were only friends. More than once, Dad had asked me if I was going to keep Corey locked away where no one else could see him, and the answer was always the same. “Hell, yes!”
It took years of meditation, of study, of running off every spare erg of energy with my dad before my brain finally started to catch up to my body. It was a slow process—understanding one moment, pretty much insane the next—but those dark moments came less and less, until one day I realized that if I wanted Corey to trust me, I had to do the same with him.
Mom and Dad were so proud of me the day I went to them and told them that Corey would never have to give up his dreams for me. That he was free to choose what he wanted to do with his life, and I hoped that he’d let me be part of it. I won’t deny my wolf still wanted to keep him locked away, because he was so damn precious.
“I love you, Core,” I murmured into his shoulder.
This time he turned around and attached himself to me. Dad winked, then left the room. Corey’s body felt so good under my hands. I buried my face in his neck and inhaled.
“Are you always going to do that?” Corey asked, his lips tickling my cheek.
“As long as you continue to smell so damn good, yes.”
We were quiet for a few moments, and then he said, “I don’t want to go.”
And I knew that feeling. My wolf was absolutely heartbroken at the thought that our mate wasn’t going to be near for us to protect. I had no idea how I could be expected to function if he wasn’t near me, especially now that I’d claimed him.
“You’ll be okay,” he said. “You’ve got the pack to keep you busy, and—”
“No ‘and!’” I snapped. “My priority is going to be finding out who is trying to hurt you, so you can come home sooner. The pack was without me for years, so a few more weeks won’t hurt anything.”
