Page 31 of Daddy's Mail Order Mate

“Ah,” I reply with a languid little smile, “Just… This is the most I’ve heard you talk the past few days. It’s sweet how much he softens you.”

I lower my gaze to the beer bottle I’ve been casually nursing for the past while.

“... I don’t need to be around for two weeks to know you’re a good dad. Rowan’s really lucky to have you.”

The silence lingers between us, draped in the chatter of crowds and crackle of the fire.

I hear him draw in a breath, and my heart clenches in my throat as I look back up to him. But just as his lips part to reply, another voice cuts in.

“Hey you two! I hope you two are having fun tonight. People are starting to get ready for going for a run; why don’t you two leave Rowan behind and join everyone? Cynthia isn’t going and will be happy to watch him.”

Both of us look up at her and that delicate suspense I’d been feeling moments ago shatters into terror.

A run meant shifting. My panicked vision snaps to people starting to migrate towards the treeline and start to shed their clothes.

I shake my head and force my chin to stop quivering by locking my face into a grim scowl. Paige gives me a look and steps closer to put a hand on my shoulder.

“I know you haven’t been around a pack in a long time, but I think it could be really healing for you to join everyone.And it’s such a great bonding exercise! I never felt closer to my husband than when we started shifting together.”

“No,” I declare with finality, desperately trying to keep the anguish tamped down out of my voice.

The Luna looks down at me with a softened expression, and I feel a defensive bruising sting through me; I despise being pitied.

“I used to have a lot of baggage about shifting, but Liam’s supported me so much and helped me realize how vital it is to embrace my wolf fully. And there’s nothing that feels quite like the forest floor under your paws and the wind through your fur, surrounded by other wolves…”

Thorn speaks up in a warning tone, which makes me flinch in my own skin.

“Paige…”

“It’s my duty as a Luna to make sure everyone feels included during all this. And I wanna make sure you two have every chance to enjoy yourselves together! I bet it’s been ages since either of you got to just go have fun in your wolf form.”

That snaps a tripwire in me. My body snaps up to stand, and I glare at the ground with a visceral wash of anger running through me. The words spill out before I can even try to hold them back, sharp and acrid with years of repressed emotion.

“I can’t even if I wanted to! I haven’t been able to shift since your brother rejected me, and even before then it was practically impossible for me to—my wolf isdeadand rotting in me and I willneverget to shift again, so stop twisting the goddamn knife!”

There’s the reflex to throw my bottle on the ground in blind outrage, but practical instinct sharply reminds me thatthere’s a baby nearby and I just wind up clutching the bottle defensively against myself. And as though acknowledging the wound tears it right open, my body is wracked with an ugly pain that twists through every part of me. I can’t focus my vision on anything, but I don’t need to look to feel the oppressive weight of stares begin to wash over me like a tidal wave.

Then comes the shame. It burns my skin and tears away at my senses. A suffocating gravity stifles me and I can’t—

I can’t breathe.

The taut silence around me just makes me feel more trapped inside of my body.

“I—... I’m so sorr—”

Humiliation manages to win out against my fear, and I don’t give her the chance to salt the wound. My vision swims with unshed tears as I storm off without a word.

Behind me, I hear Rowan start to cry.

“Shit,” I wetly choke out under my breath with a fresh wave of guilt. It’s yet another nail in the coffin that I’m not welcome here, that I will never be good enough, that I will always ruin everything I touch.

But that just makes me start to just blindly run away from the bonfire, from the woods, from the wolves who will always judge me as being lesser. My anguish burns like coals in my gut, and I know with a terrible certainty that no matter how desperately I want to run away from it all, I’ll only ever have my two feet to carry me.

Chapter 8 - Thorn

I stare after Gwen, her words echoing through me.

She…

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