Page 3 of Daddy's Mail Order Mate

Mercifully, I hear her voice next, chipper and bright.

“Well hi! Where’re we calling from today?”

“Paige, I…”

My voice chokes in my throat, and to my own ears it sounds miles away. She clearly hears my distress, as her usual cheery tone immediately crumbles away into concern.

“Thorn? What’s wrong?”

A fresh stab of guilt shoots through me—I have spent my whole life trying to protect her joy. She had been denied so much happiness as a child, and all I have ever wanted is to make sure she knows peace for all her days. But here I am, about to burden her with my own mistakes. I’d only just been able to feel properly satisfied that I’d secured a good life for her. She has a beautiful baby and a reasonably good mate, and is even the Luna of our childhood pack. And now I am about to bring my woes to her door. My throat clenches, and I almost hang up then and there. I can’t do this to her, I can’t make her suffer for my mistakes.

But then her voice, full of worry and fear, cuts through me.

“... Thorn? Please tell me you’re okay.”

I breathe out raggedly, and there’s a little burbling coo from the baby in my arms.

“... Is that a baby?”

My vision blurs down to the red-cheeked little babe, gaze fixating on his drowsy perpetual squint as though he might stare back.

“Yeah,” I eventually manage to croak out. “It’s a baby.”

“You soundreallyout of it, Thorn. Did something go wrong with the council? Do you need me to—to do some Luna shit and get the pack together?”

I can hear the nerves building in her voice; a sense of urgency hammers in my skull. She’s just going to get more distressed the longer it takes for me to get the words out, but it feels like barbed wire tightens around my throat at the mere thought of burdening her with this.

A growl stirs out of me. My wolf seethes deep in my own skin, impatient and angry to be surrounded by my helplessness. I clear my throat to avoid letting that animal tone slip into my voice.

“No. It’s personal,” I explain. The baby, however, suddenly squirms and warbles in distress. “Shit.” I must have accidentally set him off.

My thoughts spin up in a fresh swirl of anxiety, and I urgently cradle him closer with a pang of intense nurturing and tender guilt. Even my inner wolf, as surly and unflappable as it usually is, feels a bit cowed at the realization that it upset our son.

“Shhh, it’s alright.”

“Thorn,” Paige begins in a forcibly pleasant tone, “I’m doing areallygood job at not having a nervous breakdown. Can you please get to the part where you explain what’s going on?”

The babe’s cries are muffled now into my chest, but that just makes it feel so much worse. I bounce him in my arms as gently as I can and avoid looking at the phone as though I was escaping her pointed glare.

“... I have a baby.”

An exasperated noise, something between a laugh and a groan, comes over the speakerphone. “Yes, I can hear that. But uh,whydo you have a baby?”

“It’smybaby.”

The line goes silent.

The only thing I can hear is my unsteady breathing and the settling whines of the little life in my arms.

“Thorn.”

Her voice is uncannily calm. I can’t help but swallow nervously.

“Yes?”

And then she does exactly what Paige always does.

“When were you going to tell me?! Who is the mother? Why didn’t you tell me you were seeing someone?! Oh my god! I’m an aunt!! I have to tell everyone! Is it a boy or a girl? When do I get to see the baby?!”

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