Page 34 of A Secret Baby By the Alpha

In my mind, a million choices could have been made to avoid our fate. The past couldn’t be changed, but I was determined not to make the mistake of allowing myself to be hurt by him again. I may have feelings for the man, but that didn’t mean I needed to let him sweep me off my feet. We weren’t young, dumb kids anymore. Now, we had Jenny to consider.

Today, we were taking her out to the forest for more practice with her shifting, and to give her the necklace I had gotten her. It felt like yet another step in the right direction, and I was excited for Jenny to continue learning about herself.

“Ready for day number two of shifting, Jenny-bug?” Colson asked.

Jenny nodded enthusiastically as she stood beneath the tall pine trees. As always, I was struck by just how much she looked like the younger version of myself. She had her own distinct features that made her unique, but certain things always made me pause and double-check that I wasn’t looking in a mirror. The color of her hair, the tilt of her pointed chin, the curve of her smile—all of them reminded me of myself at her age.

“Before we have you shift again, Colson and I have something we want to give you,” I told her.

“Really?” she asked enthusiastically. “But it’s not my birthday.”

“Not your human birthday,” Colson agreed. “But yesterday was your first shift. We wanted to mark the occasion.”

I pulled out a small box and handed it to Jenny. She took off the lid to reveal the golden wolf necklace perched inside. Her eyes widened, and her small fingers traced the delicate etching on the square token.

“It’s beautiful,” she said. “Can you help me put it on, Mom?”

“Youare beautiful, baby,” I told her, clasping the chain around her neck.

She beamed up at us with pride, and then an expression of confusion passed her face.

“Can I wear this when I shift?” she asked.

“Yes,” I assured her. “Anything you’re wearing—clothes, jewelry, that kind of thing—will travel with you when you shift. It doesn’t break.”

“How does that work, exactly?”

“We aren’t really sure,” Colson admitted. “There isn’t a great way to study that kind of magic without risking someone getting hurt. It’s just something shifters know from experience. That’s why we don’t show up naked every time we transform.”

“Ew!” Jenny said with a laugh, scrunching up her nose at him.

“Hey! You asked!” Colson pushed her shoulder playfully.

“So, if it’s on your body, it travels, but the things around you don’t,” Jenny said.

“Yes, and that’s something that’s very important for you to understand,” I told her. “Right now, we’re shifting in a forest, but that might not always be the case. Any time you’re going totransform, it’s important that you look around you to make sure you don’t hurt yourself or someone else.”

Jenny nodded solemnly, taking in our lessons. Colson and I continued running her through different scenarios of where and when she might need or want to shift, and what she could do to make sure she was doing it safely.

As we did, I tried my best not to pay attention to the way I felt with Colson so close to me. Seeing him parent our daughter wasn’t helping matters, either. There was something extremely attractive about his patience with her questions that made me fight twice as hard to avoid getting even more attached to him.

In some ways, our circumstances were simple. We were two parents who had been in love and now found themselves back together again. Pack Marsden was starting to feel like my own pack now, and Jenny also seemed at peace here.

On the other hand, nothing could ever be that easy. Colson was the alpha, and his pack was right in the middle of a host of other packs all vying for land and territory that put them at odds with my own pack. Add in our complicated history and the fact that my home pack didn’t even know where I was, we had a disaster brewing.

I couldn’t leave Sparkle Hollow behind without a word. Eventually, they would need to be informed that I was alive.

The easiest thing to do would be to send them a message, but I worried about possible repercussions for Colson if I did. Especially after the revelations of last night. If the circumstances had been as bad as he’d described, I couldn’t be sure that Alpha Lex wouldn’t immediately call for Sparkle Hollow to storm in and take me back if they knew where I was.

But part of me realized that the consequences of Colson’s choices—no matter how long ago they were—weren’t mineto bear. Sparkle Hollow might decide to continue to seek retribution against Colson, but he also hadn’t paid his debt to them yet. His choice had caused the deaths of two wolves, and that was something that would need to be addressed eventually.

My biggest concern, apart from my growing feelings for Colson, was the effect it might have on Jenny if she was wrapped up in a hunt against her father. There was no surefire way to keep her from learning what Colson had done, but I wanted to keep her as far away from the situation as possible for her own safety.

The other issue was the Dark Alphas. If any threats against one of their members were made, it would be seen as a threat against them all. They could very well decide to take matters into their own hands and do a preemptive strike on my pack. The innocent people of Sparkle Hollow didn’t deserve to have men like Gage Desmond attacking them for things that had happened a decade ago. Not to mention that a message might be intercepted by the Dark Alphas and never arrive at Sparkle Hollow in the first place. If it was, they would think we were in league with their enemies.

The entire situation was hopeless, it seemed. But I needed to find a solution soon, before a bigger problem found me.

Chapter 17 - Colson

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