Page 106 of Wind with a Chance of Wolfsbane

“Anyone else?” he asked. “As in, you know someone with them?”

“I, um, well, someone really close to me has eyes that are just like yours,” I confessed, leaning and putting my face closer to his. “You’re the only other person, aside from her, that I’ve met in person who has them.”

He stole a quick kiss. “Mmm, tell me you at least like her, so I know how I’m doing in that department.”

“I love her,” I stated evenly. “She’s the most important person in my life. I’d do anything for her. Honestly, I’d kill for her.”

He grinned as he ran his thumb over my lower lip. “I can’t wait to meet her.”

“We’ll need to put a pin in that,” I said.

“Why is that?” he asked before kissing me quickly again. He offered a lazy, sexy grin.

“Because I don’t introduce my daughter to men I just met, and I understand I first met you twenty-two years ago, but you get what I’m saying,” I said.

His grin faded rapidly, and he jerked under me so fast and so much that he basically bucked me off him.

I landed with a thud on the rocky cave floor next to him as he shot to his feet. “Jonathan?”

ChapterThirty-Three

Jonathan

Positive he’d heardWilla wrong, Jonathan shook his head, his eyes widening. “Daughter? You have a daughter?”

As his mate, Willa should have only been able to reproduce with him. As much as he hoped he was wrong and that he’d not passed the curse on to another person, the comment she’d made about her daughter having eyes just like his sort of sealed the deal.

Willa scrambled for her clothing and began dressing haphazardly, huffing as she did. “Wow. This response right here is exactly why I never talk about having a daughter with any of the men I hook up with.”

Jonathan’s concerns about passing on his curse evaporated nearly instantly at her confession. Had she been seeing other men? He crossed his arms over his chest. “You hook up with men?”

She gave him a look that screamed, “What do you think?” before motioning around the cave and then at him.

His wolf didn’t surface despite Jonathan’s rising temper. It was as if the wolf wanted nothing to do with challenging its mate. It basically ran away and hid inside him, leaving him to his own devices. His jaw clenched. “I mean other men, Willa.”

She snorted as she adjusted her clothing, now fully dressed. “You did hear the part about me having a daughter, correct? I mean, you freaked out enough over it. Of course, I’ve hooked up with other men.”

He rubbed the bridge of his nose, doing his best to keep from shouting. “I’m not talking about having sex with me.”

“Neither am I,” she snapped back. She grabbed his jeans and threw them at him. “I was talking about my daughter’s father, whoever he might be.”

He caught them, his brows meeting. “What do you mean by that?”

“By what?”

“The ‘whoever he might be’ comment,” he supplied, a sinking feeling starting in his gut. “Willa, are you telling me you don’t know who the father of your daughter is?”

Her eyes moistened as her gaze slid toward the discarded chains on the floor of the cave. “No,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “I know what night it happened—the night I got pregnant—but I don’t remember the act itself.”

Jonathan stepped back, clutching his jeans to his chest. She didn’t remember being with him? That meant she didn’t remember that he’d claimed her as his mate, forever making her his wife in the eyes of the supernatural community. It also meant he was upset with her for moving on when, in truth, she didn’t even realize who he was to her.

A tear slid down her cheek as she stared at the broken chains. “Eighteen years ago, I came to this cave with my sister. I’d only been what I am—a wolf-shifter—for four years then. I had next to no control over that part of myself. The days around the full moon each month were the worst for me. The letter warned me. It told me to make sure I was secure during that time. Nothing we were doing was working. I kept getting loose. Then Mina found this cave.”

Jonathan had what felt like a million questions but remained silent, letting her speak.

She motioned to the chains. “They were here, secured to the wall already. I don’t know why. All I know is that they were strong enough to hold me. Things were weird that night. Something wasn’t right here in town, and Mina had to leave me alone. She helped me secure myself and left. I felt it then—something evil and wrong was closing in around me. I lost control then. That’s all I remember, except for small bits and pieces. Flashes really. There was a gray wolf. I think, no, I know I was with him that night.”

He started to confess everything to her, but she kept going.

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