Page 9 of Rejected Wolf's Secret Baby (Rejected Moons 4)

“I’m going back to her place now. I’ll just tell her we had a few drinks and caught up.”

“Okay,” he agrees. “That’ll be the story, then.”

I have to admit, I’m surprised by how cooperative he’s being.

I just hope he can stick to it.

5

ALICIA

ThreeYearsLater

“Alicia! Someone’s on the phone for you!”

The sound wakes me from my doze. It’s been impossible to sleep lately, and Chad isn’t helping matters by playing Freedom Fighters: Special Forces all hours of the day and night. His only concession to the fact that other people live in this house is that he uses headphones when the baby is asleep—which, thankfully, she is now.

She’s been having so much trouble sleeping lately. I have no idea what I’m going to do about it. The trouble is that she’s two years old now, and her wolf aspects are coming in. Heightened sense of smell, for instance. It’s normal for babies to have trouble settling down at this age, as they start to take on more wolf qualities. It’s normal for that to freak them out.

It’s just that most shifter babies are raised in packs, where people can help the mother deal with it. Not the case with Emmy.

I drag myself out of bed and into the living room. Chad doesn’t look up from his game. He’s not even holding the phone. He tossed it onto the couch beside him. I go over and pick it up. “Hello?”

“Alicia?” It’s Pat on the phone, and she’s all business, as usual. “We need you to come back to Greystone territory.”

“What?” I walk away from the gunshot noises of Brad’s game so I can hear my sister better. “What are you talking about?”

“It’s Dad,” she says.

My heart skips a beat. I’ve been expecting a call like this. After all, Dad isn’t getting any younger. “What happened?”

“I mean, nothing.” Pat lets out a long sigh. “Nothinghappened. It’s just that his memory is starting to go.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s just old, Alicia.” Pat’s tone is impatient. It’s like she thinks she’s had this conversation with me a dozen times already. “He forgets things. He leaves the stove on. He doesn’t take his medicine.”

“Alzheimer’s?”

“Probably. You know we can’t diagnose something like that on pack land.”

Meaning he would need a human doctor. And most shifters would never deign to see a human doctor.

I shouldn’t be so high and mighty about it, really. Human doctors aren’t much good to us. Our physiologies are all wrong. I had to stop taking Emmy to the pediatrician this year because he noticed that her heart rate was way too high and was about to order a battery of tests—tests I know she doesn’t need. She’s fine. Her body is fine. She just isn’t human.

“I don’t think I can come home right now,” I tell Pat."I have work.”

Work isn’t the problem. I glance in the direction of my daughter’s bedroom. There are things my family doesn’t know about. Things I don’t want anyone to know about. “I can probably get away for the weekend and come see him.”

“I’m not asking you to come for a visit. You need to come back to the pack for an extended stay. You need to help us take care of Dad.”

“Dad has three kids in the pack,” I say, in what I hope is a reasonable tone. “He doesn’t need me, too.”

I don’t even believe myself as I say it, because I do want to help him, I just can’t risk anyone finding out about my daughter.

“Weneed you,” Pat says. “Kayla’s been doing it all by herself. That’s too much to ask of one person.”

“One person? Why is it one person? What aboutyou?”

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