Page 14 of Rejected Wolf's Secret Baby (Rejected Moons 4)

“She’s got plenty of it,” I say.

“Has she shifted yet?” Kayla asks.

“No, but she’s young for that. She’s showing other signs. Heightened senses, that sort of thing.”

“Well, she’s lovely,” Pat says, giving me a tight smile that lets me know she’s not yet over being left out of the secret.

“She’sgorgeous,” Kayla agrees. “I wish you hadn’t kept her from us! But we can get to know her now, right? I can’t wait to be her favorite aunt!”

Pat laughs. “Hey,” she says. “Let her choose her own favorite.”

I feel a flush of warmth at my sisters arguing over who gets to love my daughter the most. In all her life, no one but me has ever loved her. Maybe I was wrong to have kept her from this for so long. Maybe I should have let her know her family and the pack she comes from.

It’s too late to question those decisions, but I can take advantage of the fact that we’re here now.

We go into the house. Dad’s already sitting at the table with Emmy in his lap, bouncing her on his knee. He looks up as we come in.

“She’s so big,” he marvels. “How old is she?”

“Two.”

“You have a two-year-old child?”

“I’m sorry I never told you, Dad.”

He shakes his head. “I’m just glad you’re here now. Both of you. You know, she looks just like you, Alicia.”

“I know she does.” And I’m damn glad of it. There’s hardly a trace of her real father in her face—very little to give me away. The only clues are her bright green eyes and the shape of her nose, and they’ve never seen Chad. Both of those things could have come from him.

“Do you have luggage in the car?” Pat asks.

I nod.

“You stay here and catch up with Dad,” she says. “Kay and I will bring it in for you.”

8

BRANDON

Sittingonmyporch,drinking my beer and watching the sunset, I run through my encounter with Alicia in my mind.

I’m glad she’s back in pack territory. Even though she rejected me all those years ago, I’ve honestly never really gotten over Alicia. I’ve always had wild fantasies about her, daydreams of a life in which things went the way they were supposed to and we ended up together.

I liked her when we were teenagers too. I used to sit around girl-watching with the other guys my age, and she was always the one to grab my attention. She was so sexy in her crop top and cut-off shorts, her long blonde hair blowing in the wind. The alpha’s youngest daughter. I wanted her then, and when her father approached me about our mating ceremony, I was over the moon. I said yes immediately.

But I guess no one asked Alicia.

I remember standing in the middle of the clearing at the heart of our pack’s territory and waiting for her to come out. I remember the sound of arguing. She and her stepmother, Deidre, were always at each other’s throats about something. I always thought Deidre was jealous of her husband’s daughters—concerned that he loved them more than her, and that they took attention away from her own son with him.

Whatever the case may have been, by the time Alicia emerged from the lodge where the girls were getting ready to be mated, she looked disheveled and unhappy. She was overly made up, a look I didn’t think she would ever have chosen for herself. Alicia had always been clean-faced. Her hair was curled, something it didn’t do naturally, and the dress she was wearing... Well, it wasn’t lust that made me want to rip it off her.

I tried to convey sympathy with my eyes. I knew she must have hated being dolled up like this.

But her jaw was set, and she wouldn’t even look at me.

I remember Rod standing next to me, and he nudged me and snickered. “Bet you can’t wait to break into that,” he said under his breath.

“Don’t be an asshole.” That was my mate he was talking about.

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