Page 3 of Bullied Mate

But with every step closer to the lobby, my thoughts faded. Leo came into view. His wiry build and reddish-brown hair. His goofy smile. His small hands expertly stacking blocks to build a fortress. Imagination ran wild in that mind. How nice it must have been to focus only on those thoughts and not the ones that lingered with a hint of panic, the ones that promised impending sorrow.

I fixed the grin on my face. “You ready to go, sport?”

“Is Grammy okay?”

My smile widened with a bit of effort. “She’s just fine, champ. She needs to sleep for a while, so we’ll come back tomorrow.”

“Okay!”

Leo gathered the wooden blocks and carefully put them back in their original bin. After tidying the area he had been using, he jutted his hand out for me to take and marched off toward the double doors—but not without colliding with a rather tall woman who wore her blonde hair in twin braids.

“Shoot, sorry about that,” I rushed to apologize. “My kid is just—”

Now, there wasn’t much in this world that could make me turn around and rush off into the shadows. But there was one woman, who I knew a bit too personally, who had evidently come from another realm. Unrealistic, if anybody had asked me, and I actually preferred to keep the thought to myself. Because from my perspective, there was no way this Galanthia was the same as the Galanthia from my youth.

Unnatural pale-green eyes narrowed in on me like an apex predator focusing on its prey. For a second, it seemed her nostrils flared, and I had to admit those golden lines going from her tear ducts down to the tip of her nose were attractive. When had she gotten her face tattooed? It didn’t seem like her to do such a thing.

Then again, what was normal around these parts? Certainly not a shifter mother getting sick with a rare form of cancer that was resistant to magicalandscientific intervention. Stranger things were happening in the background. Galanthia’s body choices were hardly a concern of mine.

Still, I wondered.

Words tickled the tip of my tongue that I attempted to push out, yet they made a great effort to fight me. Leo waved at the tall woman. Her focus shifted to him, and then it was like night to day in an instant.

A smile lit up her face. “Hello, tiny human.”

“You’re very tall.”

She chortled, the smile enhancing her already high cheekbones. “Yes, I’m tall.”

“Can you fly? I saw you fly.”

“Well, if you saw me fly, then don’t you think I can fly?”

I squinted at her. Was she making fun of my kid? Or was she just making friendly conversation? It was hard to tell with her. Ever since we met the other night, she’d been cold and aloof, hardly resembling the Galanthia I knew.

That had to mean she wasn’t the same person.

But how could she not be? Other than the vivacious curve of her hips and the buxom fullness of her breasts, she was the same girl.

Wasn’t she?

“Galanthia,” I said, and then immediately regretted saying her name out loud, for the look she cast could have been a critical hit if her gaze had been a weapon.

She waited silently. I held my breath. It wasn’t like me to get this tense around a woman, certainly not a woman I had once known.

Or had I known her at all?

Uncertainty clouded my mind. In a split second, I had gone from a confident father to a shriveled up and tongue-tied mess. The last time a woman made me feel like this had been…

Well, I never liked saying her name, and I’d already said it once today.

It was best not to repeat it.

I cleared my throat and forced myself to smile for the third time in a row. “Sorry about the run-in. I’ll be sure to watch where I’m going.”

“I’d hope so.”

Galanthia strode past me to the hallway and disappeared beyond the dim threshold. Where was she going? It wasn’t like anyone else was back there. Not that I had checked. Elderlings must have had a way of cloaking their presence. What other reason would I have had to accidentally bump into her when I should have seen her walk into the lobby just like anybody else?

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