Chapter Thirteen
Dara was doing his best to pretend to sleep when someone slipped into the room. He didn’t move, kept his breathing even, and listened as footsteps crept around his bed. Probably Joe in to check on the baby. Dara couldn’t face doing it himself.
“Hey there,” a voice whispered. Not Joe; Seth. “What are you doing up so early? I’m pretty sure you should be sleeping like your daddy.” Dara felt his stomach twist at the word daddy.
The baby made a little unhappy cry. “Shh, you’ll wake him. How about I make you a deal? I’ll pick you up, just like this, and you keep the grizzling to a whisper.”
The crying settled as Seth began to pace around the room. It was strange, but Dara could picture Seth clearly in his mind, the baby nestled in the crook of his arm as the wolf walked back and forth across the room, rocking him gently back to sleep.
There were tears in Dara’s eyes and he tried to wipe them away surreptitiously.
“Hey, sleeping beauty.” Seth’s voice was suddenly much closer, just over Dara’s shoulder.
“I’m not asleep,” Dara said with a tired sigh. “And I’m no beauty.”
He sat up, swinging his legs to the ground. Seth was standing right in front of him, the baby just as Dara had pictured him, sleeping contentedly in the wolf’s arms. Him sitting and Seth standing meant he was at eye level with his son. He dropped his gaze, feeling ashamed of himself.
“Who told you that?” Seth asked.
Dara just shook his head. Seth’s fingers caught his chin, nudging his head up to meet the alpha’s gaze.
“Was it Zane? Because I have to tell you that guy clearly has no sense of aesthetics.”
Seth shifted the baby in his arms, bringing him closer to Dara. “I can see where this little man gets his good looks from. It’s obviously the omega side of the family.”
Dara yanked his chin from Seth’s grip and turned his head away.
“Don’t.”
Seth sat down next to him with a long sigh. “Don’t what? Tell you you’re beautiful? Tell you how adorable your son is?”
“All babies are cute,” he grumbled. “It’s what makes people want to look after them.”
“They say that, but we all know some are cuter than others. Take this little guy, for example. Look at that little nose. And those eyes. It’s like he’s completely clued into what’s going on around him. He also clearly has your tonal appreciation because he seems to like my voice a lot. But I bet you anything he likes yours better.”
Dara struggled to get his thoughts together. “I… I don’t feel like he’s mine.”
“Then you’re a dummy because I can see that he’s yours. And he certainly knows it. He can’t take his eyes off you. I think he’s in love.”
He didn’t know what to say to that, shrugging his shoulders helplessly.
“You want to come with us to save Max, right?”
Nodding, he turned to look at Seth at last, the wolf’s dark eyes intent on him.
“Then you need to be in fighting form. Max is your brother and this little guy is your son. They’re the people you’re fighting for, they’re the people you’d give up everything for. I know it’s scary and there’s so much going on inside your head right now, but you have to let yourself feel. Your strength doesn’t come from numbness or anger. It comes from love. You have to let yourself feel it, no matter how much it hurts.”
And Seth leaned over, settling the baby into his arms.
At first, he tried to hand him back, but Seth was wise to that.
“Nu-uh. He’s right where he needs to be. I’m not going anywhere, but it’s you he wants, not me.”
Dara looked anywhere but down. He wasn’t ready. He couldn’t do it. There was so much pain. Too much and—
The baby cried, the soft sound drawing Dara’s eyes down to him.
“I…I…”
“Just hold him close, let him know you’re there.”
He eased the baby a little closer to his chest and he settled, snuggling against him. Then he turned his head, his mouth rooting at Dara’s T-shirt. He knew what that meant. “I think he’s hungry.”
Seth said nothing, didn’t prompt or push and Dara let instinct take over, lifting up his shirt. The little one settled against him, nursing, and the first sob broke free of Dara’s throat.
The alpha took a seat next to him and wrapped an arm around him. “That’s it, let it out. You have to feel it even though it hurts.”
Dara turned his head and cried into Seth’s shoulder, his son held tight to him, comforted and comforting.
“There, that’s better,” Seth said as his sobs eased, and the wolf pressed a kiss to his forehead.
“I feel like I’ve known you forever,” Dara mumbled.
“Yeah,” Seth agreed. “It’s been a long few days.”
“No, I don’t mean it like that. I mean… I feel like I know you.”
Seth sighed against him. “Right back at you. From the moment you lobbed that first bottle of paint at me, it was like we’d always been together.”
Dara couldn’t help himself, he giggled.
“Was that a laugh I heard?” Seth pretended to lean closer. “No? Must have been the wind. Speaking of throwing paint, do you, I don’t know… throw knives or axes or something? Because that would be a pretty cool party trick.”
“Um, no,” Dara hedged.
“Can you shift into something big and scary?”
“I can shift into an ocelot.”
“That’s like a big cat, right? How large is one of those? Is it like a tiger or a lion?”
“It’s medium-sized.”
“On what scale?”
“The scale where tiger is big and house cat is small.”
“Bigger than a wolf?”
Dara shook his head. “Not so much. Maybe a little wolf.”
“Well, when we take on the pack of the little wolves, I’ll keep you in mind.”
Dara looked up, meeting Seth’s eyes. “You’ll keep me in mind?”
“I don’t think there’s any chance of me forgetting you now. You’ve given me fashion advice, we’ve gone on a road trip together. Had our first fight. Made up. Cried. Laughed. Thrown paint. I even delivered our first kid.”
Seth made a face. “I mean, he’s your kid, of course, and I know that. But… I’ve been around a lot of kids in my life, I have a posse of younger siblings and cousins, and they’re cute and all but I’ve never felt the way about them that I do about this little guy. I don’t want to take my eyes off him. And I think, if another alpha came into this room and tried to take him, I’d be hard-pressed not to fight them off. I have no clue what that’s about.”
Seth sounded lost, but his words painted a very clear picture for Dara.
“It’s me.”
“What’s you?”
“He came from me, he’s part of me. You feel a connection to me and that extends to him. That’s why all the extra feelings.” He swallowed. “Sorry about that.”
“Don’t be. It’s kind of cool. And scary. And strange.”
If Dara was right about that, there was one last thing he needed to check.
“Since we met have you… felt your wolf at all?”
Seth looked awkward, rubbing his free hand across the back of his neck. “I wasn’t going to say anything, but now that you mention it, yeah. I have.”
“Why wouldn’t you say anything?”
“I didn’t want you to think I was here with you just because of that. I’m not. I’m here because… because I don’t know what I’m doing. My dad is hurt bad, my brother’s in the hands of a power-hungry wolf, and you’re the only thing that makes sense to me right now. When I step away, everything falls apart. But when I’m by your side, I know where I’m at. Does that make sense?”
“No,” Dara said. “No sense at all. But I feel exactly the same way.”