She raised her head to look at him, her expression serious. “If I believed for one second that you deliberately meant our children harm that would be a different matter. I know you love them. You’ve made mistakes, love, but they’re not irreparable ones. You’re just an overprotective father. If you can finally understand that now, then we can work together to reassure Lily that she doesn’t need to hide from us any longer.”
“She doesn’t have anyone out there to protect her,” Andrei said in a haunted voice. “Now that she knows of the Praetorians, she’ll most likely shadow herself so they can’t track her. She’ll think they’ll report back to us.”
That concern had also occurred to Loretta but she kept her worry hidden. Having Andrei freak out was more than enough. Lily didn’t need to have both parents out of control.
“You could both try trusting her,” Kallum said drolly, striding into the kitchen and heading over to the fridge. He could feel his parents’ eyes tracking him and deliberately kept his thoughts neutral just in case they tried to sneak in and try any weird mind shit. He wasn’t too sure just what mental skills his father had gained over the years as he creeped closer to his second millennia.
He was tall like his father, his shoulders broad, his chest well-muscled but not to the point of being overdeveloped. His brown hair had taken on a lighter tone to mirror his father’s colour more than his mother’s. He wore it long like most Weres and vampires, though it was tied back with a leather thong at the nape of his neck.
His waist was trim, his stomach taut and his long lean legs appeared to go on forever in the washed-out blue jeans that clung to him like a second skin. Kallum knew he cut a pretty package. With their own good looks, his parents couldn’t possibly produce a child that wasn’t easy on the eye.
But he didn’t let it go to his head, which was why he was decidedly popular with the females in the pack. He had his pick of unattached women and he enjoyed himself liberally, but he always treated them with respect and he never bedded more than one woman at a time. For however long or short a time he was with someone, they got his undivided attention.
The air was thick with tension in the kitchen and he could tell his parents had had one of their rare fights though they looked like they’d made up. He’d come home the moment he’d felt Lily’s distress and she’d screamed at him to go away. He’d known she would reach out to their father. She always did when she became frightened. He’d had a feeling his mother would require some help.
Pulling out some cold meat to make a sandwich, he risked a glance over his shoulder at his father. Andrei’s eyes were riveted on him as he’d expected, suspicion on his face as if he knew Lily had contacted him. He swung his gaze to his mother and she too had a similar expression.
He felt a rush of love well up as he watched them. They were by no stretch of the imagination a typical family but they loved each other fiercely.
“Where is she, Kal?” his mother finally asked, her hand stroking lightly over his father’s chest.
Kallum shrugged and went back to making his sandwich. “I don’t know where she is but I know she’s fine. She contacted me a little earlier to let me know she was safe.”
He considered how much he could to tell them without his sister feeling he was betraying her. He loved his parents dearly but Lily was his to protect, she was a Vârcolac and he protected all of his people. She watched his back as he watched hers.
Part of him realized in that moment that he’d probably been tempering Lily’s wildness over the years just as his mother had tempered his father’s. Now he could hand off that task to the man she’d gone to claim.
“She’s found her mate,” he finally answered, taking a deep breath while he waited for the eruption from his father. When nothing came he risked another look at them. Stunned shock was on his father’s face. His mother looked equally as surprised but there was a slight smile on her face.
“Now Andrei, before you explode you know there’s no way to fight the mating pull,” Loretta said quietly, as perplexed as her son by the lack of reaction from her mate.
“But she’s just a little girl,” Andrei hissed out, his shock starting to transmute into raw fury as his eyes began bleeding to black.
Kallum snorted loudly. “Dad, you have no problem whatsoever with me bedding half the females in the pack. Lily’s a year older than me. She stopped being your little girl about twelve years ago. Believe me, all the unattached males in the pack certainly noticed when she grew up. You’re probably about the only male that didn’t.”
Andrei opened his mouth and then closed it again, no words coming out as he stared at his son. He was all too aware of Kal’s sexual prowess within the pack; hell, he was proud of the man his son had grown into. He was an Alpha to his very core, protective and strong but with a vein of deep compassion running through him.
If he could look at Kallum as a grown man then he had to acknowledge that Lily was a grown woman too. He took a deep breath as he battled his conflicting emotions, tried to really listen to the words his son had said.
Lily was half-vampire and half-Were, a mix of two very sensual species. She’d never had a chance to explore that part of her personality because he’d wanted to kill any male that had even looked at her with sexual heat in his eyes. He hadn’t been willing to let her grow up. He hadn’t wanted her to leave him.
He looked down at Loretta, the weight of his sudden realisation in eyes. He let out a deep groan as she quirked an eyebrow at him. “If I’ve fucked up in any other way, please feel free to hit me with it all at once so I don’t have any other nasty surprises creeping up on me,” he finally said, his tone clearly unhappy.
Loretta couldn’t help the smile that crept across her face. Her daughter was out there somewhere but just hearing that she was tracking her mate had settled her concerns because that meant she wasn’t truly alone. Her mate was with her and he would protect her. That knowledge was enough to soothe most of her worries.
“And who said you couldn’t teach old dogs new tricks?” she teased lightly, watching emotions dance across Andrei’s face as he worked his way through them. “You know the power of a mate, love. You know what a man will do to protect what’s his. Lily isn’t alone out there. She’ll be safe.”