DOMINIC
“I know about Louisa! I know about her… and her daughter!”
The wolf’s words slam into me, freezing my blood in my veins. “Rowan and her daughter?”
Rowan… Louisa?
Louisa has a daughter?
A child?
“VIKTOR!”
The growl rips out of my throat like a sudden thunder echoing across the sky.
How dare he?!
How dare he touch what is mine?!
The bastards.
They will pay for this!
If it is true of course.
I look down to see my grip still tightened on Martin’s collar, the fabric bunching in my fist.
He is trembling,
I can feel it, the fear radiating off him like heat.
But he is not lying.
He is terrified, and that is when I know it is real.
It has to be.
“Daughter?” My voice is a low growl, barely restrained rage simmering underneath. “What the hell are you talking about?”
He flinches but forces the words out, stumbling over them. “Louisa… she has a daughter… five years old. Looks just like her.”
Five years old.
I do the math in my head, quick and sharp.
Viktor had only met her early this year.
So there’s no way the child is his, but…
But five years ago- right when everything fell apart, when she and I had our first night together…
My breath catches, and I feel the surge of emotion hit me like a damn freight train.
Could it be…? Could she be mine?
My teeth grind as I try to rein in the thoughts racing through my head.
No.
No, this can’t be right.
This isn’t happening.
But then again… the timing makes too much sense.
Too damn much sense.
“Describe her,” I demand, my voice low and deadly, like the calm before a storm.
The wolf nods quickly, eager to spill everything. “She… she looks like her- like Louisa.. Dark hair, same features. Same… same with her eyes. She has these striking green eyes, just like her mother’s. They are… mesmerizing.”
Green eyes.
The words hit me harder than I expect.
Louisa’s eyes. I can see them in my mind now- those damn green eyes that always seemed to pierce right through me, always mocking me.
And now, this kid… my kid, with those same eyes?
My stomach tightens, with what? I can’t be sure.
Could she really be mine?
I clench my jaw, trying to shove the emotions back down where they belong.
I am not that kind of man.
Emotions make you weak.
But this… this changes everything.
My daughter? Out there, raised by someone like Louisa? It makes my blood boil.
That soft, weak woman… How could she raise my kid?
“How is her training?” I snap, needing to know. Needing to hear that this kid is being raised right, that she is strong.
The wolf hesitates, swallowing hard.
“I… I don’t know much about her training. We are not… we are not allowed to be close to her. She is just… well, she is a lovely girl. She plays with the others, runs around the settlement, always smiling, always friendly.”
“Lovely?” I spit the word out like it’s poison. “Lovely? And what else? Is she strong? Brave? What the hell has Louisa been teaching her?!”
He shrinks under the weight of my anger, eyes darting everywhere but at me. “I… she is just a child, alpha. They don’t train her like that yet. She is still young, innocent. She doesn’t-”
“Innocent,” I sneer. “Weak, you mean. Of course, Louisa would let my daughter- my daughter!- to grow up soft. To grow up like her.” My fists tighten. “How could I expect anything else from her? She’s raising that girl to be weak, just like she is.”
I grind my teeth, fury and disgust boiling over. My daughter, my flesh and blood, being ruined by Louisa’s pathetic softness.
It makes me sick.
No. I won’t allow that.
I can’t.
I make my decision in a heartbeat.
It is quite simple, really.
I will take the girl- claim her as my own.
Raise her the way she should have been raised from the start.
Strong. Ruthless.
Everything Louisa isn’t.
But first, I need answers.
I lean down closer to the wolf, my breath hot and harsh. “Has Rowan been with anyone else?” The question cuts through the air like a blade. ” Has there been any mention of another man apart from Viktor Thorn?’
The wolf’s eyes widen, and he shakes his head frantically. “N-no, not that I have seen. She has been… she has been alone.”
Alone.
That is all I needed to hear.
There is no doubt now.
The kid is mine.
My heart pounds in my chest, a twisted sense of triumph swelling inside me.
She thought she could hide this from me?
Keep my daughter away from me?
That bitch.
I straighten up, looming over the wolf, who is still cowering at my feet.
The night around us is thick and quiet again, like the woods themselves are holding their breath.
The only sounds are the rustling of leaves and the wolf’s shaky breathing.
“I will let you live,” I tell him. “On one condition.”
“Alpha?”
“You are going to help me get that girl,” I say, my voice cold and sharp as steel.
The wolf’s eyes grows even wider, terror filling them completely.
But I don’t care.
I have made my decision, and nothing is going to stop me.
Not Rowan.
Not anyone.
“Alpha…” the wretch begs. “She… the kid… she is well guarded… well watched over… it would be impossible -”
“Was I aksing?”
“N- no, alpha.”
“Good. Come here the day after tomorrow. I should have a plan in pace by then.”
“Yes, alpha.”
With one last look at the trembling wolf, I turn my back on the settlement, slipping back into the shadows.
Louis has had her fun playing me for a fool, but it has come to an end.
She has no idea what is coming for her.
But soon enough, she will know.
And my daughter… she will know what it means to be strong.
What it means to be mine.