“I need a phone,” I said, pretty freaking proud of how calm I sounded.
A single brow lifted at me, and I fought to stay calm as my frustration surged. Maybe starting off our first meeting with a demand wasn’t the best idea, but I wasn’t backing down.
“I need to find out what’s going on with my pack. My mate.”
A scowl darkened his face, his eyes narrowing.
I met his gaze, glaring back openly and not giving a damn if I was possibly offending this Alpha. Father or not, I wanted answers now. This man wasn’t my family. My family was an ocean away.
He still didn’t speak.
Everyone in the room seemed to be waiting in limbo, holding their breaths as they watched us face off.
I wasn’t amused at fucking all.
I looked at Dimitri. “He does actually speak, right?”
Dimitri’s green eyes cut to me, his expression warning me before he quietly said, “Skye, don’t.” This was the first time I had seen Dimitri look so serious.
My head swung back around to my father as he stood up, tugging at the cuffs of his white button down.
“Leave us.”
I wasn’t even sure he had actually spoken, but the door behind me opened and Dimitri left, followed by the woman and the other man. The door shut a second later.
“So, you can speak?” I asked archly, too pissed off and worried to care that I was poking an Alpha.
Nikolai took a step forward, pushing his hands into the pockets of his black pants. “She named you Skye.”
His voice was rough and deep, accented like Alexei’s. He closed the distance between us slowly, like he was worried I might spook and run.
When I squared my shoulders and stood my ground, he smiled.
The effect was transformative.
He went from surly Russian Alpha to actual person with a single smile.
He was easily six foot five, and had almost a foot in height on me. His biceps were the size of my thighs, his hands the size of my head. Everything about this guy was Alpha to the extreme.
“She named you after my mother,” he said softly, almost reverently. His eyes softened as he looked down at me.
That news caught me off guard and my brain struggled to play catch up. “Your mother?”
“Her name was Eskyla,” he replied. “I met your mother right after mine had passed away. I told her how I grieved the loss of my mother.”
Eskyla.
I swallowed down that information. “As much as I would love to take a trip down memory lane with you, I really need to call my pack. I don’t know what’s going on with them.”
He looked down, nodding slowly. “I understand your frustration, but right now I am awaiting answers myself. Answers that I should have soon. I have men looking into the explosion and trying to ascertain what happened to your friends and mate.”
“I need to at least call my mom,” I said, my hands balling into fists.
Another slow nod, but then he hesitated. “Until I know for certain what is going on back in your country, I must insist you wait a few more hours. It is what is safest for you.”
“I don’t give a damn about my safety,” I snapped. “I have friends and family that need to know I’m okay. And I need to know if they are okay.”
“You may not care about your safety, but I do, little wolf,” he told me softly. He turned and crossed the room, sitting back down and giving me an expectant look. “Why don’t you join me and we can wait together?”
I was going to scream. How could he not get it? I didn’t want to join him and wait. I wanted answers.
“I swear to you, as Alpha and your father, I will see you reunited with your pack,” he vowed. “But I need you to give me a bit more time before we decide the best course of action. While we wait, I might be able to give you a few answers to the many questions you have.”
God, I had a lifetime of questions.
But none of them mattered as much as finding out if Remy was okay.
“Please, sit down,” Nikolai said, almost gently. “I just found you. Protecting you is what I must do, but I would also like to know the daughter I never knew existed before two days ago.”
Something in his tone, in his words, tugged at a piece of my heart.
Taking a deep breath, I walked across the floor and sat down on the other end of the sofa, turning to face him with a heavy sigh. “Okay. What do you want to know?”
6
Remy
The slow, methodical beeping of the heart monitor was a sound that would haunt me as long as I lived. First, it had been Skye hooked up to that machine. It was the sound that chased me into a restless sleep at night and then dragged me awake each day for three weeks while she was in a coma.
And now, it was the sound that echoed in the room when I saw my father.
Leaning a shoulder against the open door frame, I watched his chest rise and fall under the simple cotton sheet. One arm was wrapped in a cast, and there were too many bruises and cuts to count.
Mom was curled into the chair that had been pulled up by his side, her chin tucked against her chest. One hand was tangled loosely in his as she slept.
She had barely left his side since we’d brought him in.
With a soft gasp, her eyes opened and zeroed in on me and narrowed.
“What happened?” She lowered her legs to the floor but didn’t get up. Her gaze flickered to Dad, looking for a change. Her mouth pressed into a thin line when she realized there was none.
“I didn’t mean to wake you,” I admitted regretfully. I knew sleep was hard for her, and I hated that I had disturbed it. But after the challenge Lodge had lobbed at me, I needed to see my dad.
I needed to remember why I was doing this instead of packing a bag and tearing the world apart to find Skye.
Her dark eyes, identical to mine, sharpened with intuition. “What happened at the council meeting?”
I dropped into the vacant chair on the other side of the bed. “Lodge challenged me for the pack.”
“Dammit,” she hissed, looking away. “I really hoped he might give this family a minute to breathe without being a prick.”
“He’s worried about the pack.” I shrugged indifferently, trying not to take it personally. Part of being an Alpha was being able to separate personal emotions from what was best for the whole pack, but I still felt the sting of his accusations. “They all are.”
“Lodge has always coveted the title of Alpha,” Mom told me with a frown, “but he has no idea what it is to lead. To sacrifice.”
My jaw clenched as I ground my molars.
Dad had definitely sacrificed.
“Any word?” Her words pulled me back to the moment. She didn’t have to elaborate. I knew who she was talking about.
And it killed me to shake my head.
“Honey, we’ll find her.” Mom gave me a tight smile full of grit and determination. “Skye is a fighter.”
“I know.”
I did know that.
It killed me that she had been forced to become that fighter; the hell she had endured as a kid was enough shit that it would have made any adult crack under the pressure.
But not Skye.
Which was why I knew my girl was out there, fighting just as hard to get to me as I was to get to her. It just didn’t make my current reality any better.