Dreams and dust II

Sophie’s POV

The words punched the air from my lungs. Soso whimpered, wanting to tell our pup the truth, to howl our grief and rage and longing to the Moon Goddess who gave us a fated mate we couldn’t have.

“Lots of people have grey eyes,” I said, taking the magazine and setting it aside with hands that shook. “Come on, let’s get you dinner. I promised we’d try that new taco place, remember?”

I’d gotten good at deflecting over the years, at building walls around the truth and at pretending the bond didn’t still sing in my blood, calling me back to a mate who’d rejected everything we could have been.

The taco place was cheerful and loud, and Ethan chattered about his day while I nodded and smiled and tried not to think about grey eyes and broken bonds. But my dear Soso was restless, pacing beneath my skin like she could sense something coming.

I saw a letter immediately we git home waiting for me. Cream-colored, with a return address that made my wolf snarl and my human heart stutter.

Whitmore & Associates, Attorneys at Law, New York, New York.

My hands shook as I opened it.

Dear Ms. Hart,

We regret to inform you of the passing of Richard Steele on October 15th. As per Mr. Steele’s final wishes, your presence is requested at the funeral service to be held on October 20th at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan. Mr. Steele specifically named you in his will, and your attendance is required for the reading. Please contact our office to confirm your travel arrangements, which will be provided.

Our deepest condolences,

Margaret Whitmore, Senior Partner.

The paper slipped from my fingers.

Richard was dead. The kind, oblivious Richard, who’d never known his stepdaughter and his son were fated mates was fucking dead. And the fact that he’d never gotten to know about Ethan was heartbreaking.

And now I had to go back to New York. Back to the Steele pack territory. Back to my mother’s venom, Camille’s triumph and…to him.

To my fated mate who had looked me in the eyes seven years ago and told me that what we had was a mistake. Who stood silent while Camille framed me as some gold-digging whore trying to trap him. Who let me leave with our unborn pup and never once tried to find me.

Soso snarled in pain and fury.

“He rejected us. He chose his duty and his engagement, he chose his perfect life over his mate.”

But the human part of me, the part that still dreamed of him every night, whispered something more terrifying “What if he didn’t? What if there’s more to the story? Give him the benefit of doubt.”

What the hell? I crushed that thought immediately. Seven years of silence had told me everything I needed to know. He didn’t deserve anything as such.

“Mama?” Ethan appeared at my elbow, those grey eyes solemn.

“What’s wrong?”

I crouched down, pulling my baby close, breathing in his scent, milk and sunshine and innocence. He carried Dominic’s scent too, faint but unmistakable to any wolf who knew what to smell for. Another secret I’d been keeping, another truth that would detonate like a bomb when we returned.

Because Dominic would know the moment he scented Ethan, he would know he had a son.

And then what?

“We have to take a trip, baby. To New York. My stepfather passed away.”

“Will we meet your family?”

Family? Who would I call my family? The mother who’d sold me out for her own security or the mate who’d rejected me?

“Yes,” I said quietly. “You’ll meet them.”

That night, after Ethan finally fell asleep, I stood at my window and stared at the Los Angeles skyline. Somewhere three thousand miles east, Dominic Steele was in Manhattan, preparing to bury his father.

My dear Soso whined, wanting to go to him, to comfort him and to be what a mate should be and more. But I’d learned to ignore her over the years. I’d learned to survive without the bond completion, even though it felt like missing a limb.

The magazine still lay open on my desk, Dominic’s grey eyes staring up at nothing.

I made myself a promise. I would go to New York, and would face them all with my head high and my armor impenetrable. I would attend the funeral and the will reading.

And then I would come home, back to this life I’d built, and I would forget Dominic Steele all over again.

Even if my wolf never stopped howling for him.

Even if the bond pulled at me for the rest of my life.

Some gifts from the Moon Goddess, I had learned, were just really beautifully wrapped curses.

And fated mates?

Those were the cruelest curse of all.