Chapter 45 AURORA
I bared my teeth. If I had a wolf, I would have transformed and torn him to pieces on the spot. “If you think I would ever leave my children, you’re insane!”
He pressed his lips into a thin line. “Then it looks like you’ll be here forever, too.”
He was so confident; it shook me to my core. But I had to keep up a brave face. I couldn’t let him know how afraid I was that if he tried, he’d be able to do exactly what he threatened.
“We’ll see what the High Alpine Pack and the Council think about that.”
His face was serious as he looked at me. “I have samples. I’ll test their DNA if I have to. Once it comes out that they’re mine, I’ll win. I’m an Alpha of an important pack. The Council will rule they belong with me as my heirs.”
“I’m the Luna–heir of a pack just as important as yours, if not more,” I said, refusing to back down. “If they’re anyone’s heirs, they’re mine. Especially since you have another on the way.”
Dane’s face blanched, but he held steady. “You’ll risk a situation where one twin stays with me, and you get the other? Is that what you want to do? Separate them?”
Part of me was so angry, I wanted to shove him. To scream and rage at him not to do this. The other part of me was shaking and terrified. That part wanted to fall on her knees and beg like I had before.
Because no matter what happened, I couldn’t stay in Blue Ridge forever. I had my own pack to worry about, my own responsibilities. As terrified as I was, my children were my line in the sand. I would not allow him to cross it.
“What I want to do? No, Dane. You would be the one doing it. You are the one threatening to take this to the Council. You don’t get to swoop in and try to destroy our lives, then tell me the consequences are my fault when I fight back!”
The muscles in his jaw clenched, and I thought I caught a quickly smothered look of surprise on his face. I wasn’t sure if it was because I’d pointed out what he was doing and he truly hadn’t realized it, or because I had the gall to point it out at all.
He leaned toward me. The children were still playing, and so far we’d kept the conversation too low for them to hear, whisper-yelling at each other beneath the sound of four-year-olds’ shouts as the twins ran and played. “Something has to give here, Aurora, and it’s not going to be me.”
I gritted my teeth. My heart raced, but I kept my voice from shaking as I said, “You will have to kill me to keep me from fighting for them. You’ll have to lock me in chains to keep me from coming to steal them away in the night. I may have been a pushover for you when I was your wife, Dane Montague. Maybe I would be still for anything else. But when it comes to my children? I will burn all of Blue Ridge to ashes before I let you keep them from me.”
Dane’s nostrils flared. He called out, “Hey, you two. Why don’t you go find Mrs. Jamison. Your mother and I need to have a talk.”
The twins stopped playing and looked from Dane to me. They didn’t move to obey him.
I smiled, but I was shaking inside. What did the Alpha want to do to me that he didn’t think the children should see?
I tried to move toward them. Dane grabbed my wrist and squeezed.
I didn’t struggle. Instead, I gave the children a tight smile. “It’s all right, you two. Go find Mrs. Jamison.”
With one last, wary look at us, Tristan and Seraphina ran off.
When they were gone, I yanked my hand forcibly from his. Or I tried. He held on and tugged me closer. “You owe me for this,” he said. “You owe me four years for each of their lives. It’s time I can never get back.”
“You didn’t want them! You threw a contraceptive at me! You gave up any right to our children then. And if you don’t stop trying to claim them now, I will bring the full might of the High Alpine Pack down on your head!”
He bared his teeth and pulled me closer still, until his lips were inches from mine, and I could feel the heat of him soaking through my clothes. Until his scent was all around me, and all I could see were his gorgeous, dark eyes. “Blue Ridge is ready.”
“Blue Ridge could have been their home,” I said. “It should have been my home. You could have been my home, and theirs, if you hadn’t hated me.”
“I don’t…” He closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against mine.
With both of us breathing raggedly, I put my hand on his cheek. He growled low in his throat and leaned into my touch. Goddess, why did we always have to battle like this? To long for each other? Constantly torn between hate and need.
“What do you want from me, Dane?” I whispered, longing for either escape or the feel of his mouth on mine…but I couldn’t have both, and neither could he.
I had to make him realize that, so I said, “What do you honestly think a future here could hold for us? You’re going to marry Evelyn. Is it her turn to be your wife while I’m your mistress? Is that what you want to happen? A reversal of what we had before?”