Standing, I can feel the anger rushing through me. “I’ve lived in this horrible fucking town all my life. If my parents had really been searching for me all this time, they would have found me.”
“Kaleb,” Darius says, sounding pained.
Cleo stands, peering at me with wide eyes. I shake my head and reach for her leash. When I tug on it, she doesn’t budge, almost as if she’s pleading with me to stay. To listen to Darius. To hear him out.
I scoop her up, ready to make my escape. Tears sting my eyes.
How long have I wanted a family to be out there searching for me? To find me and take me away. I could have grown up with someone who loves me. I pause as soon as the thought comes to mind. I didn’t have it as rough as some of the other kids inthe system. And I don’t know whether I would want to give up Elizabeth or Stacy if I somehow had a time machine.
But only two hours away?
They are supposedly some of the most magical witches out there. No, they haven’t been looking for me. It’s some kind of mistake. Darius is wrong. This isn’t the fresh start I’ve been praying for. They aren’t my family. If I listen to Darius, it will only get my hopes up. I don’t want to meet a beautiful family and wish they were mine.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Darius get out of his seat, but I’m determined to ignore him. He didn’t approach me because he felt some magical connection between us. No, he approached me because he thought I was this missing person.
I make my way through the café, ready to leave.
“Kaleb!” Darius calls after me.
I push my way out the front door. The cold air whips around me, but at least it isn’t raining anymore. The door chimes behind me. I don’t need to turn around to know it’s Darius. There’s nothing he can say that can convince me that what he’s saying is true.
“You have your mother’s eyes.”
I halt. Heart pounding.
Cleo scrambles out of my hold, her claws digging into me. “Ouch!” I yell. She jumps down and rushes over to Darius before I can stop her.
I turn around slowly.
“I said, you have your mother’s eyes.” Darius tries again. He’s holding something out to me.
A photo.
With shaky hands, I reach for it. It’s a photo of two smiling parents holding a smiling baby. They all look so happy. But it could be any baby. I don’t have any baby photos, so I have no idea if this is actually a photo of me. But then, something catches my eye.
I gasp.
The baby is wrapped in a soft blanket, which is folded back to show the large embroidery on the corner. Embroidery that I recognize. A blanket that might be worn out from use, but a blanket I saw earlier this morning. My blanket.
A blanket that has ‘Kaleb Dumas’ embroidered in beautiful script.
Chapter eight
Darius
Kaleb gasps. He’s studying the photo like it holds all the answers to the world. “That’s my blanket,” he whispers, the pad of his index finger lightly touching the image where his name is embroidered on the material. “It’s sitting on my bed back home.”
Suddenly, it clicks into place. “The blanket is how you know your full name.”
Kaleb nods, glancing at me briefly before returning to the photo. “Elizabeth helped me figure out how to legally change my name when I turned eighteen. She was convinced that the blanket was proof that I was loved. We thought something had happened to my parents. Elizabeth would always say, ‘Parents don’t just make a blanket this beautiful and give up on their baby.’ It was a touching thought and made me happy that I kept it all these years.”
Kaleb continues to stand there, just tracing his finger over the paper. He looks so vulnerable and lost. I can feel the deep sorrow he’s projecting through the bond. He wants this so badly. He wants this to be true.
The suckers on my tentacle tattoos flex, and my kraken encourages me forward, telling me to be vulnerable with our mate. To reassure him by giving him a little piece of our history. I reach out and rub the small of Kaleb’s back. “They didn’t give up on you,” I tell him.
He nods, glancing up until our gazes cling and hold.
“Not the way my parents gave up on me,” I whisper. Clearing my throat, I continue. “My father never wanted a child. He didn’t even know he could get my mother pregnant. And when I was old enough to go out on my own, my mother confessed that she never wanted me. She told me I didn’t fit in with the rest ofherfamily. She wished me luck and asked me to leave. It used to hurt so much, and sometimes the wound is still raw. I would have killed to know at least one family member who cares about me.”
