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He grimaced and ran a hand through his tangled hair. “My job was to watch Connors. I knew that he took in a daughter, but I never thought that you would be—”
“Why?” she asked weakly. “How can you tell?”
He cocked his head in her direction. “What color are my eyes?”
“G-gray,” she answered automatically. Though, now they glinted more like silver.
“That’s how. It’s as obvious to me as the color of your hair or eyes.” He returned to his vigil at the window, and a flash of lightning reflected off his gaze. Rain had picked up again, running in rivulets down the glass. “I can look at you and see the instinct there. It’s faint—but it’s there.”
Loren questioned that. When she looked in the mirror, all she saw was emptiness. Just what did this “lupine instinct” look like?
“How?” she gathered up the nerve to prod.
“Fred Connors wasmade,” he continued as if she’d never spoken. “There is no way you could have inherited the blood from him. I’m sorry, but it is biologically impossible that he could be your father, Loren. He had to be someone else.”
He sounded so sure, and strangely enough—if heweretelling the truth—Loren didn’t feel too much emotion at that. Was it strange to think that the man she’d been calling “dad” for the past ten months wasn’t really her father? Yeah.
But when she thought of just how those ten months had been spent.
She felt relieved.I didn’t come from that, a part of her sighed.His nasty hatred isn’t a part of my genes.But then, what was?
“Was my mother a—”
McGoven shook his head before she even finished. “She was human, Loren. I’m positive about that. A full-blooded female would never give birth outside of her territory. Sometimes the Alpha offered protection to those without the blood. Victims of ‘accidents’ who weren’t turned. That could be how she fell across Connors. I’ll call Sonia and have her do some digging. What was her name?”
“Eveline,” Loren said softly. “Eveline Connors.”
“She might not have known what you were. If Connors made her leave the territory, she would have no choice but to follow him.” He made it sound as if their relationship had been more of hunter and hunted than anything romantic.
“You, however, have lupine blood,” he insisted. “In fact, your father must be a pureblood, most likely someone belonging to a nearby pack.”
“Is that why you wanted me to go to Lukka?” She found the strength to ask. “So that I could be with a pack?”
He nodded, but kept his gaze on the window rather than look at her. “Isolation isunnatural forus. The need to belong to a pack is too strong—some go insane from it. Connors should have taken you to them the moment he sensed the blood in you. To keep you out here was unnecessarily cruel. Some might say criminal.”
“What makes you think he knew?” She thought of the way her father treated her—cold and distant. Had he known all along that she might not have been his daughter? Was that why he hated her so much?
“It’s obvious,” McGoven said, facing her directly. “Maybe not right away, but…” He reached out, snagging a lock of hair. Before she could even flinch, he tucked it behind her ear.
“Anyone looking at you could tell that you are different.”
He didn’t make it sound like a compliment. Just fact.
“You belong with peoplelikeyou, who can understand you. It sounds dramatic, I know, but once you feel for yourself what it’s like to be in a pack… You will understand. You don’t belong here.”
Slowly, he pulled his hand away, but Loren couldn’t ignore the trail of heat that lingered over her skin. Something lurched inside of her, making her chase the contact. Demand it. His fingertips brushed her shoulder as she inched closer.
He frowned. “Lukka could have given you that. Safety. Security. Everything you’ve never had.”
Could have.She didn’t miss his choice of words, but hope was a painful emotion to feel. It stabbed through her heart. Her eyes burned. “If it’s so important, then why aren’t you—”
He lurched to his feet gracefully, despite his injured leg.
“You asked why I left. I’ll tell you. When you belong to a pack, loyalty is everything,” he said in a low, gruff tone. “You should be ready to lay your life down for your Alpha at a moment’s notice—I wasn’t.”
He entered the kitchen, swiping the remains of her sandwich into the trash before disappearing into another section of the house.
All Loren could do was sit there, watching the rain come down, and suffer the chill that replaced his heat.
