Page 106 of A Half-Blood’s Escape
"It wasn't her."
"How unfortunate," I just said, not sure what any of this had to do with me.
"It was your mate. Your queen."
My world seemed to stop for a moment, just like my heart, as his words slowly sank in.It was your mate. We stared at each other for a little while, and I saw out of the corner of my eye, Ace turning his head, looking at me.
"What?"
"She accidentally bumped into me at the party," he told me. "She looked so much like her ..."
His voice turned quieter towards the end, and he squeezed his eyes together in pain, and then I saw him rub two fingers right over where his heart was. I could never let go of Lara. She was my world now, so I could only imagine the pain Aaron was in, but now that he said this, I started to see some similarities. The eyes especially. Lara had the same color eyes and hair as him ...
"I never knew ..." he whispered. "She never told me ... She wasn't pregnant when I ..."
He squeezed his eyes harder together, before finally looking like he was able to pull himself together and look at me.
"She never told me, but she looked just like her ..." he said.
"When was this?" I asked.
"Almost twenty-three years ago that I made the decision to leave," he said.
Lara was twenty-two ... Goddess be damned, this was too much of a coincidence, wasn't it? I mean, it was true, wasn't it? Lara had never met her father, her mother was dead, and she was raised by that piece of shit stepdad. She thought her father had abandoned her, but the truth was ... if this was really true, that Aaron never knew, but this also meant ... fucking hell, Lara was the daughter of an alpha! Yet this might actually be good news after all I quickly realized.
If Lara was the daughter of an alpha, she was more than perfect to be my queen. Maybe there would still be some doubt, but it was harder to fight against it now. We needed to do a damn DNA test though since I knew those old fuckers would need some proof that this was true, but what about my little mate? How would she take the news? She had been smiling so much lately. Laughing and letting down her guard, and now I was going to throw this at her. It seemed almost cruel.
"She is my daughter, isn't she?" Aaron asked, placing his elbows on the table, and then started to rub his forehead. "I tried going over it many times. I tried to find holes in my theory, but every time I go over it, it just seems more and more true. Laura was a damn angel, even when I told her I couldn't stay with her, she let me go. She told me she understood my world was different, and that someone else needed me more. She told me she would always love me, and there was nothing that could make our time go away, and that she had a piece of me in her to remind her of me ... I thought she meant figuratively, but now I fear she meant something else."
Wolves and vampires were quite fast to notice if something changed about their partner like a pregnancy, but maybe Aaron was too distracted or Laura wouldn't let him close enough when it was clear he was pulling away, or maybe it was just too hard to believe. I wasn't sure, and it was hard to figure out now. We couldn't go back, and Lara's mother was dead now. Damn ... that was why he looked like that. It wasn't just the news of Lara being his daughter, he must know that Laura was dead. Maybe Lara told him, or he had done the research himself. It was clear though, that this weighed him down.
"We need to do a test first, but from what you are saying, it sounds very much like it could be true," I said.
He sighed, continuing to rub his forehead, not able to really wrap his head around this, but then finally he looked up and nodded.
"Yes, let us do it."
"Let me talk to her first though," I said. "Lara thinks her father abandoned her and her mother. She ended up all alone after her mother died because her stepdad had a gambling problem."
"Fuck ..."
I could hear all the pain and guilt in his voice, as he learned his possible daughter had ended up in such a place with such a bad person, and he hadn't even known she existed. There was time to make up for all of it though, and then hopefully something good could come out of this. Lara could be mine without anyone complaining and maybe my little mate could get a parent again. She deserved to get a second chance, and I believed Aaron did too. He didn't seem like a bad person. He just didn't know.
"She might need some time to come to terms with it as well," I said.
He nodded.
"Of course, I understand. I needed a few days too."
"Okay, then I will go back and–"
My phone rang and I saw it was Gabriel calling me. I looked at it confused and then answered it.
"Hello?"
There was silence at first, and I was confused as to why, but then I heard a shaky voice on the other end:
"Hey, it's me ..."
