Page 28 of My Shifty Bodyguard

The thought of belonging to anyone who isn't Dax closes my throat like a fist. I make a sound. A small, strangled, awful sound.

"She's choking," my father bellows, eyes bulging with panic.. "Medic! Where is your medic? Somebody call a—"

"NO." It tears out of me, louder than I have ever been in my life, loud enough that two members of the Rowan clan reach for weapons. "Father. Shut up."

The silence that follows is the most complete silence I have ever stood inside.

I have never told anyone to shut up. It’s not on any list. It feels incredible.

"I love Dax," I say into that silence. "I need him. He needs me. We are fated mates, and now that I've met him I will never want anyone else, not if you searched every pack on the continent and lined them up in order of childbearing hips.”

“What?” he looks at me in confusion.

“I ache when he's not next to me. I feel complete when he is. I feel safe. And I feel-" my voice cracks, and I let it, because some things you don't get to say without your voice cracking "—understood. And approved of. Do you know what that's like? To be looked at by someone who isn't waiting for you to fail?"

My father stares at me.

And then, slowly, the granite comes apart.

"Yes," he says. "I do." He looks down at his own hands. "I had it with your mother. And I have not been whole since the day she died giving me you." He says it without accusation. "I built a wall around the last piece of her I had left. I told myself it was love. I see now it was just fear wearing love's coat."

I cross the room to him. I am aware of every step, and I do not trip on a single one.

"I'm sorry you lost my mother," I say. "I am. But you are going to apologize to Drusilla for ever making her feel less than my mother. Right now. She has been a mother to me. She gave you my brothers. She made us a home. And she committed who knows how many felonies just to give me a chance at happiness.”

For a long moment my father doesn't move.

Then he turns to his wife, this fierce, exhausted woman who shot an arrow into a tree for me, and the emissary of the National Council of Shifters—the man who decides the fates of packs—says, in a very quiet voice, "Drusilla. I'm sorry. You were right. You’ve given me and our family a beautiful life. You are not less than Violet’s mother. Different, but not less. I couldn’t have asked for a better mate.”

It takes a while to sort out the rest.

Rory Delaney is released with a box of granola bars, a map, and a Rowan-clan escort to the property line, where he scurries off to find himself somewhere with fewer wolves.

And my father—my father stands in the middle of pack headquarters with his arm around his mate, and looks at Dax, and squares his shoulders for one last round.

"I'll want a Truth Mage to confirm the bond," he says.

"I have already offered to pay for one," Dax says. "The Rowan clan considers it a matter of honor."

"And I'll want to know your intentions."

"I intend to mate her, protect her, and spend the rest of my life ensuring she is never again spoken to the way you spoke to her today," Dax says.

My father studies him for a long, long moment.

"She's accident-prone," he tries, weakly, one last time.

"She faced down a bear last week," Dax says. "On her own. I watched. I did not intervene, because she did not need me to. She terrified it into the next county. Your daughter is not fragile, Emissary. She has simply never once been allowed to find out."

My father is quiet.

Finally he clears his throat. "I'd like to see the town she keeps talking about," he says gruffly. "Cedar Run. I hear the downtown is something."

"It is," I tell him. "There’s all kinds of beautiful old buildings, and shops, and a farmer’s market every weekend.”

"Then perhaps," my father says, "you could show me."

Me. Showing him somewhere.