Page 89 of New Blood

“Because I showed them to her before she died. But they weren’t in her things nor among Dad’s. I found them in the boxes with Cameron’s stuff.”

Jude exchanged a look with Danielle. She leafed through the letters in her hand as if searching for something specific.

“Were these all the letters?” Danielle asked, her voice urgent. “There’s one missing.”

“What?” Eve asked. “How would you know that?”

Instead of replying to Eve, Danielle looked at him. “The letter my mother gave me to take to William so he would help me. It’s not among them.”

Jude nodded. He knew exactly what she was talking about. He looked at Eve. “Were there any others?”

She shrugged. “When I found these, I stopped searching.”

Before he could say anything else, a loud noise interrupted him. He turned on his heel and looked out the window, just as a helicopter was landing on the meadow behind the house.

“Fuck!” he cursed.

His time was up. The Werewolf Alliance was here to take him back to Bozeman so he could be punished.

“What’s going on?” Danielle asked, panic seeping into her voice.

Jude looked away from the window and put his hands on her shoulders, making her look straight at him.

“Somebody notified the Werewolf Alliance that I mated with you rather than with a Gallagher woman. They’re coming to remove me.”

“No!” Danielle cried out. “They can’t do that!”

“They can, and they will. I had my orders, and I defied them. I’m sorry, baby.”

Tears welled up in her eyes. “It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have stayed. Now I messed up your life.”

He shook his head. “Never believe that. I knew what I was doing, and I did it anyway. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Nothing is gonna change that.”

Just as long as the Werewolf Alliance didn’t punish him by separating him from Danielle.

47

Stunned, Danielle watched as two men entered the office. They were older than Jude, but it was hard to tell their real age since werewolves didn’t age the way humans did.

“Hendrik? Lars?” Jude greeted them in surprise. “I didn’t expect you to show up yourselves.”

“Yeah, well…” one of the men said, then directed his gaze at her and Eve. “Leave us.”

The command was spoken with such authority that even Eve instantly followed it. As they exited the office, one of the men shut the door behind them. For a moment, Danielle just stood there, her brain flooding with too much information. She was still reeling from the shock of having seen the letters between her mother and William, letters she still held in her hand now. She’d only needed to read a couple of lines to recognize her mother’s neat handwriting, but now, with everything that was on the line, she needed to read all of them. She needed to find out what had happened between her mother and William. And more importantly, when it had happened. It would make all the difference. In fact, if she was right, it would solve Jude’s problem with the Alliance.

“The letters aren’t dated,” Danielle murmured to herself. How would she be able to figure out when her mother had written them?

“That’s why I thought they were from you,” Eve said in a clipped tone. Almost as if she wanted to apologize but couldn’t bring herself to do it. “Anybody would have thought they were between you and…”

She broke off and turned abruptly.

“Eve, please,” Danielle said and put a hand on her shoulder to stop her from walking away. “Are you sure you found the letters in Cameron’s things and not in William’s?”

She spun her head around and snapped, “Of course I’m sure! And if you don’t believe me, ask Flora. She found them and gave them to me!”

Not waiting for a reply, Eve ran across the foyer and stormed upstairs. Still standing in the middle of the foyer, Danielle stared at the letters and began to read page after page. The more she read, the more it became evident that her mother had been in love with William. And if William had been in love with her, it was reasonable to think that he’d kept the letters all these years. So why were they found among Cameron’s things? How had they come into his possession? Had he too suspected that they were love letters between her and his father? Was that the reason Cameron had always treated her with disdain? Or was there something else Cameron had found out? Something that had given him an even greater reason to hate her?

Determined to find out the truth, Danielle crossed the hallway in the other direction and entered the kitchen. Just like she’d expected, Priscilla was starting to make preparations for dinner.