Page 34 of The Alpha’s Unclaimed Mate

“I’ve got it, Uncle Marc.” Bella nudges me away from the cupboard when I reach for the bowls. “I can do it.”

“I’ll help with the—”

“I can do it!” Mia bumps me out of the way quickly.

I hold my hands up and surrender the kitchen to a nine-year-old.

The food goes down, soup and stacked sandwiches, and we all take our seats. Mia leans over her bowl and screws up her face. “There’s no carrot in here, is there?”

Jessa laughs. “I know you don’t like them. You’re safe.”

“You don’t like carrots, Mia?” I put in.

“I hate them.” She scrunches her whole face at the word.

Jessa shakes her head, fond. “She’s hated them since she was tiny. She wouldn’t touch one.”

I light up. “You know what, what a coincidence. I can’t stand carrots either. Never have been able to. Bella’s the opposite, part rabbit. She’ll hunt down every carrot on the plate.”

I look to Jessa, expecting the easy smile she gave me at the stove. Her face has gone pale, her eyes dropped to her plate, her sandwich forgotten in her hand. The change stops me cold, and I run back over what I just said and find nothing in it. I wonder what I stepped on.

Through the rest of the meal, I start to notice a pattern. Every time I turn to Mia, every time I draw the girl into the talk, her mother’s shoulders climb toward her ears. This isn’t the fear prey holds for a predator. She simply doesn’t want me close to Mia, and she watches every word that passes between us.

It makes no sense to me. A woman with something truly dangerous in her head wouldn’t have driven her child out to a stranger’s estate in the woods. So it isn’t fear of me. She’s guarding Mia from me for a reason she won’t say, and the not-knowing sets my teeth on edge.

When the plates are clear, Jessa sends the girls to wash and dry, and a question comes back at her instead.

“Can we have a sleepover?” Mia asks. “Please?”

“No,” Jessa answers.

“Please, please, please.” Mia drags the word out three ways. “Mom, please.”

“No sleepovers.”

“You’re so mean.”

“I know.” Jessa hands her a dish towel. “But we have to go home, and we’ve got a mountain of things to get done.”

Mia regroups. “Then can Bella come to our house?”

Jessa’s eyes cut to me, braced for my refusal, certain of it. I read it on her and smile instead.

“Not tonight,” I offer. “Next week.”

Jessa’s mouth tightens. “The girls can see each other in the daytime. Sleepovers are harder. Bella’s probably never had one, and neither has Mia. What if Bella misses home? It’s a long drive back out here from town.”

Both girls open their mouths to swear they’re big enough, that they can absolutely manage, and I cut across the noise.

“I can deal with it. It’s no problem.” I shrug.

“You just can’t make things easy for me,” Jessa mutters under her breath, too low for a human ear. My hearing pulls it out of the air, and I keep the smile to myself.

Then the wolfsbane surfaces in my mind, the worry I’ve held at the back of my skull over the past few days. I have an investigation to run tonight, and I don’t want Bella alone in this house while I do it. Better she’s in town, watched, with another child for company.

“You know what,” I announce, “if you girls want Bella over tonight, she can go.”

Jessa’s head whips around, her eyes going wide.