giving birth when the father is an Alpha. Our young are too powerful, even in the womb. Only a pure-blooded born werewolf would be strong enough to live through the experience.”
Emelia looked sick, holding her stomach as if the words soured her dinner.
“Let me get this straight. You’re an Alpha, need heirs, and I’m your Luminary, the one who is supposed to give them to you, but since I wasn’t born a werewolf, I won’t survive the birth?”
“Right.” He nodded. “And neither will the children.”
“Holy mother, Drake! How can you expect me to be on board with all of this? I mean, last month I was fine. My life was fine. I mean, it sucked hard, but at least I could wrap my mind around what the hell was going on. This…all of this…it’s too much.”
Drake’s greatest fear unfolded before his eyes. He could sense Emelia shutting down and clamming up. He should’ve waited to tell her about the issues with having children. He should’ve saved the bomb for when her feelings weren’t so clouded by the mind-fuck of transition.
He tried to analyze his own feelings instead, but they were a jumbled mess of duty and honor and a pinching in his heart that smarted a lot like love. If being with Emelia meant that he would never have children, never have an heir, he’d have to be satisfied with that, and deal with the ramifications of the pack when they crossed that bridge. It was the only thing he could do.
But his decision wasn’t the only one to consider.
If Emelia mated with another wolf, she could have children just fine. In essence, he was asking Emelia to choose between a future with him and a future with children. The thought made his gut clench into a solid rock. The only way he had a shot was if Emelia didn’t want children to begin with.
“A month ago,” he said softly, “when you looked into your future, did you see children?”
“I just thought of something else.” Her hand went soft in his. “I’m not just Silas’s ticket to everything, I’m yours. Is that why you’ve been being so nice to me lately? Because you want to use me to satisfy some power trip and become Alpha? Is that why you’ve been letting me drive your car, taking me out, and—ah shit, I let you take me to bed.”
“Do you really think I’ve been using you so that I could take control over my pack?”
“I know I had a vision of who you were before I met you. The person I envisioned would’ve stopped at nothing to claim what he believed to be his. Two weeks ago, it wouldn’t have surprised me to hear that you were going to use me to get ahead in some twisted family game.” She closed her eyes and shook her head. What Drake wouldn’t give to know what she was really thinking. “But now, I feel something different. I don’t think you’d do something like that, but…hell, I haven’t known you long enough to know how or why you do anything. This whole thing doesn’t sit well with me. It doesn’t…feel right.”
“Think about it logically,” Drake said. “If I wanted to use you against my brother, I would’ve bonded with you already and moved packmates around to different corners of Seattle. There would’ve been some commands ordered. There would’ve been massive pack movement the second I heard you were in danger.”
“That easy, huh? Screw the woman, conquer the world? You know, like the line from that show?”
“I think you mean something else, but given the circumstances, the logic makes sense, doesn’t it?”
“Nothing about this makes sense, so you can’t expect me to rely on logic.” She took her last bite of pasta and pushed the bowl aside. “Sometimes you have to follow your gut and go with what you feel, and if you don’t know what your gut’s telling you, you wait until you do. Don’t you ever base a decision on feeling alone?”
As Drake thought back over every business deal he’d ever made, Emelia’s smile flickered like a half-watted lightbulb. Every move he’d made had been based on facts, including the decision to keep Emelia’s bar in his possession so he could invest in the area and ramp up business. He’d been right to keep the Knight Owl. When things settled down, she could run it. They would own it together. If profits didn’t climb, they’d sell it. Simple.
“You even measured out the seasoning in