The Alpha’s Only Daughter

Chapter 12

Layla’s POV

Our first day together was awkward. Especially after the scene he caused in the front lawn after damaging parts of the pack house.

I had never seen anyone shift within the pack house before, but I don’t think it would have caused nearly the amount of damage that Zane’s massive Lycan body caused when he tore through the house looking for Dante.

I guess I never understood the strength of the mate bond until now. My parents had never seemed to be attached at the hip and they surely never seemed to feel each other’s emotions the way Zane and I did. The only time I could remember them sharing anything like that was when Dad had been hurt and I was there to see her mind-linking him. I thought maybe the stories of the intensity of the mate bond were an exaggeration.

Until this morning, that is.

When I agreed to shower with him, I thought that maybe we would be partaking in some of the same activities we had explored the night before and that morning. I never intended for him to see my scar and then immediately feel my anger and pain towards Dante. Much less seek him out and punish him for past misdeeds. Not that I didn’t enjoy the show. But the clean up was a mess to coordinate. I had to start mind-linking omegas and various other pack members to begin the repairs as soon as we started assessing the damage.

I could tell Zane was remorseful and that helped quite a deal. He mentioned that he could reach out to his mother to see if there was any way to help pay for the damages secretly. Luckily, we had always had a pack house damage fund saved up for if the house was vandalized or destroyed in a pack war. I just never thought we’d be using it for a domestic disturbance.

Zane helped the most by working with the omegas to put the house back together. This not only helped get them closer to seeing him as the Alpha, but helped me catch up on actual Alpha work that had been accruing since the night before.

As I stared at the desk, there were a surprising amount of things I did not expect: proposals.

I guess my traditionalist mind could not comprehend how other packs could be so quick to discard the Goddess’s choice in our mates, so I just stared at them blankly.

I decided to mind-link Cami to get my mind off of them momentarily, Hey, Cami, did you hear that we’re moving to the Alpha suite tonight?

Duh, I’m already in here. I could hear the eye roll.

I wasn’t surprised, Are you helping to make it pretty in a “guy still has to live here” kind of way?

It won’t be any worse or any better than it was yesterday after I redecorated your room only for your mate to destroy it this morning. Her inner voice was upset.

Zane did not destroy the room, just the door. If you need to grab anything out of there to make the Alpha suite better, you are welcome to do so.

She was thinking, Only for now. I plan on buying some new things for this amazing room.

I laughed and felt a presence entering the office, I’ll let you get back to it.

As I closed the connection, I began to smell earth and smoke. Zane.

He came around the desk and my chair and leaned down to kiss my cheek and neck, “The omegas kicked me out once they started fixing the scratches in the floor, but everything else is done.”

“They are probably mad that they have to fix the floors at all. That has to be grueling work. I’ll need to reward them with a day off or something when they’re done.” I shifted the messy stack of proposals to the side to make room for the sticky note pad in front of me to write down the reminder for myself.

Zane’s eyes immediately went to the stack and he started fingering through the pages of proposals. I stiffened. Was he going to react the same way he did this morning?

“What are—? Are these,” he paused as his eyes read over the top page and then another page, “proposals?” He looked at me flabbergasted.

Turning my chair slightly to face him, I mirrored his face and shrugged, “I don’t understand it either. For starters, I take the Goddess’s wish for our mates very seriously. But also, this pack is not that big or powerful and I’m not that desirable to warrant all of these.”

His eyes darkened, he pulled my chair fully to the side to face him and got on his knees in front of me, pushing his way in between my thighs. He put a hand on my thigh and the other cupped my face. “You are the most desirable being on this planet. I would have been blown away by you, mate bond or not.”

I blushed, but I didn’t smile as I processed his words. It had been so long since I had been made to feel like I was a woman worthy of attention, or even able to be gentle or elegant. I knew that I was beautiful, but I had just been doing my Alpha duties for so long and had to constantly be strong for everyone as my father slowly crippled the pack with his absence.

He looked sad, “I do have a confession, though.”

Oh, no. Here it comes. My anxiety started to bud in my chest.

He sighed and gestured to the stack of proposals, “As jealous and possessive of you as these proposals make me feel, I’m afraid I wasn’t entirely as faithful to the mate bond sanctity as you were.” Disappointment was engraved on his face.

“Oh,” I was relieved. I thought he would explode over the letters and rampage through the house again. “I kind of figured as much.”

He looked a little shocked, but only blushed. “How did you know?”

It was my turn to blush, “Well, you seemed to know what you were doing already. And you had three more years than I had to, well, experiment,” I had to swallow my embarrassment. It was strange talking to someone I barely knew about s****l activities, but even more strange to me that we had partaken in said s****l activities together despite that.

“If you like, we can start experimenting together,” he voice was deep and sultry. It sent tingles through me and ran to my core where I began to ache for him. He leaned in to kiss me.

“See, I thought we were going to experiment in the shower this morning,” I teased him.

He leaned back and upon seeing my coy smile, shook his head at me, “I’ll never live this morning down, will I?”

“Not any time soon. When I meet your mother, this will likely be the first thing I tell her,” I said with a smirk.

He smiled, but his face was cast with a shadow of melancholy. He missed home. I saw him eyeing my cellphone on the desk.

“Do you want to call her to just check in?”

He lifted his eyes and looked into mine, I sensed his surprise, “Are you sure?”

“I know you’re having issues with your brother, but your mother should know that you’re okay,” I paused, debating if I should mention the mating, “and maybe about me?”

His eyes flashed. I couldn’t determine what was going on behind those blue eyes, but he nodded. I hoped I hadn’t crossed a line as I got up and offered him my seat.

“Thank you, Layla,” I could see his thoughts processing behind his eyes and I wondered what it was he was thinking about. If he had marked me already, then I would have been able to tune into his emotions and get an idea of what he was thinking. But for some reason, he hadn’t made the move to mark me yet.

I headed for the door, “I’ll be back in a few minutes. I’m going to go check on our new suite while you talk.”

As I closed the door I could feel his eyes lingering my way, so I stood with my ear at the door for a moment to listen to make sure he followed through.

I could hear him sigh after a minute and I heard the soft movements of him taking a seat in the office chair and picking up my cellphone. The momentary silence that followed was deafening.

“Hello, Mother. It’s me. Is it safe to speak?”