The Delta's Daughter Chapter 381

RHETT

The moment Jonda's eyes opened all the hope and fear melted away from me. I smiled at her and brushed her chestnut hair back from her face. "Beautiful, welcome back." I had cooed to her, giving her a genuine smile of my own and sending prayers to the gods for her waking from the coma.

Except that happiness was shattered when she scowled at me, finally focusing on my face.

"Where's Mike?" She tries to sit up looking around frantically. Her eyes scanned every crevice of the room with a deep scowl. It was not what I wanted to hear.

I felt something for Jonda, a connection, a pull. I wasn't sure it was love just yet but as I looked at the bite mark on her neck, the one I had given her, I couldn't understand why her wolf would not recognize me.

She was meant to have her wolf now that I had marked her. My bite should have broken her curse.

"Baby, take it easy," I tell her gently, even though my blood is beginning to boil with her dismissal of me.

"No." She shakes her head a little panicked now. "Where's my mate?"

Her mate? I thought I was her mate.

I quickly mind link the doctor and Queen Tala. Something wasn't right.

In her dazed state, Jonda looks down at herself, examining her hands, and arms, then moving down to the small bump of her stomach.

"I'm with child?" She asks in shock, jaw going slack and her once bright hazel eyes widening.

Before I could even confirm, the shock is wiped from her face and replaced with giddiness. "Mike is going to be so happy!" She exclaims with enthusiasm. "I know he wanted me to bear a pup for him. This is such great news!"

I didn't know what to say. Maybe she was still confused. "Jonda," I say slowly, drawing out her name. "What do you remember, do you know how you got in the hospital?" I try to hide the irritation and tightness in my voice. Rage builds inside me at the thought that she was still in love with Mike and carrying my child. A child she thought was Mike's.

I wanted to take her shoulders and shake her to sense. To scream at her that it's my child - I'm her mate!

"Huh?" She furrows her brows like she didn't know where she was. Finally, she looks around, this time taking in her surroundings, and shakes her head. "I must have passed out from the baby." She explains with certainty.

The pack doctor enters the room closely followed by Tala.

"Tala!" Jonda perks up again. "You are going to be an Aunt!" She beams brightly at her sister, yet the light doesn't return to her eyes.

"Welcome back Miss. MacTire." The doctor steps in. "You gave us all quite a fright. I'm just going to run some tests on you."

"Of course." Jonda suddenly appears nervous. "Can he step outside though?" She points to me making me rear back in surprise.

I give Tala a look and she ushers me out, "Let the doctor do his thing. Then we can discuss why she wanted you to leave." Tala says with a sympathetic look and gesture by placing her hand on my bicep.

I agree against my better judgment and my need to be near Jonda. I leave the room sullenly. Confused as to why Jonda would think the baby is Mikes and why she thinks he is her mate when I was standing right there.

I paced the hall for what seemed like a long time when the door to Jonda's room opened, and the doctor and Tala stepped out.

They both wore harrowing expressions. This could not be good.

"What's going on?" I demand an answer looking between the pair.

Tala twists her hands together and pulls her lips together grimacing, looking at the doctor to provide the answers. "Rhett…" She trails off.

"It seems Miss MacTire has some memory loss as to what happened to her. She doesn't know where she was and she believes Beta Mike is her mate and it is his child," The doctor cautiously tells me.

"It doesn't appear that your bite broke the curse either," Tala says with tears in her eyes. "And even though I told her it was your child and your mark on her, she refuses to believe it." It looked painful for Tala to tell me this, but as painful as the hurt I was feeling.

"In actual fact, we can no longer detect she has any spirit animal." The doctor says delivering the last blow.

I brush the idea of her wolf away. It doesn't matter to me if she has a wolf or not. "Will she remember eventually?"

"Hard to say," The doc says rubbing the back of his neck and pausing. "The marks on her body seem to be a permanent thing, the baby is healthy, but she seems to think you are not the father and doesn't recognize you as her mate. Trauma can do this; she could be blocking her kidnapping out." He tells me and Tala.

"Oh, goddess!" Tala clamps a hand over her mouth. "What did he do to her?" She says speaking of Senko.

"I thought maybe if you talked with her some more, held her hand, it would jog her memory." The doctor looks at me. Hope shone in his eyes, but it wasn't promising.

*****

MIKE

We left later than intended, due to me having my way with Lyric, letting her rest a little before the warriors and I packed up the stuff she wanted and loaded it into our vehicles. She slept most of the way back to New Moon, our hands tangled together as I drove.

I couldn't keep the smile off my face, nor could I keep my eyes off my mate. Her mark was deep and beautiful, appearing as a bolt of lightning a few shades lighter than her natural skin color. It was different, but beautiful all the same.

It was my permanent mark on her for all to see. As I looked at it, Duke swelled with pride and happiness mirroring my own feelings.

It's hard to think that only two months ago I was ready to reject her and take a chosen. Things may not have been smooth running for Lyric and me, but it seemed that things had fallen into place. The way the Moon Goddess had meant it to be.

I still held love for Jonda in my heart. I always would. Yet now it was a different love. The love I was feeling for Lyric grew with each day and every moment, I saw her for the female she is not what I thought she was in the beginning.

I almost woke her up several times on the way home, just so I could pull to the side of the road and take her again. I would never have enough of my female.

I couldn't wait to get home so we could figure out the dynamics of living together. I just hoped little Zane would welcome me as his father. I didn't really foresee a problem in that regard with Zane, maybe his wolf though.

That was going to be strange.

I couldn't even care if Lizzy stayed with us. She was Lyric's and Zane's family. That made her my family too. Although she would have to close her ears because I wouldn't shy away from fucking my mate when I wanted to. Not now, not ever. That thought led to wondering if Uncle Marcus and Aunt Viv ever had their suite soundproofed. I would have to ask my mother and father.

Finally, we rolled up to the back entrance of the palace. Kellen is there to meet me, holding Prince Connor in his arms and a perplexed look on his face.

I wake Lyric as the car comes to a stop. Groggily she exits the car and greets Kellen, stopping to say hi to the infant and wiggling his toes. "Zane and Lizzy are waiting for you in your suite." He tells Lyric picking up on her anxiously looking around.

As she turns her head, Kellen scowls noticing her mark. His nose wiggles as he scents the air, he grimaces. "Congratulations." He tells Lyric barely concealing his annoyance. If Lyric noticed his less-than-pleased attitude, she did a good job of ignoring it.

I waited until Lyric had hurried off to go see Zane, telling her I would be up shortly, planting a kiss on her temple before she hurried away. I was hoping some of her eagerness was to tell Lizzy and Zane about us completing the bond.

"What's your problem? I thought you would be pleased that Lyric and I finally accepted each other." I scowl wanting to get to the bottom of his harrowing and annoyed demeanor.

Kellen shifts Connor to his other arm and scratches his chin, not meeting my eyes. "Jonda woke yesterday." He says with no emotion.

I smile because that's a good thing, right? "Why are you not happy then?" I peer at him curiously. I mean I know Kellen and Jonda didn't have too much to do with each other, but this was his mate's sister. A female that helped us track Kellen down in Bhakhil.

A female that helped deliver Lamia and King's triplets.

"Well…" He draws the word out and takes a deep breath. "She's asking for you, Mike." I open my mouth then shut it again with his next words that floor me. "She thinks you are her mate and is excited for you to come home so she can tell you about the baby. She doesn't remember being held by Senko. And she doesn't recognize Rhett except he is a friend."

"No." I shake my head. "Tell me it's temporary?"

Kellen shakes his head, his dark blonde hair flopping in his eyes. "The doc can't say for sure."

*****

SHADOW

A few days later

I looked around the club, my subordinates lay scattered throughout. The idiot Garrison couldn't even get this right. Only a few men had been killed by a weapon or claws. The others seemed pale with no visible wounds.

"Poison master," Milo explains. "It seems whatever was used, attacked their muscles and eventually led to their hearts stopping. It was quick and effective. Impressive."

"What's not impressive is that the Beta got away, and it seems the breeder is still alive too." I would have tasted Garrison's blood, but upon learning they had all been poisoned, I thought it best not to.

I hated not getting my own way. And loathed when other people fucked my plans up.

The darkness gifted to me stirred and slithered beneath my skin wanting an outlet. A body to consume and destroy. A soul to harvest for Aodh.

I stepped over the bodies, some still grasping the weapons I had fashioned from Shayna's designs. Something crunches under my foot, I lift it to see what I had stepped on, thinking it was a piece of glass.

I was in a rage that I didn't have the Beta. He was right here. How could two dozen men fail to subdue him? I curiously look at the object beneath my feet and stoop to pick up the gold ring on the chain.

It looked like a seal, and the face of the ring had separated. I broke it off the rest of the way to find a small, what appeared to be glass, and no bigger than the size of a grain of rice, object.

Pinching the small object with my fingers, I hold it up to the light. The darkness slithers with excitement as it detects the tiny vile holds blood.

I cock my head wondering who and where it came from. I don't take too long to think about it and pop it into my mouth, cracking the vile with my teeth.

No sooner had the first drop of blood touched my tongue than I saw its secrets.

*

An Alpha stood with Arguis, Orion's twin brother, the late King of the Bears who Orion was responsible for his murder. Arguis gave the Alpha a box.

The vision changes and the Alpha stands with Abner Brooks, passing the box to him. The Alpha opens the box and I see a shimmering green stone set on a pendant of gold. The Earth Stone.

Abner takes the box, shaking the Alpha's hand. "I will keep it safe. Thank you, Eric, for hiding it all these years."

*

The vision ends and I sneer. The stone was never at MacTire. It had been with Abner Brooks the whole time.

"Milo!" I shouted now agitated that I had been looking in the wrong place this whole time. Was there still a stone within the Kodiak Kingdom? And was there still a stone hidden in MacTire? "Time to go," I tell him pocketing the ring and chain.

"The bodies master?"

"Leave them to rot." I hiss. The drug lord Werebear and his crew meant nothing to me. They were useless when breathing and more so now dead.

A few hours later we arrived back at the compound.

I strolled through the underground lab, looking over the charts of the young werewolves from Alpha Jacobson's pack.

"They are ready to receive their spirit animals," Milo tells me as he follows behind like a lost puppy dog.

"Good," I say feeling excited. This was one of my favorite parts - harvesting their spirit animals to gift to Aodh. "Prepare the males for harvesting and altering."

The males would immediately be altered, becoming my children, Changelings, and placed in my army. The females after being harvested would be put into the breeding program, where they would be artificially inseminated, or an egg implanted within them coded with my DNA.

If the females managed to deliver to term without dying. We would try again. If the child died, they would be altered.

"What about the wilds? The Beta killed over half of what we had."

"I have fifty more that went through the transformation perfectly," Milo tells me.

Pleased that something was going right I dismissed him and strolled to my quarters to rest. "Soon," I utter, unbuttoning my shirt. "Soon you will walk the realm again Aodh," I promise to the empty room but know he is listening when the darkness beneath my skin begins to slither with glee and the shadows in my room dance with satisfaction.

I feel his presence inside me, around me. I feel his power, his gift course through my veins.

I sit behind my desk in the corner of my quarters and begin to mark off my successful test subjects and go over ways to improve the formulas.

"Master, Petra is here to see you." I lay down my pen, flip the folder of formulas closed and look up at Milo.

He knew I didn't like to be interrupted. Also, Petra doesn't appear before me for no reason. She comes when I tell her or if I need more of her blood. So, I dismiss my irritation of being interrupted and replace it with curiosity as to why my daughter has come to see me unannounced.

"Show her in." I wave my hand gesturing for Milo to bring her to me.

"Father!" She cries with happiness. "I have found it!" I assume she is speaking of the stone I had tasked her to seek out in MacTire. But that is impossible as I have just seen who hides the jewel.

I lean back in my chair and rub my chest. I seriously cannot deal with her childish antics and desperate need to please me today. "You found what?" I reply with no emotion or care.

"The stone. Hidden in the tunnel of MacTire." She proceeds to pull out a small cinch bag from her pocket and pull the string open. Tips it upside down and something falls into her hand.

Immediately the dark marks and shadows that creep along my veins begin to swirl and reach out. Black smokey tendrils leap from my fingers towards Petra.

I feel the magic and taste it as the stone glows and swirls.

She had indeed found a stone. The stone of the sky gods. "Give it to me." I stand from my chair quickly, knocking it back, and reach out a hand for the stone.

Like the obedient child she is, she hands it over and once more a cruel and evil, but genuine smile covers my face. I begin to laugh. It's slow to rise and maniacal when it does.

I would have the earth stone soon enough, then I would only need one more. And I already knew the Werecat Queen Tawny and my first born the Grimalkin was in possession of it.

"Go back to MacTire Petra," I order, no longer interested in her presence.

"But father…" She begins to protest.

"I still need eyes and ears there." I sternly say and shoot a glare her way.

"They will know who I am." She replies forlorn hanging her head.

"Then you will have to figure out a way to make sure they don't catch you." I dismiss her with a wave of my hand. "Now go."

She turns and leaves, a sullen look on her pretty face. She was expecting more from me. She wouldn't get it.

Once gone I call for Milo again, still holding the silvery white stone in my hand. Soaking up its magic. "Are our friends in the north in position?"

"Yes, Master."

I nod, "Good, they will soon have a job. A stone lays with Abner Brooks."