Out of all the arguments I expected from him, an apology never featured among them. “Dad?—”
“You’re an alpha, Mandi. And you’re my daughter. The second is more important than the first, and I’m sorry for thinking you were anything less for being moonlocked.”
He slides his hands into his pockets.
All any of us can do is our best. I had no doubt my father did his best, but he also had generations of tradition on his shoulders, the teachings of alphas and elders past telling him how to think, how to act. How to protect the people he cares about.
“I was a liability for you.” My shrug is a defense mechanism.
The second I realize it, I force my posture straight.
“You’re my daughter. Nothing else should have mattered. I treated you as less than and there’s no excuse for it, Mandi, absolutely none. You showed heart and compassion when life tried to beat it out of you. And I’m sorry for not trusting you about Grayson.”
My heart flutters at the mention but I press my lips tight, not trusting myself to stay composed.
“You’ve always been stronger than me.” Dad pulls me into a hug.
Seconds tick before I return it, breathing in his familiar scent, the weight of his arms keeping me contained. Oh.
Shit.
“I love you, honey. You’re the leader the Ironwood pack deserves.”
I clutch him closer. “I don’t know how to lead.”
“We have time. I’ll…teach you, if you like. We can do it together.”
Dad’s passing the alpha torch to me. Kinda. Sorta. And instead of worrying, the knot in my chest eases.
“I do have a few ideas,” I mutter to him.
He chuckles. “I thought you would. Now, go tend to your young man. I’m excited to see where that beautiful heart of yours will take you.” He steps aside. “But please come see us soon. Okay? Don’t stay away for too long because of an old man’s mistakes.”
Dad glances through the door to the open room where Grayson is stirring, impatient, on his cot.
“I think you two deserve a little privacy first, though. To figure out exactly who you want to be.”
He kisses the top of my head and I stand rooted to the spot as he walks off, his hands in his pockets.
None of the things I thought I’d say to him made it to light. They don’t need to, not yet. There’s time for us. I’m not sure if we would have had this time if I hadn’t rejected everything I’d been taught to want.
Crazy, how those things work.
I’d missed my family and the routine we used to have with each other, the comfort of our neat and ordered life.
Every choice I made risked taking me farther from them. What could I do now? What could I be now, with this opportunity?
An alpha?
I didn’t want it, not yet. But maybe I could one day. Once I got to see the world and how I fit in it. Me, through a different lens.
My pulse picks up at the prospect. The adrenaline in my system hasn’t settled yet. Dregs of it slow release like I’m waiting for the next bad thing to happen.
I am.
Life hasn’t shown me otherwise.
But when I look at Grayson and find him watching me with a small smile, when he points to the place between his eyebrows where I know my own lines have deepened, I think…