Preyed (Hunted: Book Two)

Chapter Sixteen

 I look on in amazement at the mountain of food that sits on Rose's table. Rose has cooked enough food to feed three full armies.

"Rose, don't you think you cooked too much?" I ask.

She waves her hand, "nonsense. I'm feeding grown werewolf men. There is no such thing as too much food."

Seth sits down in a chair and grabs a plate, "this is what heaven looks like."

I laugh before grabbing the chair next to Seth as Gabriel grabs the seat across from me.

"So... where's Hunter? Too afraid to face his own family at the dinner table?" Gabriel asks.

Rose is silent and Gabriel looks over at her, his smile fading.

"Mom?"

She walks over to the counter before grabbing an envelope and placing it in front of Gabriel.

"What's this?" he asks.

Rose just silently takes her seat as Gabriel opens the envelope. Inside it are several pieces of paper. Gabriel reads what the first says out loud.

Congrats brother,

You win.

-Hunter.

"What's this mean?" Gabriel asks Rose.

"The next page."

He turns to the second page and looks up at me.

"He signed them."

"Signed what?" I ask.

"The paper giving away his rights."

"What? That's not possible. This is Hunter Wolfe we're talking about. He would never..."

The end of my sentence falls off as Gabriel holds the paper out. There sitting on the dotted line is Hunter's signature. He had actually done it. He signed away his rights. Instead of fighting for me, he gave up.

"Mia..." Seth starts.

I hold up at hand to stop him.

"No. No. I'm fine... I'm fine. It's fine."

"Little Wolf..."

"I'm fine. I didn't..."

I take a deep breath, "I didn't warn him to win anyway, so it doesn't matter."

"Mia, it's okay to be upset. The man was known to you as your father, you can be upset about this," Seth says.

"I'm not... I'm not upset. This is what I wanted so let's just have a nice brunch, okay? Rose cooked all this amazing food and we shouldn't let it all go to waste."

Everyone is silently watching me as I grab a couple of pancakes from the plate in front of me. I grab my fork and clutch it in my hand as my shoulders start to shake as I try to breathe against the crying. Dropping the fork on the table, my hands come up to cover my face as the sobs rack my body. I hear the scraping of a chair against the floor before I bury my head in Gabriel's chest.

"I know, Little Wolf."

"Why doesn't he want me?" I cry.

Gabriel pulls away, cupping my face.

"If he doesn't want you then that's his loss. You are amazing Mia and any man on the planet would be lucky to call themselves your father, I know I am. If Hunter doesn't want to be a part of that, well then screw him. You'll make him regret it sooner or later."br /He uses his thumb to wipe away my tears and I sniffle before taking the napkin that Seth is holding out.