Small Town Love

Chapter 25

Blood makes you related. Loyalty makes you a family.

Anonymous

Daphne knew fear. Really, by now she should know that feeling far better than anything else.

Just that his time she could feel the wolf in her chest on high alert, she could feel it move in the back of her head, could feel it worry as well.

It was a startling experience.

It was there during the drive home when the car was as quiet as a tomb, only sometimes interrupted by Grace asking Ollie a question. Luke next to her was quiet and lost in thoughts, not even holding her hand like he was normally prone to do.

She didn't dare to reach out either. She didn't want to make him upset with her. Well, not even more upset than he already was.

Daphne wrecked her brain with asking what she had done?

What could she have done that made Luke's father this angry?

She hadn't done anything over the last few weeks. She had gone to school, she had done her homework on time, she had gone to art club...she had gone to all the evening runs with the pack...

Daphne didn't know the answer to that question.

She had done nothing different than any other time before that. Nothing different that could explain why Luke's father was angry at her.

His anger was scaring the out of her.

What had she done?!

She didn't know .

And she hated not knowing.

Her mother had often enough punished her for drinking her alcohol. Daphne never had, but it wasn't like Michelle had believed her when there was no alcohol in the house and her mother was in another one of her moods.

Daphne just hoped that that evening wouldn't end in a mess of bruises for her.

The reed house came into view, finally, the torture of not knowing coming to an end.

She wanted to relax, wanted to take a deep breath and tell herself that it couldn't be that bad, but then she looked outside and she saw a black SUV that she had never seen before.

It was a very rare occasion that there was any sort of new car in Fairbury that Daphne didn't know by now.

She wasn't the only one that put on high alert.

It was Luke that opened his car door first and the way his spine straightened and he snapped to attention, told Daphne that something was wrong.

"Luke?" She asked him timidly, watching how his nostrils were blaring, obviously taking in the scent of something and she tried to pull that to the forefront of her mind as well.

It was something sweet, too sweet. Maybe like burnt sugar? Daphne had smelled that before, even when she couldn't quite place it at the moment.

"Cyril Randall is here," Luke answered, his voice tight.

Cyril Randall.

So it must be something with her book.

Daphnejsut had no idea why that would make Luke's father upset.

She opened the door of the car, slipping out, and was quite surprised when Luke appeared at her sid, taking her hand in a gesture she could only describe as possessive.