Small Town Love

Chapter 26

May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears.

Nelson Mandela

"That...That could have gone better," she said softly, when she heard the first harsh howl rip through the night, unable not to want to bury her face in her hands.

She wanted to burst into tears and rip people's heads off at the same time, needing to breathe against the pain Luke's refusal had resulted in that was growing in his chest.

Did he always need to be so damn idealistic?

She knew the answer to that because he wouldn't be the boy she had fallen in love with when he wouldn't be that.

"Where is he going?" She asked softly, not looking outside, knowing that if she even snuck a peek at the big black wolf she wouldn't be able to stop herself from shifting as well and running after him.

"That's my son retreating physically from a situation that could result in the most pain he ever felt in his life," Stephen Schuyler said shortly. "Give him some time ."

"We don't have time," Daphne retorted, burying her face in her hands. "I am going to hit the fucking ceiling if I need to see Cyril Randall ever again."

"Daphne, Honey, he's your father," Caroline implored softly. "He's...he's the only piece of your family that you..."

"No, he isn't," Daphne cut her off sharply. "He isn't my family, Caroline. You are. Matthew is, Ollie, Grace is my family. He's just the person that supplied half of my DNA. I don't know him, and I don't know if I want to know him," she brought out, her voice becoming more desperate by the second.

She wished he had never come here at all.

"I was...getting better, I was happy. I didn't want to think about Michelle anymore or about New York or everything that happened before I came here. I could just let myself fall into this place that Luke carved out for me and I didn't need to worry," she pressed out, unable to keep the tears at bay. "I want this life, I want early morning runs with Luke and him sleeping in front of my bed, and I want strawberry milkshakes and cotton candy, and I want my own room with a desk and a bed, and watercolour pencils...And I want to live my life without expecting somebody to slap me when when I wake up!"

"Daphne," Caroline whispered, but she couldn't help herself from starting to sob.

Daphne didn't want that anymore. She wanted the life she had built here in Fairbury, in that tiny town at the coast of Maine. She wanted that. All of that.

She wanted the walks at the beach and the icy winters. She wanted the werewolves and the paranormal world she had been introduced to. She wanted the football games that she still didn't understand and the Art Club lessons. She wanted to go shopping with her girlfriends.

She wanted to be a teenager. And she wanted Luke.

Daphne wanted him and needed him. He had been the first person in her life that she had loved...on her own, without a familial bond, without anything other but just the two of them.

She didn't care about mating bonds or a mating pull or anything else. Maybe that was the one thing that Daphne believed to be destiny. Or fate or whatever.

"It's going to be fine, Honey," Caroline whispered from in front of her now, pulling her into her arms, but that weren't the arms that Daphne wanted to be wrapped around her.

She wanted Luke. She wanted Luke and for her father to disappear from where he had come.

One of these things probably wouldn't happen. But she would make sure she got the first one.