I stared down the two of them then, my back stiffening.
“Logan thinks he can strongarm me and Reed doesn’t want to have anything to do with Ev. And I’m not sure Damon should be allowed near any children. He seems just as likely to get them playing with kerosene and matches for fun. And Jasper…”
“No one gets near the cub if they aren’t acting in her best interests.”
Haze growled the words and both Riley and I came to attention, because that was the magic of alphas. They could make statements like that, and people had little choice but to believe them. Our breaths whistled out at the same time as Haze’s assurance washed over us.
“OK,” I said finally with a nod, “I think we’re all in the same place. We do this for Evie.”
“We do this for Evie,” Riley promised.
Chapter 29
I tried to keep that principle in mind when we met up with Ben after I was able to prise my daughter out of the ‘bullpen’. She’d come out in a rush, face flushed, talking excitedly about what she’d gotten up to and how she’d beat some of the boys in her game and that’s when I saw it. In her eyes and in those of the boys, there was this sharp flash. They were like young animals, wrestling and tumbling, playing, ostensibly, but also laying the groundwork for what they were to become. By testing themselves against others over and over, they worked out where they were strong and what they needed to work on.
“So are we going to see Dad now?” she asked as we walked towards the lift.
“He should be waiting for us downstairs.”
I’d texted him after I’d finished with Riley, so I was expecting him to be there when the lift door opened. The fact he was leaning on a concrete pillar, a study in nonchalance, shouldn’t have come as a surprise at all. But when he saw us, when Evie called his name and went running towards him, my eyes went wide. I looked over him hungrily, taking in the way he filled his tight jeans and plaid shirt, his biceps flexing as he swept Ev up into his arms and then, lastly, settling on the way he held her perched on his hip without effort, something I’d lost the ability to do years ago.
“How was the session, cub?” he asked her, but his eyes strayed to me. They seemed to sparkle as we both realised I’d stepped out of the lift and not got any further, just staring.
“It was soo good! I didn’t want to go at first. I told Mum I wanted to be with you.”
“Evie…”
“But you said I should try things first before I say no, and I did! It was awesome. I beat Brayden so bad at Super Smash Bros. He was going to sulk about it, but Blake stepped in. He helped him calm down. He also told me to stop teasing him.”
She frowned slightly at that.
“Nothing wrong with winning,” Ben said, “but rubbing it in someone’s face? No one likes that, do they?”
“Blake said that too.” I watched her lips thin, moving as she seemed to mull over the advice. “Then I lost to Rohan so I knew how that felt. I said sorry to Brayden.”
“Good job, Ev.” My daughter had her father’s whole attention right now and she gazed shyly back at him. “Seriously. I know it’s hard. It really is. Something inside you wants to grind them into the ground, make them see that you’re the winner and they’re the loser.”
“That’s what I wanted to do so bad.” She searched Ben’s face, as if needing some kind of external evidence to confirm what he was saying. “My teachers always tell me off for being a bad winner, but what’s bad about winning?”
“It’s bad if it hurts someone else,” he replied in a much softer tone. “Being an alpha means being strong, being the kind of person that others want to follow. If you’re hurting other people to make yourself feel good, then you’re just being a bully.”
My heart caught in my throat as I saw her brows jerk right down. There was nothing Evie hated more than being called a bully. She’d copped enough shit from groups of kids ganging up on her to hate it. But I watched her consider what he was saying with that kind of ferocious intensity she always displayed, pulling the logic apart and looking for flaws in the argument until finally…
“I don’t want to be a bully.”
Her voice was so much smaller now and I saw the alarm in Ben’s gaze when he caught the moment she started collapsing in on herself. For a moment he just stared down at her, nostrils flaring, muscles tensing before he shifted her until she was plastered against his chest. She pressed her face into his shoulder as her arms wrapped tight around his neck.
“You won’t be, baby. You’re a good girl who needs a bit of help. Mum and I are with you every step of the way.”
“Really?” Ev’s voice was muffled.
“Really.”
I stepped forward then, nodding to Ben in recognition of the moment and he smiled, but not for long. Wonder pushed that aside, and when he stroked his hand down our daughter’s back, his eyes entirely trained on her, I started to think this might work.
“I was thinking I’d take my girls out to dinner,” he said finally.
“Oh, I’ve got to go and—” I began to say.