The Lost Daughter

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

His tone makes uneasiness crawl across my skin and down my spine, despite the relative harmlessness of the statement. Though, even with his seemingly benign words, I doubt there's anything that could convince me that this man isn't as conniving as he seems.

"Isn't it?" Jackson drawls in response from across the island, no clear inflection present in his gravelly voice.

I turn my eyes to him instead, mostly just for a reason to take my focus away from his father and how uncomfortable his presence makes me.

Jackson's gaze is locked squarely on his father. His body stiff and still and unyielding.

"Willa," Sebastian says, dropping the subject and demanding my unwilling attention back to him and the pristine cut of his gray suit, the handsome face of a man much younger than him and his cold, calculating eyes. "I'm so sorry I couldn't be here for your birthday, your first one back. But I'm sure you all managed to find some fun, anyway."

His perfect smile stretches thin over his face, obviously pleased over whatever he's implying as he looks at me.

"Pretty boring night, actually," I retort. I know it wouldn't be hard for him to discover the party, if he isn't already aware of it, but there's no evidence of it right now and it's not in my nature to let someone I don't trust have whatever it is they're looking for. "But there's always next year."

When Blue bounds in a moment later, followed by Weston at his heels, I'm infinitely grateful for the interruption.

I don't even bother to greet my brother properly, I just shoot him a brief look of gratitude over my shoulder—which he returns with a nod of understanding—while I jump up to sort out food for Blue as he runs over and immediately tries to steal Zeus', nosing him out of the way.

"Good morning," Sebastian says lightly, presumably to Wes, though I don't turn around to check.

I crouch down next to Blue while he begins to devour his food, scratching his fluffy head softly as he does and stalling for time, mostly.

Weston skips the pleasantries, "When did he get home?" He asks evenly.

"Early this morning." Sebastian answers him, his voice losing some of its earlier charm.

This piques my interest, enough for me to open my mouth in an attempt to jump in and ask, my dad? But the words get lodged in my throat and I can't get them out. I'm stuck with only an intake of breath and frozen muscles.

Even after all these weeks, I've yet to call him that.

Dad.

I've heard my brother's call him that, and he's my father too, I know and accepted that weeks ago. But it's different to know that and to call him Dad. It's a personal and familiar word, too much so and enough that I can't even force the word out when I try.

So, I swallow the words down instead. Ignoring them. And I tell myself it's something I'll work on, later, and begin to brew a cup of coffee for my brother instead.

Jackson's father doesn't stay long after Wes' entrance, telling us he's going back to join our father in his office, thankfully.

I carry over the coffee I made for Weston—black with one sugar—and hand it to him as I retake my place at the island, Zeus close at my feet.

As the days leading up to the start of school pass, I fall back into the tenuous routine I've held over the weeks since getting here, though it's filled with a lot more attempts at house training and picking fur off of my clothes than it had before.