TEMPORARY MATES PERMANENT CRAVINGS novel Chapter 208

Two hundred and eight

Lisa POV

The afternoon passed quietly. Because of the sleep I had missed the night before, I kept drifting off on the living room sofa, my head falling against the cushions. I had a feeling Harry had mixed something into my tea to keep

me calm.

When I finally woke up, I walked down the garden’s gravel path to clear the fog from my head. By the time I came back through the glass terrace doors, my dad had arrived.

My mother, Alpha Kieran, and James were gathered in the living room. My father stood near James, his hands gesturing wildly. When his eyes found me by the door, he stopped, crossed the distance, and grabbed my shoulders before pulling me into a hug that smelled of cold wind and tobacco.

“I heard everything. Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

I opened my mouth to speak, but he already seemed furious.

“I told you not to do it. I told you it wasn’t worth it.”

“Richard,” my mother warned.

My dad spun around.

“This is all your fault. If you hadn’t been drowning in medical bills, Lisa wouldn’t have gone looking for desperate

ways to save you.’

My mom laughed harshly.

“If you had kept it in your pants, she wouldn’t have gone looking for extreme ways to save us.

“Mom is right,” James muttered from the corner. “You cheated and made things worse for everyone.”

My father glared at him before looking back at me.

“Maybe this isn’t the time to start blaming everybody,” I said quietly.

“But it is time to admit these people are dangerous,” my father snapped. “How does someone pay a woman to carry a child and then try to get rid of the baby at the same time? And now my daughter is getting attacked by some unstable Alpha. That’s the thing about rich people. They’re always hiding rot beneath polished floors.”

His eyes landed directly on Alpha Kieran.

Kieran didn’t react. His hands remained inside his trouser pockets, his face unreadable. The calmness only made my father angrier.

“This situation is unmanageable,” my father continued, pacing away from the table before turning back again.” Everybody here keeps talking about this like it’s politics instead of insanity.”

“Dad,” I started.

“No, Lisa. You’re coming home with me.”

“That’s not possible,” Alpha Kieran said evenly. “Her birth pack answers directly to Evangeline’s mother. Lisa is safer here than anywhere connected to that territory.”

My father laughed bitterly.

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“There it is. The Alpha attitude.” He spread his arms sharply. “You think saying something calmly suddenly makes it reasonable. Somebody already got into this house and tried to harm my daughter. How exactly is this safe?”

“Kieran has been helping us,” my mother said.

“And I’m her father,” Iny dad shot back immediately. “I have the right to protect my own child.”

“Nobody’s stopping you from protecting her,” Kieran replied. “But emotional decisions right now could expose Lisa even more.”

My father dragged a hand across his mouth.

“Everything I’ve heard since walking in here sounds insane.”

Nobody around the table argued with that.

“Sit down, Richard,” Kieran said.

“I’m not sitting down.”

“Then stop shouting long enough to think clearly.”

The words weren’t loud, but Kieran’s Alpha aura rolled through the room heavily enough to make the air feel compressed.

Slowly and unwillingly, my dad dropped into the nearest chair. His heels tapped unevenly against the marble floor while he stared up at Kieran with open resentment.

Kieran remained standing.

“We need to think logically if we want to keep Lisa alive,” he said. “Dominion is psychological conditioning reinforced through different methods. Cameron has been exposed to it and has lost his independence and emotional regulation. His instincts are reorganizing around the source controlling him.”

“And that excuses attacking my daughter?” my father demanded.

“No,” Kieran said. “But it explains why he’s unstable.”

“He’s not the victim here.”

I pressed my eyelids shut. Part of me still saw Cameron trembling downstairs, apologizing while blood ran from his nose, and another part of me still remembered his hands crushing against my stomach.

“He’s deteriorating,” Kieran continued. “But he’s still fighting it intermittently.”

“So what happens to the baby?” my father asked, turning toward me again. “If the pregnancy interferes with whatever they’re doing to Cameron, and they want the child gone, how do we keep Lisa safe until birth?”

Kieran was silent.

Harry walked into the room carrying a single printed sheet.

“I finished reviewing the compatibility results,” he said.

The room went still.

“And?” Kieran asked.

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Harry glanced toward me before continuing.

“The biological markers are abnormal enough that we can’t dismiss the possibility anymore.” He placed the paper down carefully. “Cameron and Lisa may share an interrupted mate bond.”

Silence swallowed the room whole.

“It’s not fully confirmed,” Harry added quickly. “But the physiological responses are consistent.”

“Absolutely not,” my father snapped as he stood. “That’s impossible. She carried a baby for him professionally. That’s all this is.”

“We thought so too,” Harry admitted.

Heat crawled up my neck.

The idea that Cameron and I could be fated mates had never crossed my mind.

“Do you love him?” my father asked, his voice cracking.

I looked at him, then at my mother, then down at my own hands.

“Yes.”

The word came out quietly, but it changed the room anyway.

My father looked physically ill.

“Oh, goddess.”

He sat back down heavily and rubbed both hands over his face.

“So let me understand this properly,” he muttered. “My pregnant daughter might be biologically tied to an Alpha who’s losing his mind while his supposed mate and her people want the child for ritual purposes.”

Nobody corrected him because that was exactly how horrifying it sounded.

He stood again.

“I’m taking her away from here.”

“You can’t,” Kieran replied.

My father pointed at him furiously.

“You do not get to tell me what I can do with my daughter just because you’re sleeping with her mother.”

“Oh, shut up, Richard,” my mother snapped. “This is bigger than your bruised ego. If the cult is already monitoring Lisa’s movements, relocating her recklessly could expose her immediately.”

My father muttered something under his breath and turned toward the windows.

Even after everything that had happened between my parents, I could still recognize fear when I saw it. He was terrified.

I walked over quietly and took his hand.

“I’ll be okay.”

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