Chapter 56: Derrick
Roman
It’s one thing to adore pups. It’s one thing to think that your mate is pregnant. But to see and hear the proof of it, to know that my pup is growing inside my mate’s belly, I’m not sure I’ve ever felt such love or fear in my life.
My overwhelming love for my mate is expected. But the love for this pup, this pup that I can’t even see, is completely unexpected. The fear makes perfect sense. I already knew that I couldn’t live without my mate. But I will never, ever allow anyone to harm my pup. And as that realization settles in, all the ways, all the things and people who could potentially harm my pup, settles heavily on my shoulders.
But I push that aside as my mate bursts into tears. Her emotions have been all over the place since I mentioned coming here.
They were before that too, but once the idea of a pup was in her head, I felt her emotions spike with everything that has happened and everything that still needs to happen.
So, I ignore the goo on
n her stomach and Dr. Nelson, and I scoop my mate into my arms.
“Tm carrying your pup,” she cries against my chest.
“Yes, you are,” I purr at her. I thought Pierce was going to bring the roof down he started purring so loudly when Dr. Nelson told us Samara was pregnant. “My beautiful mate is carrying my perfect little pup.”
“I don’t know why I’m crying. I’m happy, I really am,” she says, lifting up to make sure I see the truth in her eyes. I kiss her
nose
“I know. I can feel it, just like I can feel that all of this is a bit too much for you at the moment. I understand that too,” I tell
her, and I do. She’s been so focused on revenge for half her life that I’m not sure she considered what came after that. While I
have wanted revenge, I have also been running a pack and I’m eight years older than Samara Eve had more time to settle into
my
adulthood. Now, less than six months after turning eighteen, she’s got a family that will soon include four pups. It would be a lot for anyone, but when you add her sister’s betrayal and the emotional relief of finally getting her revenge, my mate is overcome with a myriad of emotions.
“How do you think Sloane will take it when she finds out I’m pregnant?” she says, as I slowly rock her in my arms.
“We’ll have to be careful how we approach that. She’s hurting and while I know you are too, this news is positive and exciting for both of us. Slade is too young to care, but Sloane is old enough to understand. I also don’t want to tell this pack until we
know for sure that we can trust everyone who is here. I’m not willing to put you or our pup at risk,” I say, looking up at Dr
Nelson who is cleaning off the equipment.
“Did you hear that, doctor? I do not want to tell the pack about this pregnancy,” I say sternly.
“It is not my place to inform the pack of any pregnancies. I inform the Alpha and Luna so you know if you have a warrior that needs to be pulled from warrior training, or you need to know why a pack member can’t shift or is feeling ill, but otherwise, I don’t share any information about pregnancies or anything else with pack members”
“Thank you,” I tell him: Then I look back at my mate as her tears begin to slow
“Why don’t we get you cleaned up and dressed and then we can go speak to my parents. I’d like to let them know I know they’ll be excited And when we return home, I’d like to make an announcement to our pack and assign you guards,” I say
“Guards?” she asks, looking up at me.
“Yes, guards. The two most precious people in the world to me are in my arms right now. I have no intention of letting anything happen to either of you Soon enough, you won’t be able to shift which will limit your ability to protect yourself. As you said, we have a lot going on. I won’t be around to protect you all the time, so I’ll be assigning guards to you.”
As I kiss her forehead, another thought occurs to me. I’ll assign guards to the pups too. There’s always the possibility that
someone will have a vendetta against Sawyer and Althea knowing what they did Sin for their pups. Id feel better knowing that they are always safe.”
I set her on her feet. “Better?” Task her.
She nods.“1 am, thank you. I’ll get dressed and we can go tell your parents,”
Sloane POV
they can’t get to them, they may try
“Why don’t we wait to go through your parents” things for another day or two,” Luna Devi says kindly. I’ve known of her all my life, but I’ve only met her a couple of times that I remember. I know she and Alpha Sterling left their pack after my grandparents and Uncle Theo were killed.
Killed by my parents
How could they do that? I think about Slade and Aria, I could never kill them. They’re my family.
“No, I’d like to go through their things before someone else does. What if they throw something out that I wanted to keep,” I Jsay to her
“They won’t, sweetheart. Roman and Samara wouldn’t allow that,” she says, but I’m not convinced. They killed my parents. They hate them. They might hate me, although they said they didn’t. I hope they don’t. I don’t want to hate them, but I’m so overwhelmed with sadness. My parents are gone. I’ll never see them again.
I feel the tears sting my eyes and Luna Devi’s arms come round me.
“I need to do it now,” I whisper, swiping the tears off my cheeks, only to have them replaced with new ones.
“Okay, let me get Slade down for a nap, then you and I can begin going through your parents‘ things,” she says.
I sit in Slade’s room while she rocks him to sleep. He doesn’t understand, like I do, that our parents are never coming back So, unlike me, he’s able to fall asleep.
When he’s tucked into his bed, Luna Devi takes my hand and we walk to my parent’s bedroom.
“If at any point you need to stop, just tell me. We’ll close the door and make sure no one bothers anything in the room until you’re ready to go back in
“Thank you, Luna.”
When we step into the room, my parents‘ scents slap me in the face like a reminder of everything I no longer have in my life. I nearly collapse, but Luna Devi’s arm comes around my shoulders, holding me steady.
“Is there any place you’d like to sta
start, sweetheart?” she asks.
I look around, feeling completely overwhelmed. The bathroom.” I can collect my mother’s lotions and shampoo so I can be
reminded of her scent when I leave here and I struggle to remember it
Luna Devi finds a travel bag that I use to put the things that I want to keep and then we step out
“The closet next,” I say, knowing that my mother had some jewelry that I want to keep. I may have to ask Aunt Samara if I can keep them Some of them came from her mother, so she may want them for her own pups.
go to where my mother’s large jewelry box is, and pull out the things that I want, setting aside the things that I think were my grandmother’s just in case Aunt Samara wants them. Then I dig around on the floor beside my mother’s shoes and find the secret jewelry box that she didn’t know I knew about It was hidden in a corner of the closet behind her shoes. I never saw
her take it out so I know that whatever is in it is important
When I pull the box out, it’s locked
“Luna Devi, do you see a jewelry box key anywhere?” Task her.
#25 BONUS
“No, but let me see the box,” she says. I hand it to her, and she extends a claw just enough to pop the lock. There you go,” she says, handing it back to me.
When I open it, I’m surprised to find letters. Maybe they’re love letters from my father to my mother. I open the first one and I
realize very quickly that while these are love letters, they aren’t from my father
“My beloved,
I understand your desire to maintain the white wolf bloodline. But I am of Alpha blood. Yes, I came from my father’s mistress, but she was his fated mate. His Luna was his chosen mate.”
Iskim to the bottom. It’s signed, “With all my love, Derrick”
I quicky fold the letter and open another one.
Beloved,
How can you resist the pull of the mate bond? Don’t you feel it? Don’t you feel the desire to be with me every day, the same way I desire to be with you?“.
I open another and another. It appears that my mother did break down and have a brief affair with Derrick, her fated mate, but
she never rejected him.
When I get to the last one, I can see that the ink is smeared, as if my mother or maybe Gillian cried while reading it and her
tears dripped onto the page, wetting the ink. In the center of the letter, there are three slices, like someone stabbed through
the pages with wolf’s claws.
Dearest,
I’m attaching a letter from my father. He’s ready to accept me as his son and heir. He says his son with his chosen mate isn’t
fit to run the pack. Do you know what this means, Althea? We can finally be together! You can be a Luna just like you’ve always wanted. You can continue the white wolf line. I love you so much and now we can finally tell the world that we’re
mated.
Come to me as soon as you’ve read this and we’ll celebrate before we tell the world our good news
With all my heart and all my love,
Derrick‘
I look at the letter behind it which also has
s claw marks through it. This page, however, is covered with blood. It’s not my mother’s blood. Even without my wolf, I’d be able to smell if it was hers. I have to tilt the paper to read it, but from what I can gather, it’s just as Derrick said. His father, Alpha Waylon, was calling him home to take over the pack.
I feel sick to my stomach. I may be young, but I know what this means. My mother didn’t have to betray her family. She could have mated an Alpha and become a Luna. She could have kept her white wolf line going. She could have been with her fated
mate.
I’m staring at the paper, deciding if I should tell Aunt Samara and Uncle Roman or not, when the choice is made for me.
“Sloane, what have you got
there?”
I look up to see Aunt Samara and Uncle Roman standing in the doorway watching me. I’d been so lost in what I was reading, that I hadn’t even heard them come in.
Cooper
So, now we know who Althea’s fated mate 1
