Rex POV
“You haven’t started yet.” Elspeth groans next to me, where she had almost finished her colouring in but I couldn’t concentrate. I didn’t want to colour in, it seemed pointless.
“Everything okay Rex?” Miss Smith asks looking up from over her book.
“Yes, I might go to my room for a bit.” I wanted to be alone really. “Okay, I’ll call you when dinner is ready.” Miss Smith smiles, before putting my picture away for another time.
As I walk upstairs Alpha Pierce opens Mum’s office door and I see Mum sitting down talking to Uncle Noah, Reuben and Nate. As soon as the door is closed I spin on the spot and slowly creep back down the stairs.
Mum thinks her office is sound proof and it is..except for an air vent that is linked to the one in the small cloak closet.
No one goes in the closest, it’s for keeping coats and umbrellas…so a maximum of five seconds is spent in that room. But I hid in there once when I was throwing stones and accidentally hit Mum’s car window. She wasn’t happy! I finally came out when she had calmed down.
I slowly close the door behind me as I push through the coats and sit down by the vent down by the skirting board.
“Wonderful news, I think you all need some happy news right now. How about you Reuben, when are you marking Evelyn?” I can hear Alpha Pierce ask with a small chuckle. What does that mean, that they are mates?
A small burst of excitement takes over me but I quickly calm it down so I could keep listening. The excitement causes my heart rate to spike, like it does when I play hide and seek. I didn’t want to miss any words.
“You can’t help yourself can you?” Reuben responds with a tut.
“What?” Pierce pretends he doesn’t understand what Reuben means.
“We have a lot to figure out first, we have two packs, two alliances…we need to tell Rex and Elspeth first. They deserve to know the truth.” Mum mentions my name…what truth?
I can feel my wolf rumbling in my chest. I kept getting this weird sensation as if I knew something but I couldn’t quite see it…like my mind had curtains closed. Whatever it was, my wolf knew and he was keeping it behind those curtains from me.
“Are you sure about this?” I hear Reuben ask against the scrapping of chairs. They were standing up and leaving Mum’s office. I needed to move to stop myself getting caught. I didn’t want Mum or Uncle Noah to find out about my secret spying place.
I managed to sneak half upstairs and make it look as if I was walking down by the time they exited the office.
“Rex darling, can we have a chat? Elspeth?” Mum spots me on the stairs and calls out to Elspeth. “Here Mummy.” Elspeth comes almost flying out of the kitchen at the mention of her name.
“We need to have a little chat darling, shall we go in the front room?”
“Okay Mummy.” She skips into the sitting room without a care in the world, I used to be like that.
Once we were sat down, Mum made a point of sitting in-between Elspeth and I, holding Elspeth’s hand. Uncle Noah and Reuben sat in the sofa opposite looking tense. Is this what she was talking about in the office, that she needs to tell us the truth?
Evelyn POV
This was silly, I was nervous…too nervous. What would they make of our news, would they be angry that I hadn’t told them earlier?
Their lives were about to change, quite considerably. Not only were they going to find out that Noah would mark Cassandra and move out, but they would also find out that Reuben was their father.
How do I even commence a conversation about all of this? The smallest bombshell, that’s what I should start with.
“I don’t know whether you’ve noticed but Noah and Cassandra have been spending a lot of time together. Well they are mates and when you are mates, and you are happy to be together, you mark one another.”
“Daddy and Cassandra are mates? What about you?” Elspeth instantly airs her opinion.
“Well you know Daddy and I aren’t mates, that he is really Uncle Noah…” This conversation was already diverting away from what I wanted to get at.
“So Cassandra will live here, permanently?” Rex shifts in his seat slightly, turning towards me.
“Well, Noah is the Silver Moon Beta and when he marks Cassandra, she will become the female Beta. Traditionally the Beta family have their own house…”
“Beta family? Will you have new babies, will you forget about me Daddy?” Elspeth hugs her bunny teddy tightly.
I could cry at her sad voice and trembling bottom lip, this wasn’t going at all how I wanted. How do you go about telling children something so difficult.
“Never princess, you will always be my baby girl. I will still be here every day, it would just mean at night time I would sleep at my own house. But you would have a room there as well…if you would like that?”
I look to Noah whose eyes are just as watery as mine. He and Elspeth always had a close bond and I know they would continue to have that relationship.
“So then we would be just the three of us?” Rex asks but his eyes flash to Reuben. Damn, his question is a good one and I don’t know how to answer it. “Do you remember a while ago you asked me about your father?”
“Daddy?” Elspeth cuts in looking to Noah, who greets her with a supportive smile.
“Well Noah is your Uncle isn’t he, but that’s okay to keep calling him Daddy if that’s what you want to do. But do you remember me telling you, that one day you would meet your father, that he had things to do…that he was important.”
“Yes!” Rex answers cagily, his eyes reading my lips to ensure he doesn’t miss a word.
I pause for a second…
Breathe in, breathe out.
“Well, Alpha Reuben is actually your father.” I finally let go of the biggest secret I have held back from them for their entire lives.
Looking at Elspeth she didn’t really understand but she smiled at him as if this didn’t seem to upset her. Maybe in her heart she is just happy to have two daddy’s in her life.
Whereas Rex…Rex seemed to be having some kind of difficulty digesting the information. In fact he hadn’t even blinked.
“Rex?” I ask after he remains silent for too long, my eyes flashing to Reuben with slight concern.
“May I go outside please?” He says in a rigid voice, as if trying to control an outburst.
“Erm…sure. But not too far.”
We all watch him slowly stand up and walk out of the room. He doesn’t look at any of us, he just walks towards the kitchen towards the back garden.
“So will you marry Cassandra?” Elspeth asks Noah, her eyes lighting up at the possibility of a fairytale wedding. She’s just thinking about the big princess dress, I chuckle to myself.
“I’ll mark her in a ceremony back at her pack. She’ll be leaving her family to join us so it only seems fair for her pack to host it. We’ve been there already, the Blue Moon pack with Candice and Milo.”
“Oh yes, I love Candy.”
“Do you want me to talk to him?” Noah offers, as Elspeth happily starts to play with some toys, seemingly unbothered by the ground breaking news.
“No I’ll go, he should hear it from me.” I respond already standing up and heading to the back garden.
I find him seated alone on a bench, looking up at the clouds that were formed into different shapes. I join him on the bench only for him to not even acknowledge my presence.
“Talk to me Rex.” I sigh, I hated the silent treatment from him. Elspeth had it down to a t but Rex was always so even balanced.
“You lied to me, to Elspeth.” There’s a trace of resentment in his tone, something my Rex wouldn’t have.
“You are four Rex, I forget how mature you are. There’s things that you shouldn’t need to know yet, not until you are older. Please believe me when I say that I didn’t tell you at first because I wanted to protect you both.” I carefully place my arm behind him, stroking his upper arm to give him comfort.
“I think I’ve known for sometime, I could feel some kind of link with him.”
“And does that make you happy or sad?”
“Are you mates?”
He’s taken onboard more than I thought.
“It’s complicated…but yes we are mates.”
“Will he live here, live with us?” “Would you like him to live with us?” I’m conscious that he didn’t answer my previous question so I try to reword it.
“Yes I think I would like it if he lived with us. Is it possible with the two alliances.”
“We can look into our options but no matter what Reuben will always be in your lives from now on. He wants a relationship with you both.”
“Why now?” He keeps his eyes focused on the clouds above, one having formed into a boat shape.
“I needed to leave at the time because his pack wasn’t safe whilst I was pregnant. Then something happened… something I can’t speak of not until you are older. Maybe not even then. I blamed him for it, but he wasn’t to blame. It was made to look as if he was responsible, so I kept you and Elspeth from him. I’m not proud of what I’ve done Rex but I did it at the time with the information to hand. If it meant keeping you both safe, I’d do anything… please know that.” I was talking in riddles, which for a four year old was too much.
I’ve just told him about Reuben being their father, he doesn’t need to know why I kept them a secret from him, what I blamed him for.
He doesn’t need to know the tragic fate of his grandparents. My father would have so loved to have raised Rex into an alpha. I have wounds that will never heal, I know that.
“Everything okay?” We both look into the direction of the back door to find Reuben standing with a football in his hand.
“Do you want to have a kick-about?” Reuben asks Rex as he spins the ball in his hands. Just a simple nod comes from Rex as he stands up. Before joining Reuben on the grass, he places a kiss on my cheek.
I feel a single tear drop from my eye on to my cheek at my son’s acceptance of my reasoning. One day when he has his own children, he’ll understand the need to keep them safe. Like I did back then, like I still do now.
