Chapter 2

Shaking his head, Tristan said, “My mother always knew when something was wrong too.”

“It’s a superpower they have,” Pete chuckled. “Your mother never could hide anything from your grandmother and it used to piss her off something awful.”

“Pete! Watch your language!” Kathy scolded.

“Grandma, I’m not a child, anymore,” Tristan said, grinning. “I’ve heard much worse.”

“I’m sure you have but at my table, we don’t use that kind of language…as your grandfather well knows,” Kathy replied, giving her husband an admonishing look before turning back to her grandson.

Well here goes nothing. “Last night, when I was in the office, a man walked in and claimed to be my mate.”

Kathy’s eyebrows shot up, and a broad smile creased her face. “Tristan, how wonderful! Who is he? Do we know him?”

“There’s more to the story,” Pete guessed after studying his grandson.

Running a hand through his hair, Tristan said, “Yeah…when I laughed at him, he left.”

“You laughed at him?” Kathy asked, puzzled. “Why?”

Laying his hand on his wife’s arm, Pete gazed at his grandson for a moment before asking, “You don’t know about mates, do you, son?”

Looking down at the crumbs on his plate, Tristan shook his head. “Mom…we…never talked about… ”

“Oh, sweetie.” Kathy reached over and squeezed Tristan’s hand. “I’m sorry…”

Interrupting his wife, Pete said, “Tristan, let’s take a walk.”

Startled, Tristan glanced at his grandfather. “Now? But I…”

“Now.” Pete rose and led his grandson outside. “A walk will do us both good…especially after eating more of your grandmother’s blueberry muffins than either of us should have.” Without waiting for an answer, Pete headed for the forest surrounding their home.

Tristan followed his grandfather, paying scant attention to his surroundings. He thought about his grandmother’s reaction to his statement and from that, he gathered finding a mate was a good thing. But he’d already guessed that by the look on his mate’s face. Fuck, now I’m referring to him as my mate. Deep in thought, he never noticed that his grandfather had stopped until he bumped into him. “Sorry,” he mumbled.

Glancing over his shoulder, Pete smiled at his grandson, then turned back and pointed. “This was your mother’s favorite spot whenever she had a problem that needed sorting out.”

Looking around, Tristan found nothing special about the spot until his eyes followed the trunk of a nearby tree into the sky above them. “Holy shit! Is that for real?”

Chuckling, Pete sat down near the base of it. “According to your mother, this tree always made her problems appear smaller.”

Still gazing at the leafy canopy over him, Tristan murmured, “I can see why.” Then, claiming the seat next to his grandfather, he asked, “Did my mother come here often?”

“Probably more than I’d have liked,” Pete replied, thinking about his daughter for a moment before continuing. “When a man becomes a father, it’s the most satisfying and terrifying time he’ll ever have…especially the terrifying part. When my baby daughter was put into my arms, I stared down at her and, in a heartbeat, I promised her the world. Of course, little did I know it was beyond my capability to give her that, but then, I guess every new father believes they have the power to do anything when it involves their child.”

Lapsing into silence, Pete studied his hands, flexing them, noticing the wrinkled skin where it once had been smooth. He knew they weren’t as strong as they used to be, just like the rest of him, but in the end, it didn’t matter. No amount of strength could have prevented his daughter from suffering the pain Josiah inflicted on her.

“Your mother was stubborn,” Pete said. “When she made up her mind about something, no one could change it. Your grandmother claimed she got that from me.”

“Did she?” Tristan asked.

“Probably…maybe…but I always saw her as a miniature copy of your grandmother.”

“Grandma reminds me of my mother.”

“When your mother was born, she looked just like Kathy did when she was an infant. And as your mother grew up, the similarities were striking. I think that’s why I didn’t see myself in her.” Sighing, Pete glanced at his grandson. “When Josiah insisted your mother leave the pack, she begged me and Kathy to come with her, but I refused. I wanted her to go to the High Council and file a complaint against him.”

“My mother never would have done that,” Tristan murmured. “She loved him too much.”

Surprised, Pete asked, “She told you?”

Shaking his head, Tristan thought back to the day after his world had collapsed. Just after his mother died, in an effort to focus on something other than his loss, he began to sort through her clothes. He was curious when he found a bundle of letters, tied with a faded blue ribbon, in an old box at the back of his mother’s closet. Lifting them up to his nose, the faint scent of his mother prompted another round of tears.

When they finally stopped, Tristan poured himself a cup of coffee and, taking it and the letters, sat down in his mother’s favorite chair and began to read. Between sips of coffee and a time out for tears, he read all of them. When the last one had been slipped back into its envelope, Tristan knew he was the result of the love two people shared. And he finally understood why his mother was always sad whenever he asked about his father.

After reading the letters, Tristan came to the conclusion his father must have died before he was born because there wasn’t any other explanation as to why his parents weren’t still together—not with the kind of love they had. And when he discovered his birth record and found out his father was still alive, he was shocked. At first, he was sure there was a mistake, but after researching it further, anger replaced the sorrow he’d felt. Not only had his father deserted him, but he’d also forsaken the woman he’d sworn in his letters to love for the rest of his life .

None of it had made sense then, or even now; Tristan still couldn’t imagine that the man who wrote words of forever love to his mother could commit such horrific crimes.

“She’d never talked about her life here, grandpa. It was only after she died that I discovered the secret she’d hidden from me all my life,” he muttered, bitterly.

Pete looked off into the distance, reminded of the same tone in his daughter’s voice when she told him she was pregnant. She was so sure of Josiah’s love that she ignored all their warnings about him. And then, as she cried bitter tears of rejection, she vowed to leave the pack and never to step foot on its lands again.

Shocked at his daughter’s declaration that day, as they sat talking in the woods, Pete refused to accept it, but as the shadows grew long in the forest, he finally ran out of reasons why she should stay and fight. Silence fell between them, his heart broken at his daughter’s pain, but now determined to challenge Josiah. Later, though, when he announced his plan to Kathy, she talked him out of it, certain that the Alpha would prevail. “She’s going to need both of us,” he remembered her saying.

But that was not to be. When Pete played his final card—telling her they wouldn’t leave with her, it backfired. To this day, he remembered the look of betrayal on her face before she quickly masked it. Giving a brief nod, she turned on her heels and walked out the door, slamming it behind her.

Pete had stared at the closed door, sure his daughter would come back and ask for his forgiveness. Even when night fell, he remained there, not aware that it would be the last time he’d ever see her again. Kathy found him sitting there in the morning and gently took him by the hand, leading him into the kitchen where she handed him a cup of coffee.

He remembered sitting at the table, numb to everything around him as he stared at his daughter’s empty chair. It wasn’t until Kathy stroked his cheek that the reality of what had happened the previous day hit him.

“She left us, Kathy…our daughter left us.”

“No, she didn’t. She left Josiah because she had no choice. He’s the one who took our daughter from us.”

“If she only had listened to us.”

“ Children rarely do when they are in love.”

“I don’t understand why she left.”

“Our daughter knew it would be too painful for her to stay and see Josiah with another woman.”

“You should’ve let me kill him!”

“Foolish man. Getting yourself killed wouldn’t help your daughter or me. We both need you.”

“Not our daughter.”

“Especially our daughter.”

“What can I do to help her now? She refuses to accuse him.”

“What do you suppose will happen, Pete, if our daughter has a son and Josiah’s new wife doesn’t?”

“He should’ve thought of that before he threw her out like yesterday’s trash.”

“Yes…well, that’s all fine, but have you thought about the danger our daughter and her child would be in if that happened? Josiah would snatch the child from her and raise him here. ”

“Over my dead body!”

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. In the meantime, we need to stay here and keep our eyes on Josiah…and pray to the gods his new wife gives him a son.”

“Grandpa! Are you okay?” Tristan asked, alarmed at how pale Pete had become.

Returning to the present, Pete glanced over at his grandson, smiling at what he saw. His daughter had done well. Tristan was everything Josiah wasn’t, and even though his grief over his daughter’s recent death was still fresh in his mind, having part of her in his grandson helped lessen the sorrow in his heart. The gods had given him a second chance when Tristan showed up on their doorstep, and this time, he vowed to do better. “I’m fine, son…just the past coming back to haunt me.”

“Mom never focused on the past.”

“No, she didn’t…never did, even when she was a child. She was always looking to the future and couldn’t wait for it to arrive,” Pete said, chuckling.

“That was my mom,” Tristan murmured, his sorrow clearly reflected in his voice. “She was the best mother…I miss her so much.”

“She would be so proud of you now…Alpha of her home pack.”

“I don’t know about that,” Tristan said, warily. “She didn’t want any part of a pack. I never understood why, but it never really bothered me. Mom made sure I never missed out on anything, especially running with the wolves on each full moon to celebrate the Long Night Moon Festival.” Pausing for a moment as a memory from his childhood floated up to the surface, he chuckled before he continued. “I remember one time when I was about nine or ten, I told her I didn’t believe that the goddess of the moon was real and accused her of making it up.”

“You didn’t!”

“Yup, I did, and not only that, I told her the gifts kids got really came from their parents, and the goddess story was just made up to make them behave. And then I said she’d probably already bought presents for me that she’d hidden so I couldn’t find them.

“What did your mother do?” asked Pete, enjoying the peek into his daughter’s life after she’d left.

“She told me, since it was the night before the Long Night Moon Festival, to go ahead and search the house for the presents I’d insisted she’d bought. So I did and, of course, I couldn’t find any.”

“Then what happened”

“Nothing. She kissed me good night and tucked me in. It took me a long time to fall asleep that night cause I kept listening to her move around the house, waiting to hear her take the presents from wherever she’d hidden them.”

“Did you find out?”

“No…I finally fell asleep after I heard her go to bed.”

“And…in the morning?”

Laughing, Tristan said, “I got up before my mom and rushed downstairs, certain there wouldn’t be any presents.”

Smiling, Pete said, “But I bet you were wrong.”

“Boy, was I ever. From then on, I was an ardent believer in the goddess of the moon. It was years later when I was talking to my mom about that night, that she finally confessed she’d hidden the presents in the trunk of our car…the one place I never looked!”

“Because she told you to search the house, right?”

“Exactly,” Tristan replied.

“Your mom was clever like that,” Pete murmured.

“That she was…” Tristan’s voice trailed off as more memories of his mother filled his mind, reminding him of all he’d lost. Once again, he was mired in the thick, heavy mud of grief and, no matter how hard he tried, it wouldn’t let him go. It just kept sucking him down into his personal pit of despair. Furtively brushing away a wayward tear that had escaped, Tristan wondered if his grandfather was getting tired of hearing how much he missed his mother. I bet he thinks I’m weak.

Out of the corner of his eye, Pete caught his grandson’s attempt to hide his pain and understood immediately what Tristan was thinking. Putting his arm over his grandson’s shoulders, he said softly, “Don’t hide your feelings, son…it won’t help. It just makes it worse. Your grandmother taught me that and she was right.”

“I’m sorry,” Tristan whispered. “I know I’m supposed to be strong…I’m the Alpha…and there are times I can hear mom’s voice, encouraging me to go on. I swear I’m losing my mind.”

“You’re not crazy, Tristan,” Pete replied. “Ever since I found out my daughter died, I can feel her presence at the oddest times. And when I finally mentioned it to Kathy, she told me she did, too.”

Surprised, Tristan stared at his grandfather for a moment, then turned away. He wasn’t sure if he was telling him the truth or just trying to make him feel better so he asked, “Really? You think it’s possible that mom…”

“Yes, I do,” Pete replied. “I believe the spirits of the ones who truly love us never leave. Your mother gives encouragement because she knows you’re doubting yourself. You were born to be the Alpha.”

“I’m not sure about that,” Tristan muttered.

“ I’m sure about it,” Pete replied. “And I bet your mother thought that too.”

“I feel so unprepared,” Tristan admitted. “Reeve keeps telling me I’m a natural but I sure as shit don’t feel that way.”

“Give it time, son.”

“Yeah…well…maybe. It woulda helped if my mother told me who I was before she died.”

“I know…but she didn’t want to risk losing you to Josiah,” Pete explained. “So she did the next best thing…she left the documents that proved you were the eldest son of Josiah and had the right to claim your birthright. Trust me, Tristan. You are exactly where the Fates and your mother want you to be.”