Chapter Seven

Rylan

Deacon and I sat there stunned. Unsurprisingly, Pearl didn’t react to Estella’s revelation, which meant that she knew or suspected something like this.

“You knew about this?” I asked incredulously.

“Sort of. She didn’t belong in that place, and I knew she’d be able to help us. I’m not sure how. Gut feeling I guess.”

My brain seemed to be short circuiting because I was having a hard time grasping the news. Estella was my aunt’s sister. How come I didn’t know that she had a sister?

“We’re related, then,” I whispered, having mixed feelings about it.

“I suppose I’m your aunt too,” she replied sheepishly.

Estella looked the same age as everyone else sitting at the table. If her and Pearl’s story was true, that meant that she had been in limbo for a century or more judging by how old my aunt looked. Never aging. Staying the way, she’d been when her and her wolf had been ripped apart.

“I never knew.” I wondered what Ledger would think of this.

“That’s why I needed your help to get her back.” Pearl placed her hand on my arm. It was a comforting gesture. “You’re her family.”

“I needed a family member that’s an alpha to call me back. I waited so long.” Estella looked at me with tears in her eyes.

“It also helped that you are the alpha,” Pearl added.

“I’m honored to have helped you return,” I said, meaning every word. “Excuse me for a moment.”

I pushed my chair back and rushed out of the kitchen, down the hallway to the room Pearl and I slept in. My mind reeled over the fact that I had another family besides my uncle’s. Unbidden, my thoughts turned to the past and how different my life would have been if there was someone else to take me in.

Everything that I thought I knew about my past was now in question. The power my aunt had wielded at the Gala was unheard of, but it also made so many things make sense. My wolf encouraged this train of thought, even revealing that some of my actions were made against my will.

I would never betray Pearl and her family, but I was forced to. My aunt had manipulated my memories and my actions. I hadn’t wanted to leave the pack and travel around, learning to be a beta, but there was an unconscious urge that forced me to go.

Sitting on the bed, I grabbed my head, squeezing my skull and trying to figure out how much of my life had been my aunt’s manipulation. It made me question everything. My feelings and confidence took a hit.

“Hey, man.”

I turned toward the door and found Deacon leaning against the frame and watching me with a concerned look on his face. “Hey.”

“Freaking out a little bit or a lot?” he asked like he knew what I was feeling and thinking.

He’d always been that way though. He had a way of understanding emotions and empathizing with them. It was a great skill to have, and I knew he’d make a great alpha one day.

“A lot.”

How could I not? Everything from last night and now, the revelation that I had family all along, was too much. Not to mention everything concerning Pearl, who was obviously feeling urges from our incomplete bond. If I let myself dwell on it, urgency would take over my mind, but I couldn’t let it. Now was the time to be levelheaded, and thinking of completing the mate bond was a distraction I couldn’t allow.

“Have you heard anything through your pack bond?” Deacon asked randomly.

It took me a moment to think about it and then feel around in my head before I could answer him. “No, and I don’t feel it anymore either.”

“It’s the same for me,” he replied thoughtfully. “I have a theory though.”

Of course, he did.

“What’s that?” I was thankful for the distracting topic.

“When you did your alpha power move last night, I think it severed our connections to our packs.”

Alarmed, I stood up and started pacing the room. Wolves couldn’t survive separated from the pack. We had a pack mentality just like wolves in the wild did. We needed touch and a place to belong. If one was separated for too long, the wolf would eventually turn feral.

“Shit, shit, shit.” Was Pearl alright? Was she feeling the effects yet? Was I?

“Calm down,” Deacon said, and like he’d flipped a switch, my mind settled. I sat on the bed again.

“Are you feeling the effects?”

“No, which brings me to my next theory. I think your power severed our connection to our packs and then reformed with each other.”

“Are you saying that I inadvertently created my own pack?” I was stunned. That sort of power was rare. So rare, in fact, that only one shifter in our history had ever accomplished it.

“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying.”

“How?”

“I don’t know, but maybe it has something to do with being the alpha your mate spoke of.” Nothing got past Deacon. He impressed me.

“You figured it all out, huh?”

“No, they’re just theories that may or may not be true.” He smirked like he knew he was riling me up and enjoying it.

“It makes sense actually,” I mused, thinking of the heightened urges to complete the mate bond, along with Deacon’s intuition that seems extra touchy lately. “Can you feel me?”

“Sort of.” Deacon’s brows bunched together as if thinking about it.

“I can sense you when you feel something big. That’s why I interrupted you this morning.”

I thought back to what I was feeling with Pearl earlier. I was overcome by her, but there was also a part of me that was panicking. Pushing her away wasn’t an option, neither was completing the mate bond at that moment. There was so much that I had to focus on that mating should be the furthest thought from my mind. It was aggressively at the forefront, though.

“It only gets worse the more you deny yourself and her.” Wise words from an unmated male wolf.

Why was I the chosen alpha again? It made much more sense for Deacon to be the alpha to unite everyone. He was patient, kind, and understanding to the point of being infuriating.

‘Don’t question the Moon Spirit’s decision. She chose you for a reason.’

If Deacon was the chosen alpha, he’d be Pearl’s mate, and that thought made me unreasonably angry. Pearl was mine. I just had to figure out how to be what she and everyone else needed. Easier said than done.

“I have to come clean about something,” Deacon began—the worst start to a sentence ever. “I invited some people over.”

“What the hell?” I shot to my feet, fists clenched at the thought of people knowing where Pearl and I were. We barely escaped with our lives. At the very least, the packs would want to know how a meteor had crashed the party, literally. Telling them it was a distraction wouldn’t go over well.

“It’s people that I trust,” Deacon said stupidly. “I was discreet with my questions.”

I growled, the sound full of menace. I trusted him with my life, but not Pearl’s. I was the only one who was allowed to protect her, to touch her, to breathe the same air that she did.

“What’s wrong?” Pearl asked, striding into the room, looking ready for a fight.

“He invited people,” I snarled, pointing at who I thought was my friend.

“Here?”

“Where else?” I regretted my harsh tone instantly but also felt it was justified.

“Why? I don’t understand?” Pearl glanced from me to Deacon, her posture and tone demanding an answer.

‘Fucking mine,’my wolf said possessively, watching at our mate with obvious heart eyes.

‘Ours,’I corrected him. He couldn’t leave me out of it.

“We escaped the archives to regroup, right?” Deacon’s eyes were begging me to be reasonable. “This is regrouping.”

“We don’t know these people. What if they’re under Tamra’s control? You just revealed our location.” I. Was. Furious. Seriously, what the fuck?

“Before we jump to conclusions, can you give us more information on these people?” Pearl asked, her calmness annoying me almost as much as I wanted to strip her naked and throw her on the bed.

“You are familiar with them,” Deacon started super vaguely, and I had to bite back a pissed off growl.

“Familiar how?” Pearl sounded a little annoyed now too with his answers.

“I know I’m being vague. I’m just not sure how you will react.” Deacon didn’t look at me, the growly shifter, but at Pearl.

Her demeanor changed. She went from annoyed to apprehensive really quickly, which made my wolf perk up more than he already was. I grew still, ready to act as an alpha or as her mate, whatever the situation called for.

“I know in Daywa, enforcers were found out and killed or shunned, but that didn’t happen in the other packs.”