21. Atticus

21

ATTICUS

T he den’s walls, once a haven, seemed to close in on me with an oppressive air. I could no longer keep my distance from Aria. I knew she was capable of taking care of herself, but the memory of her lying helpless and battered on the forest ground played relentlessly through my mind. Ragnar did not approve of me, but I was certain he wouldn’t hurt his daughter, not physically. Still, I thrummed with the need to ensure her well-being, to see her face and read the truth in her eyes.

Decision made, I pushed through the curtain at the entrance, intent on seeking her out. The crisp evening air greeted me as the sun dipped low, smearing the sky with streaks of red and gold. I took a step forward, ready to shift forms and move swiftly.

But then a figure emerged from the dimming woods, his silhouette cutting a familiar shape against the twilight. My whole body seized with pain I had buried deep, beneath layers of defiance.

As the figure stepped into the clearing, the late-evening sunlight pierced the canopy, illuminating a face from my past. Caius . The father who had chosen to side with the pack and exile me all those years ago. It had been a constant ache, a wound never allowed to heal. His visage, as stern as I remembered it, bore the marks of time and regret. His hair, once raven-black but now peppered with wisps of gray, framed a face hardened by years of leadership and loss.

I stood rooted to the spot. His presence here, at the threshold of my chosen exile, was completely, utterly unexpected.

“Atticus,” he said.

The rogue wolf in me stood alert, muscles tensed for whatever might come next. Though the desire to turn away was potent, the enigmatic pull of fate held me fast, demanding I confront my lineage head-on.

Our eyes locked—his, the color of the stormy sea; mine, a mirror of defiance—and in that silent exchange, we measured the chasm of years.

“Son,” he finally said.

“Father.” The term was foreign on my tongue. His sudden appearance, here at the boundary of my reclaimed territory, was a puzzle with pieces missing, an unbalanced equation. Yet beneath the shock, unresolved anger burned, threatening to ignite the dry tinder of past grievances.

“Years,” I said. “Years without a word, and now you stand before me.” I searched his face, looking for the lines of sorrow or perhaps contrition, but finding only the inscrutable mask of the alpha he once was.

Caius shifted uncomfortably. “Yes, years.”

Old pain shot through me, a phantom limb stirring at the sight of him. It was a horrible feeling I had buried deep—beneath my need to be alone, beneath the love and passion I’d found with Aria. But here, confronted with the ghost of my former life, those buried aches throbbed anew, demanding recognition.

“Forgive the intrusion,” he said. “But there are matters we must discuss.”

My muscles tensed, my spirit bracing against the implications carried in his tone. This man had cast me out, deemed me unworthy. Did he truly believe he could waltz back into my reality as though no canyon lay between us?

“Talk?” My stance remained unyielding. “That’s something we never mastered, is it not?” I never looked away from the man, searching for any hint of sincerity behind his steely exterior, wondering if it could be possible that he’d changed.

“Indeed.” Though his posture remained unbroken, the briefest flash of sadness crossed his features, a crack in the facade of the unmovable patriarch. “Perhaps it is time we attempt it once more.”

The remembered sting of exile pierced through me, as vivid now as it had been all those years ago.

“May I come inside?” Caius asked.

For a moment, I considered denying him entry. But something in his eyes, a glimmer of earnestness or maybe even desperation, compelled me to step aside.

“Fine,” I said.

As we crossed the threshold, a quick glance revealed my den mates, their expressions ranging from curiosity to worry as they took in the sight of Caius. But they were attuned to the nuances of my mood, and with silent understanding, they melted away into the back, leaving us alone.

“Speak, then,” I said to my father, finding an ounce of steadiness. “What words have you carried all this way?”

“I’ve made mistakes,” he said. “I know that now.”

I searched for deceit in his stance, in the lines on his face, but found none. In a silent challenge to the man who once cast me out, I reached out with my mind, probing for a crack in his defenses. I discerned the familiar resistance, the mind shields he’d fortified against me since my youth. Yet, I pressed on, needing to understand, to see if time had eroded his barriers.

For a fleeting second, there was a tremble in his mental fortress, a sign of weakness perhaps, but it might have been wishful thinking. My abilities were formidable, but so was his determination to keep me out, even now.

“Enough,” he said. “We have much to discuss, and your parlor tricks won’t change that.”

Frustration flared through me, yet it was underscored by a reluctant respect for this man, my father, who still managed to hold strong against me. Our eyes locked, two wills clashing in a silent battlefield, before we both sighed, an unspoken truce settling over the tension-filled space.

“Still up to your old tricks, I see,” he said, amusement lacing his tone. “I have no ulterior motives. I am simply here to talk.”

The muscles in my jaw tensed with the effort to keep my composure. “Now, after all these years, you decide you want to talk? When words were the very weapons you used to cast me aside? Did you think time would erode the memory? Or did you presume I’d simply roll over and bare my throat, welcoming back the man who deemed me a threat to his people— my people—and unfit for his legacy?”

There was a suffocating beat of silence as the memory of my exile haunted us. It was a cage of my own making, wrought from the rejection he had served me on a tarnished platter.

“Gravely mistaken,” I continued, and the burn of betrayal seared through my veins once more. “That’s what you are if you believe there’s a path that leads back into my life. Exile wasn’t the sentence you believed it would be. It was a rebirth, a forging of self from the raw, jagged pieces you left behind.”

His expression faltered, just for a second, but it was enough to tell me that my words had struck true. I stood before him not as the outcast son, but as the rogue wolf and master of his own destiny.

“Atticus, my son?—”

“Don’t,” I said. “You forfeited the right to claim that bond when you cast me aside.”

In the depths of my being, where instinct wrestled with reason, I yearned for the approval I was denied as a child. That longing, though buried under layers of defiance, tempted me with the ghost of a life unbroken by exile. But it clashed violently with the pride of the man I had become, self-made and resilient, shaped by the very rejection that now scorched through me.

“Was it worth it?” I asked. “Casting out your only son for daring to be different? For fearing something you didn’t understand? Something I was born with?”

His silence was an accusation, a mirror reflecting the uncertainty that haunted my soul’s recesses. The years had put lines of regret onto his face, but they could not rewrite history.

“Speak!” My snarl echoed off the walls, reverberating with the pain of a love forsaken.

“I see now the error of my ways,” he said. “You’ve grown into more than I could have ever hoped, even beyond the confines of our traditions.”

I wanted to dismiss his words as the machinations of a mind too long entrenched in power plays. Yet, the fractured part of me, the one that still craved a father’s nod of pride, clung to the possibility of sincerity in his admission.

“Your hopes,” I said bitterly, “were a cage. One that I have since melted down and reforged into a life of my own design.”

He stepped forward cautiously, as if approaching a wild creature. I tensed, every muscle primed for flight or fight, the eternal dance of a rogue.

“Perhaps,” he said, “but it is not too late for us. Not too late to heal.”

The offer was so tempting, ripe with the potential of mending fissures that had defined my existence. Yet, the independence I’d carved from the wilderness of betrayal was a prize too precious to surrender lightly.

“Not too late?” I said. “It has been a lifetime. A lifetime of learning that the only approval worth having is my own.”

His gaze held steady, but I saw a hint of something akin to understanding. “Then let that suffice,” he said with a finality that seemed to close the chapter we had reopened.

I walked over to an alcove where an assortment of bottles sat on a rugged shelf carved into the stone wall. My hands found a familiar bottle, and as I poured the amber liquid into two glasses, the sound was a soothing counterpoint to the ragged pulse throbbing in my ears.

“Drink?” I held out one of the glasses to him. He watched me with a wariness that was mirrored in my stance.

“Thank you,” Caius said, accepting the glass.

I knocked mine against his, the clink of our glasses a tentative truce in the making. My father leaned against the cool stone, his posture reflecting a weariness that came from deep in his bones. I remained standing, unwilling to let my guard down completely, yet fighting the desire to understand the man before me.

Finally, he spoke again. “I’ve come to realize that the strength of a pack isn’t measured only in power, but in understanding. In forgiveness.”

The defiant part of me wanted to reject his olive branch, to remain steadfast. But another part of me, a softer part, whispered of long-suppressed yearnings for family, for acceptance.

“Forgiveness is not easily granted,” I replied. “Especially when the wound has festered for years.”

“Time has a way of offering perspective.” Sorrow passed fleetingly across his features. “And I’ve had much time to reflect on my actions... on the pain I’ve caused.”

I studied him, searching for any hint of duplicity, any trace of the stern authoritarian who had cast me aside. But all I saw was a man, a father, wading through the marshland of past mistakes and seeking redemption.

“Reflection is a luxury afforded to those with the burden of conscience,” I said, the warmth of the alcohol spreading through me, loosening the tension that had taken residence in my throat.

“Is it such a burden?” he asked, his tone probing, exploring the defenses I had meticulously erected.

“Perhaps not a burden. But a constant companion to those who have been shaped by their scars.”

“Scars mean survival,” Caius said quietly, raising his glass in a silent salute to resilience.

“Survival,” I echoed. It was survival that had honed my abilities, that had forged my identity in the crucible of exile. But it was also survival that tethered me to him.

“Indeed.”

I studied him as we took a sip in unison. I settled back into the worn leather chair across from Caius.

“Life as a rogue is not for the faint of the heart,” I said, running my finger idly along the rim of the glass. “It’s a life earned with blood and cunning, with silent victories unseen by applauding crowds.”

Caius leaned forward, looking very much like a father yearning to understand the son he’d cast away. “And your achievements?” he asked, his tone cautious but genuine.

A slow smile curved my lips, “I’ve built alliances with those who respect strength and honor. I’ve protected those who have no one else, and I’ve fought battles that others were too scared to face.” My pride was undeniable, though it carried a bit of loneliness that had become all too familiar. “I may walk a solitary path, but my footsteps leave deep impressions.”

“Your relationship with Aria…” Caius shifted the topic as one might cautiously approach a guarded treasure. I wasn’t sure how he knew about Aria, but it was clear that my bond with her was a curiosity he couldn’t unravel. I urged myself to tread lightly, to be careful what I said. I couldn’t mention the prophecy or the parts we were destined to play. Trust wasn’t something I’d hand over as easily as the alcohol.

“She is the sun that woke me,” I said. “Her passion, her fire, it challenges me.” I dared him to judge. “Our connection goes beyond the physical. It is a meeting of souls, a dance of spirits entwined. With her, I am home.”

“Home,” he said with a quiver. A sign that maybe, just maybe, he understood the gravity of what I’d found with her.

“Home,” I repeated. Silence returned, but in its folds, something stirred. A reconciliation, as fragile as a dew-laden spider web, but potent with the promise of healing.

“There’s much I’ve missed, much I’ve misunderstood,” my father acknowledged. “But seeing you now, learning of your life... there’s hope, isn’t there? Hope that perhaps...”

His words trailed off in a delicate thread of possibility. I studied the man before me, searching for traces of sincerity, for the father I once knew beneath the layers of authority and tradition.

“Hope is a dangerous thing,” I said at last. “It can lead one to greatness or to ruin. But without it, what are we but parts of our true selves?”

“Indeed,” Caius said, and for an instant, his face mirrored my own. “There’s something you haven’t spoken of. The amulet. You seek the rest of it, don’t you?”

His knowledge struck me hard, unexpected. I brought my drink to my lips to give me time to process. My eyes narrowed, instincts sharpening as I sought the angle, the play behind his words.

“How would you know about the amulet?” I asked.

Darkness passed over Caius’s features, a cloud obscuring the sun. “The Crimson Fang,” he said. It took him a moment to continue. “They took control of our pack years ago. And since then, I’ve been closer than you could’ve known.”

Holy fuck. The Crimson Fang. The name was a curse, a whisper of danger. And my father had been living under their thumb, a neighbor cloaked in secrecy. How had I not sensed him? How had he known about the pieces of amulet I sought to make whole?

“Even now, you surprise me,” I said. I leaned forward, the predatory part of me rising to the surface. There was a game afoot, and I was a player, whether I willed it or not.

Caius looked down, the lines on his face deepening. “I’ve watched you from afar. So many times I’ve wanted to approach, but never knew how. Until now.”

The revelation was a puzzle piece, one that fit into the jagged edges of my life with a click that echoed in the silence. Was it really possible to mend our fractured relationship?

“I saw you there, spying on their stronghold,” he said. “I can help you retrieve the rest of the amulet. Come tonight, at the stroke of midnight. I’ll ensure the way is clear.”

I remained motionless, a statue carved from skepticism and the remnants of hope. My father’s offer dangled before me, ripe with potential yet covered with the poison of past betrayals.

“Why should I trust you?” The question tasted of raw wounds and the ash of burned bridges. “After all this time, after everything...”

He never wavered, and I glimpsed the man who once taught me the ways of our kind, a mentor before he became my judge. “I have let you down your whole life,” he said, a rare crack in his stoic armor. “This is one way I can make amends.”

Beneath the surface of my skin, a battle raged. My wolf howled for acceptance, for the paternal approval it had been starved of. All the while, my human side erected walls.

“Helping me now won’t erase the past,” I pointed out.

“Perhaps not,” he said, the faintest trace of sorrow threading through his words. “But it might pave the way to a future where the past no longer casts such a long shadow.”

He stood then and held out his hand. I considered not shaking it, but in the end, I grasped it firmly.

“I will consider coming,” I said. “You’ll either see me… or you won’t.”

He nodded once and walked out. The silence left in my father’s wake was a living thing, throbbing with unspoken words. I stood at the threshold of my den, the evening breeze whispering over my skin.

The murmurs of my chosen family drew me back from the precipice. Each face held a story interlaced with mine. We were a patchwork quilt of outcasts who had found solace in one another’s company. I didn’t need to speak for them to know my turmoil.

“Atticus?” Lyza’s voice was soft with concern as she rested her hand lightly on my forearm.

“Trouble always did have a way of finding you,” Joren said from his perch by the fireplace.

I managed a half-hearted chuckle. “Some things are worth the trouble.”

“Whatever’s going on, we’ve got your back,” Lyza assured, squeezing my arm before letting go.

“Thanks.” I sighed. “I need to see Aria.”

Understanding flashed across their faces. No further explanation required. With a nod, they dispersed, giving me space to transform. My body contorted, bones and sinew reshaping beneath my inked memories. The shift was second nature, a liberation of the wolf’s form that allowed me into the wilder side of my existence.

Fur bristled against the cooling air as I set off toward the manor.

An unsettling sight met me. Aria’s silhouette against the twilight sky, her body racked with sobs. Her cries pierced the quiet, a dagger through the veil of night, each one a serrated stab against my soul.

My wolf growled, but she didn’t respond. She only continued to scream at the empty air, her anguish a force that threatened to drag us both under. Desperation clawed at me as I shifted and approached. When my skin touched Aria’s, she calmed slightly, trembling against me.

“Talk to me,” I said.

“Larkin has taken Seren,” she said between sobs. “We must rescue her.”

Larkin, the thorn in our sides. But this wasn’t about him; it was about Seren, about Aria.

“We will get her back,” I promised, my arms tightening around her. “Tonight.” The rogue in me was no stranger to rescue, to defiance.

She nodded, yet her gaze didn’t meet mine. Worry crept in, whispering doubts and fears. Was she pulling away from me? My throat tightened at the thought. A life without Aria was a life devoid of color.

I scolded myself internally. I was reading too much into her anguish. She was shaken, not withdrawing.

“Father,” Aria greeted as Ragnar emerged from the woods.

He gave me a nod of acknowledgment, then turned to Aria. “Do you want to explain why the staff are in an uproar and you’re out here screaming? It isn’t the most becoming behavior for the future alpha. I would appreciate it if you could provide me with an explanation.”

Aria began to explain Seren’s abduction. I didn’t know why I did it—perhaps it was the cold greeting, concern that Aria was pulling away, the visit from Caius and the uncertainty behind his motives, or a combination of everything that influenced my actions—but I sent out a tentacle of my power, reaching Ragnar’s mind with practiced ease, and probed his mind. It was a silent dance of mental fortitude, a delicate intrusion cloaked in the softest velvet of intention.

His thoughts were open and unguarded, stalwart and commanding. In the depths of Ragnar’s being, I found fear—fear for Aria, fear that echoed my own. But more than that, there was respect for me, tangled in worries that I might not be the ally Aria needed in these treacherous times.

It was the latter that cut the deepest, a blade to my own insecurities. Had my love for Aria blinded us both to the harsh realities of our world?

His surface concerns flitted by—pack security, Seren’s abduction, the weight of leadership. All pressing but familiar worries. It was the deeper currents that lured me, whispering of truths concealed in the bedrock of his psyche.

As I delved deeper, the vibrant tapestry of Ragnar’s memories unfurled, revealing an image that startled me. There, among the tides of duty and honor, shimmered a memory, radiant and raw. A tryst with a woman from a rival pack, a love that had dared to cross boundaries laid by old rivalries.

The earth shifted beneath me, the revelation shocking, echoing my own forbidden dance with desire. Ragnar, too, had known the intoxicating pull of a love that defied the boundaries of our world. The memory was steeped in a blend of ecstasy and sorrow, a silent sonnet for the one who had slipped through his fingers.

Profound trepidation terrorized him. It was not merely the protectiveness of a father or the alpha’s regard for tradition, but the ghost of agony, the specter of a love torn asunder by the very nature of our existence. Ragnar feared for Aria as only one who had suffered could, dreading that she might walk the same thorny path strewn with the petals of a love doomed by pack conflicts. He had endured a heartbreak that now haunted him, and he didn’t want the same for his daughter.

Delving deeper into Ragnar’s psyche was akin to navigating a labyrinth, where each turn revealed a new layer of sorrow and fear. Ragnar’s unspoken failures pressed against my own chest, as if they were stones piling on me. The pain of lost love had darkened his days. His desire for her happiness warred with the terror that she, too, would feel the sting of love torn asunder.

“Atticus,” Ragnar’s voice was a distant rumble, but I was sinking into his mind. There was a father’s fierce instinct to shield, to prevent history from repeating. Yet, beneath it all lay the raw ache, a wound that had never truly healed. A would that colored his every thought and action, especially concerning her.

I gasped, the intensity of Ragnar’s inner turmoil overwhelming me. It was as if I’d unwittingly stepped into a flood, and the winds of his deepest insecurities lashed at me, forcing me to confront the mirrored fears in myself.

Could I be the cause of Aria’s downfall?

With a jolt, I severed the mental tether, the psychic intrusion snapping back. The doubts lingered, heavy and suffocating, as I tried to reconcile the newfound understanding.

“Forgive me,” I said, though Ragnar misunderstood the apology, thinking it was for my lack of attention and not what it was truly meant for—the invasion of his private sanctum, a trespass that left me hollow and exposed.