Filed to story: Mated to the Alpha and His Beta Novel Free >>???
she added so serenely that it was like talking to a puff of clouds, a spring rain, a soft mattress…
“And stop adjusting me,” I told her sternly. “I can manage my emotions, even if none of you three think so.
Stella looked guilty and pressed her lips together with a frown. “I’m sorry, Daddy.”
“She’s better at it than I am,” Zane said with a proud grin. “And you do need help sometimes, Xander.”
“Not this time. All of this is-“I gestured around the room. “Hard. Weird. You can’t just smooth away the rough edges because it’s uncomfortable to feel them, Stella. For me, or for you. You have to let me process all of this, and if that means I’m a grouch, so be it.”
She looked thoughtful. “But it hurts your heart. I can feel that.”
“Yeah, well, I’m allowed to grieve a little for my little girl, right? That you grew up so fast without us having the chance to see it?” I shook my head again.
I could feel Lanie’s Luna energy washing over me, but it was different than what Stella had been doing.
Lanie’s was more supportive, but opaque. I could still feel myself through it. It didn’t hide my feelings away from me.
Stella’s frown deepened, and she looked confused.
“I’m sorry, Daddy! I never wanted to make any of you sad! That’s why I waited as long as I could. I just couldn’t stay small any longer.”
Zane got up to put his arm around Stella’s shoulders “Your Dad is an Alpha, sweetheart. He has to be strong. And you can’t be strong without big feelings.”
“But you can’t just take them away from me,” I said with a hard look at my Beta.
Lanie came up behind me and linked her arms around my waist. She pressed her face to my back. “It’s hard to feel you hurting, love. None of us wants that.”
I put my hands over hers and pulled her around to the front of me so she could hug me. I kissed the top of her head and then looked at our daughter. “All of this is going to take time to get used to, that’s all.
But if I’m dulled, I’m no good to anyone. And I sure as hell can’t keep you all safe.”
“It doesn’t fall only on you,” Mason said. He also stepped up to hug Stella. Then he turned to grip my shoulder. “We’re all in this together.”
For another few seconds I felt the push and pull of Stella’s will against mine. It didn’t feel like being compelled. For an instant I had the image of her toddler self looking at me through her fingers, playing peek-a-b oo with my thoughts. Her eyes gleamed with a swirl of different colors. Gold, green, red, blue, violet.
“I can’t understand what it’s like to have every single power at your command,” I told her. “But I know it has to be either the easiest thing in the world, or the hardest. And something tells me that it’s not the easiest.”
“I see every possibility,” Stella said quietly with a hitch in her voice. “I see what happens if I make the wrong choices…or allow them to be made. I’m still learning how to shut all of that out.”
“So you’re not infallible,” Mason said.
Stella’s eyebrows went up. “I never said that I was, Abba!”
Mason smiled at her. “Being gifted with every power to exist would seem to lend itself to never being wrong or making a mistake. You’ve been worried about that, haven’t you? Feeling like you can’t let anyone down because you’re not perfect.”
A
“I’m sorry. It feels like I’ve made such a mess of all this. I tried so hard to do the right thing.” Stella bowed her head, and her shoulders went up and down with her heavy sigh.
Lanie hugged her. “Little star, nobody here expects you to know everything.”
“But I’m a Celestial!” Stella cried.
“For all that, you’re still our daughter. It’s our job as your parents to do whatever we can to support you.
Even if you’re a hundred million times more talented and capable than the three of us combined, we’re here for you. To help you up if you fall. To hold your hand.
To guide you through any darkness,” Lanie said. “We love you.”
“Even if I mess up?” Stella asked.
“Especially then,” I told her.
Lanie–
I knew parenting would be hard, but I’d never imagined facing anything like this. I hugged Stella hard again. “This isn’t exactly like helping you with your homework.”
To my relief, she laughed. The sound of it rang round the room like a chorus of bells. Something in it lifted my spirits, not the way she’d been doing to manipulate her father’s mood, but with clear and simple joy we all shared. In that moment, I had my own flash of the future, one in which all of us were all right.
No more danger. Only love and happiness.
“There’s something else we need to discuss,” I said to everyone. “Stella is now an adult, but we still have two toddlers. How will we explain all of this to Alaina and Isaac?”
Stella bit her lower lip. “They already know. We’ve all been bonded since birth…they’re not Celestials, but they are hybrids. They’re wiser than they seem.”
Xander grunted. “Don’t tell me they’re going to stroll in here looking like thirty-year-olds instead of three-year-olds next.
Stella laughed. She went to him for a hug, leaning her head on his shoulder. “No, Daddy. They’ll likely grow like wolf pups usually do. But they can talk and understand better than they’ve been acting like they could. They’ve stayed babies longer than they might have otherwise, but they probably won’t keep maturing faster than normal.”
“This is going to cause a stir around the enclave,”
Mason said seriously. “How should we handle it?
Obviously, the teachers at the school know. Word will get out. We can’t pretend you’re still a child.”
“Everyone knows I’m a hybrid. We’ll have my great-grandfather explain this as a quirk of genetics,”
Stella said as though she’d already been thinking of the answer to this before he had even asked the question. “Nobody can know I’m a Celestial, but nobody will even guess. It’s just not something anyone thinks about or would even believe.” “I can hardly believe it,” Zane said.
Xander kissed the top of her head. “So…do we make an announcement? Or just let people come to us with questions?”
Stella’s eyes narrowed, but I could see a swirl of colors in them. My mother’s intuition told me that she was running through multiple scenarios and outcomes in her mind, although I couldn’t read her thoughts. Her lips moved with silent words. Her eyes opened, and she focused on all three of us.
“We let people come to us. The residents of Brightsky, most of them, are going to view my rapid maturity as something akin to going through puberty. A natural process that is different for everyone, nothing to be ashamed of, but not necessarily anyone else’s business,” she said. “There will be some who ask, and all we have to say is that my hybrid traits combined to make this my natural state of growth.”
“That makes the most sense to me,” I told her. “But when female wolves reach their maturity, their mothers and sisters often have a little celebration. I’d like to acknowledge that for you.”
She beamed. “I’d love that, Mother.”
“Spa day,” I told her firmly with a look around the room at her fathers. “Girls only.”
There were things that Stella would now have to learn.
She might be a Celestial, but she was still a woman.
“I got all the messages…” Gabriela came through the door into the living room and pulled up short with a gasp.
“Hello, Grammy,” Stella said.
Gabriela came to hug her at once. She cupped Stella’s face in her hands, her eyes wide with wonder.
“By the Goddess. You look exactly like my grandmother,” she marveled.
Xander’s mother turned to the rest of us. “I take it this is the important news you were all banging on about?
Don’t tell me it was something else.”
“No, Grammy,” Stella said with a laugh. “It was about me. I grew up…”
“I see that,” Gabriela said and stepped back to give her an up and down look. “You’re beautiful. This is amazing.”
Stella put her fingertips to her temples as her eyes flared again. She blinked away the colors and smiled.
“I’m going to my room for a bit to let you all process this and to give my head a rest. So many feelings, thoughts…..fears…..”
She gave Xander a pointed look, but her smile didn’t fade.
“I love you all,” she said and hugged each of us tightly before stepping back. “I know you have a lot to discuss and work through. And just so you know, I won’t be listening in.”
She laughed, shaking her head. “Even though you are all being so very, very loud.”
“Go rest,” I told her. “You’ve had a big day. We’ll order in for dinner tonight and have some nice family time.”
“That sounds lovely,” she said and retreated to her room.
“So,” Gabriela said after Stella had closed her door.
“You’d better tell m me everything.”
Gabriela–
New Book: Veiled Desires of the Alpha King Novel
Dayson was the alpha of the largest pack in North America. Powerful figures from other packs sought to offer gorgeous girls as potential mates for Dayson. He steadfastly rejected these advances, he was not a pawn to be manipulated. But eventually there came a mysterious girl he could hardly say No. Who was she?