Filed to story: The Alpha’s Pen Pal Book
“I realize that now,” I say, sighing and looking at my girl, at her watery eyes as she watches and feels every emotion racing through me and into her. Her lips form a small smile through the sadness and tears, and I reach for her, taking her under my arm again before turning back to my dad. “Now that I have my mate, I understand it’s not just a bond given to you by Selene. It’s so much more than that. But I didn’t see it that way for most of my life. How could I when the prime example I had was a man who let himself and his life fall apart, who couldn’t pull himself together for his only son?”
Taryn hugs me and I return the squeeze, my eyes clenching against the waves threatening to pull me under and the flood threatening to spill from my eyes. But she pulls away from me too soon, taking her warmth with her as she moves to my dad’s side, perching on the edge of the bed and pulling the ultrasound images from her pocket.
“Reid wasn’t sure if he wanted to tell you,” she says, handing him the pictures.
His red-rimmed eyes scan them, his powerful, muscular body shaking from withheld emotion, or pain, or both, and something in me shifts, softens. The man I strove to be, the man I modeled myself after in my training and the way I present myself as the beta of the pack, is still there on the outside, but he’s never been the same since my mom died, and now he’s losing more.
Taryn is right. I didn’t want to tell him. But he deserves to know. He deserves to have something to live for.
“It’s a girl,” Taryn adds, wiping a tear from under her eye.
He looks at her and then at the images again, and then at me, his brow furrowing. His brain pieces together a timeline, and his face and eyes ask me the question he hesitates to speak out loud.
“I may not be her father, but I’ll always be her dad,” I tell him, but my eyes are on Taryn as she smiles at me, her hand covering our pup in her belly.
The images flutter down into his lap as his hand covers his face, and a choked sob escapes him, his other hand reaching for Taryn’s. Her hand glows gold as she clasps it within hers, and I walk to her side, wrapping my arm around her shoulder and covering their hands with mine. My body tenses and my wolf paces, growling low in my mind as she uses some of her healing power to ease his pain. Both he and I are still hesitant, even though the doctor said it would be fine if she was marked.
Before I know what’s happening, he’s wrapping me in a hug, pulling me onto the bed, and holding me as tight as his pain-wracked body will allow him. His tears soak my T-shirt and his sobs cut through his words, muffled by my shoulder but clear all the same.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you, wasn’t the male you needed me to be, all because I was too stubborn and too afraid to ask for help. If I could go back, if I could take all of it back, I would. And I-I am so, so proud of the male you have become, the male you became even with a broken, absent, and neglectful father. I just wish I had witnessed it, that I had been the reason you are who you are, that I could take credit for any of it.” His shoulders heave and he shakes his head, hugging me tighter. “I’m so, so sorry, Buddy.”
Taryn’s hands rub my back, and I realize I’m crying too, my body shaking with my dad’s. All of it comes to a head and bursts through the dam I’ve built over the last eighteen years. His apology, his prognosis, him leaving for who knows how long—it’s all too much for me.
Behind me, I feel Taryn link her hand with my dad’s again, the three of us forming a circle as I curl up on the bed next to him, letting him hold me as I cry, the way I should have and never did eighteen years ago when my mom left us broken and alone.
REID
“Listen,
Buddy,”
Dad says as he pulls away from me.
His nose is tipped with pink, his eyes are puffy, and his cheeks are stained with tears. He sets his hands on my shoulders and takes a deep breath.
“You should go. Spend some time with your mate.” He glances at Taryn and smiles at her.
I shake my head, and Taryn rubs my back. “I don’t want to leave you. You shouldn’t have to go through this alone.”
“I’ll be fine,” he says, squeezing my shoulders. “Bonding with your mate is more important than—“
Another coughing fit hits him, and he lets go of me, covering his mouth and gripping the bedding again, his knuckles turning white. Taryn moves around me and rests her hand on his arm, pulsing more of her golden healing magic into him.
“We don’t mind staying,” she says, her voice cracking. “I can’t save your wolf or heal a broken heart, but I can ease some of your pain, at the very least.”
My arm wraps around her waist and I slide closer to her, my lips kissing her shoulder. Selfless. Brave. Strong. Fierce. This female is all that and more.
And she’s mine.
“No,” my dad insists, shaking his head and frowning at her. “I can’t ask you to do that. I don’t want you putting any strain on yourself for me. You have a pup on the way, and you need to take care of yourself for her.”
“We’re marked,” Taryn says, putting gentle pressure on his arm. “Dr. Russo said—“
“Even so, I can’t let you put yourself or my granddaughter at risk. Again. And we’ve all lost enough already.”
Taryn blinks and a tear falls down her cheek, her head turning to rest against mine as her lips purse together. I adjust my body and pull her to sit on the mattress between my legs, holding her tight against my chest, my chin over her shoulder.
“Let us stay with you then,” I say, catching his eye. “You shouldn’t have to face this alone.”
“I’ve faced worse than this.”
“But—“
“I don’t want you to see me like that,” he says. “And this is something I…” He swallows and blows out a breath, staring at the ceiling. “I have to face this on my own. It’s what I…”
He shakes his head, unable to finish his sentence, and a short growl spills from my lips at what he is implying. “Dad—“
“Please, Reid. Please respect my decision on this. Let me face this on my own so I can heal and come back to you and your family.”
I grit my teeth and tighten my arms around Taryn. I want to argue, want to push him on this, but I don’t. He’s punishing himself, which isn’t good, isn’t right, but he’s agreed to rehab and therapy, which is a step towards healing himself.
“You promise you’ll come back?” I ask, a tear escaping my eye.
“I promise,” he says, nodding.
Taryn picks up the string of ultrasound images and, with one claw, slices off the top image and hands it to my dad. “Take this with you,” she says. “So you remember who is waiting for you at home.”
The flimsy paper flops in his hands, shaking harder now as the end of his wolf’s life draws nearer. “Does she have a name?”
“Not yet,” Taryn says at the same time I say, “Sour Patch.”
Taryn sighs and rolls her eyes, her fingertips pressing into her forehead, and my dad laughs, angling the ultrasound image and squinting at it. “She does look a little like a Sour Patch Kid…”
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?