Filed to story: The Alpha’s Pen Pal Book
He meets my gaze and crosses the room to stand behind the couch. His intense eyes scan my face, his protective, steady presence saying more than any words could. My lip quivers as those molten pieces of silver return to my throat, but I push through them. “Nolan. I need…” I shake my head and lick my lips, my voice hurting from the burning metal inside it. “I don’t…”
He grips the back of the couch and nods, silencing my incoherent sputtering. “I’m here, Daisy.”
I’m here. Two words. One simple phrase. But it’s everything I need from him. He’s here. He’s with me.
I pull my lips into my mouth and nod frantically, my eyes blinking as I spin to face Benjamin again and sit on the edge of the leather sofa in front of Nolan. His presence at my back bolsters me, and his observant silence anchors me.
And I pray he won’t hate me or pity me when this is all over.
I rub the sweat from my palms on the skirt of my dress, then press my hands into my thighs as I count to ten, calming the violent waves crashing against the shores of my soul. “When my mother was an acolyte—an apprentice oracle—the rules for visiting the island were less strict. Alphas would come and go as they pleased, using the island as an escape from their stressful lives in their pack. They would enjoy the scenery, the weather, and find peace by meditating.”
“What changed?” Benjamin asks.
“King Malachi took over the throne. He felt his ancestors had grown too lax with the guarding of our secrets—werewolves and oracles—and he wanted to implement reforms. It took a while, but eventually, he made it so the only way anyone could visit the island was by putting in an official request to the high oracle. My mother met your father before the changes were made. He told my mother his name was Paul Tilley. At the time, the visiting alphas weren’t required to disclose the pack they were from—they were even discouraged from it—since the entire point of them visiting was to find a momentary reprieve. And my mother, being too trusting and too naïve, didn’t question him. Or even think to.”
Benjamin frowns and tilts his head in question. “Couldn’t she see he was lying? Read his mind or—“
I shake my head. “It doesn’t work like that. None of us can read minds, and often any visions we have are momentary glimpses. Sometimes the flashes are so quick we can’t make heads or tails of them. My mother never saw anything related to him or his intentions. He visited the island—and my mother—off and on for several years. As time passed, the length between his visits grew longer and longer until they eventually ended altogether.”
“Did she ever tell him about you?”
“No.”
“Why not?” Benjamin asks.
I smile a little. “She met my father—my mpampa—and as fate would have it, he, too, was an alpha. They met at a mating ball in Greece, and she told him everything right away. She told him about me, about the alpha she’d been with for so many years.
She explained if he accepted her in spite of all that, he’d have to give up his title. He’d have to move to the island with her since the magic of the island prevents true oracles—oracles who have been marked by their fated mate—from living anywhere else or even leaving for long stretches of time. He agreed and accepted her without batting an eye or judging her, and he raised me as his own.”
“Like Reid and Savannah,” Nolan says.
I glance at him and nod. He has a small, sentimental smile on his face as he thinks about his friend and the daughter he claims as his own, leaning his forearms on the back of the couch, bringing him closer to me.
I hold his gaze, seeking comfort in his warm, steady eyes. I long to reach for him, to hold his hand or find solace in his arms. But if I do, I will lose the momentum and confidence I have, and I need to finish my story.
I turn back to Benjamin, but I am hyperaware of Nolan’s presence behind me. “To protect all of us, he and my mother agreed to never search for my birth father or tell him I was his if he did visit again. My mother was too afraid he’d take me away from her.”
“He probably would have,” Benjamin says. “And he probably would have found some way to manipulate you and use you, like he did with Lennox.”
Nolan growls at that, and from the corner of my eye, I see him curl his hands into fists, one wrapping around the other, his skin paling from how tightly he grips them. “My mother didn’t know his true nature, though. She thought only of keeping us together as a family unit. It wasn’t until later that we learned his identity and his wrongdoings,” I say to Benjamin.
“How did you find out?” he asks.
“Like I said before—his witch, Gladys. She confessed everything to the thirteen crones, with King Malachi in attendance at her interrogation, and she mentioned my mother by name. Afterwards, King Malachi visited my mother to tell her everything since Pierce had Gladys use dark magic on her—spells to hide his mating mark from her, for example—and he was surprised to find she’d given birth to a child. Me.”
“Why would her having a child surprise him?” Benjamin asks, his arms crossing over his torso.
I blink and look down at my hands. I didn’t mean to say that much, but it’s too late, and I can’t take it back. Exhaling, I spit my next words out as quickly as I can. “Because one of the spells Gladys used was meant to make my mother infertile. It’s a curse on the most recent born of a bloodline, causing the line to die with them.”
“How’d she have you then?”
“Gladys didn’t cast the curse on my mother’s line until after Haven’s adoption went through.”
Nolan straightens, his hands on the back of the couch again, and I sense his eyes boring into the back of my head. Benjamin’s brows pinch together, and he shakes his head. “I—I’m not sure I follow.”
I grip the edge of the cushion, staring at an empty coffee mug on the table in front of me, avoiding Benjamin’s eyes and leaning forward to evade Nolan’s touch should he try to reach for me. “One night, when I was five, I woke from a deep sleep with a sudden, unimaginable pain in my abdomen. It was the worst physical pain I’d ever felt. Even to this day, I’ve never experienced anything as dreadful as that pain. My parents rushed me to the healers, where they found a tumor growing in my uterus. They tried to staunch it with their healing abilities, but it was nasty and fast-growing, and the doctors had to remove my uterus to prevent the tumor from spreading to any of my other organs. After I healed from the surgery, they ran more tests to determine the cause and check for any cancer cells. And although my scans came back clean—no cancer—they discovered all my eggs died.”
I swallow and blink, my fingers digging into the leather cushion, my nails leaving marks on the surface. Behind me, Nolan is tense. My lycan whimpers, urging me to seek his comfort. But I don’t know the true cause of his tension, and my focus is finishing my story, no matter how difficult.
I can’t hide from this.
My voice grates in my throat, but I push through the pain and the turmoil. “The healers thought the sudden pain was from my small size and how large the tumor had grown in such a short amount of time. We didn’t know dark magic caused it until King Malachi’s visit.”
Benjamin stares at me, his blue eyes wide as I finally look up from the drained mug on the table, his body as still as a marble statue. “Because your dad knew nothing of my existence, because he didn’t know if my mom had found her mate or had children, I now bear the burden of the curse he thought Gladys placed on her.”
As soon as those words leave my mouth, I gasp and cover my face, leaning my elbows on my knees. “I’m sorry. It wasn’t part of my plan to say that. And I didn’t tell you all this hoping you’d pity me or—“
“Or think my dad was a piece of shit? Because he was.” Benjamin barks out a harsh, sardonic laugh and shakes his head, staring out the window with darkened, red-rimmed eyes. He pinches the bridge of his nose between his fingers and sighs, rising to his feet and pacing in front of the sofas. “I need some time. So I can tell Nicole and Oliver.”
I stand as well, folding my hands in front of myself once more. “Thank you for listening to me,” I say, inclining my head in a subtle nod. “I just wanted to meet you. I thought you deserved to know you had another sibling. If you don’t want anything to do with me or never want to see me again, I understand.”
I turn to leave the office, making my way around the couch and towards Nolan, who strides towards the door as well, his eyes straight ahead and his back ramrod straight, but Benjamin’s voice stops me. “No,” he says, walking towards me. “I just need some time to let this all settle and to tell my—tell our brother and sister.”
My heart swells, and I stare up at him, a glimmer of hope in my eyes. “Are you sure?”
“I would be no better than my father if I punished you for his crimes.” His hand rests on my shoulder, and he gives it a firm, reassuring squeeze. “We don’t get to choose our parents, but we can choose our family.”
CASSANDRA
Nolan is silent our entire drive home. His elbow rests on the center console, both hands on the wheel, and his eyes never once leave the road as he drives. I keep my hands in my lap on top of my medical file, one wrapped around the other, my throat tight and my eyes itchy the whole time.
When we reach Nolan’s house, I get out of his truck before he shuts off the engine and enter his house using my key. I stand in the entry, the folder in my hand, staring between the staircase and the hallway to my old room, my teeth digging into my lip, indecision warring within me.
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?