Alpha's Legacy (Black Moon Saga Book 3)

24. A Father's Responsibility

I can’t help feeling ridiculous about how hard and fast I fell for a guy, and about how much it hurts to have to leave him and that fairytale behind, but that’s the truth of it. As much as I hate it, all I seem to want to do for a few days is wallow and pout, even knowing that meanwhile, I’m squandering the opportunity of a lifetime. I’m out of the packhouse, away from home, with a license to go anywhere I want to, yet all I seem to want to do is find a bed to curl up in and cry.

Which is why it’s a good thing that my father offers to be the one to take me away from Luna’s Grace, allowing Tian the opportunity to spend some time with my mother and help her work things out with Alpha Magnus. I don’t want anything to do with all that, and I don’t want to hear any updates about it either. Margot is Lee’s real mate, end of story, as Alpha Magnus said. But knowing it doesn’t make it any less painful, though I’m no longer allowing myself to cling to hope like I did before. I know it’s time to accept it and move on.

But Tian doesn’t really do wallowing. He recognizes that people have emotional reactions to situations and knows that teenage girls tend to have more of those than most people, but he believes in keeping busy and not allowing yourself to get stuck in your feelings. And yet, my body doesn’t seem to want to move. Every time I try to get up from the bed I’ve been in, the bed that my father brought me to though I’m not even sure where it is or who it belongs to, I don’t seem to have the strength or the energy to do much more than make it to the en-suite bathroom and back.

So, for once, I’m glad it’s not Tian with me. I think he would have allowed me these days of wallowing the same as my father has, but he would have been more restless about it. The whole time, I’d have felt guilty about that, and about keeping him from his mate just so that he could babysit an overgrown toddler throwing a fit because she didn’t get the toy she wanted. And though it’s rare that I make the distinction in my head about it, I think I feel less guilty being with my father through this because he’s my father. It’s his fault that I even exist, and it’s his fault that I am who I am, or what I am I guess would be more accurate. Basically, I’m his responsibility, not Tian’s.

I make the mistake of grumbling some comment about that loud enough that my father can hear it on the evening of the third day that I’ve spent in this room, a room that he’s been sharing with me, not so much because he has to, but more because he doesn’t want to leave me alone while I’m feeling this way. He’s sitting right next to where I’ve been lying on my side, staring at a tapestry on the wall across the room and wondering how much longer it will be until he’s fed up with being stuck here with his pathetic daughter.

“Well, that’s an odd thing to say, when in fact, it’s me who often feels like the outsider to the special relationship that you’ve always had with Tian,” he comments in response, in more of a thoughtful, matter-of-fact tone than one that shows any type of emotion. “And he had a good six months of extra bonding time before I ever even came along to meet you, let alone claim responsibility for you.”

He says it like that, in a way that might lead anyone who doesn’t know his history to believe he means that he chose not to be involved during my earliest months, but I know what he means is the same thing that Alpha Magnus made a reference to just the other day. My father spent a year of his life locked away in a magical prison, the one intended to hold the only other witch who has ever taken up residence at Black Moon, the very same one who is probably the reason why I’ve always had to deal with so much prejudice back home.

It's not casters per se that the people of Black Moon are uncomfortable with, and seemingly not warlocks. It’s witches, and it doesn’t seem to matter if the witch who currently lives there is not at all related to the dark witch of Black Moon’s dark past. My father is their warlock hero, and Emerick is the troublemaker out of the two of us, and yet it’s me everyone seems to struggle to accept. Though both my mother and my father would be quick to tell me that my problem exists mostly in my head and the real issue is how shy and reserved I tend to be. Lee might even agree with them.

But regardless, my father was away for the first six months of my life, and those were the same six months that I spent becoming Tian’s permanent attachment. As I got older, I bonded with my father as well, but he’s right that Tian will always be special to me. I’ve always felt like he sees me in a way that no one else does, and that no one else can, other than maybe Pete, who I haven’t even seen in years.

But to be fair, there are also things about me that only my father can really relate to, which is what I tell him in response.

“Tian and I are close, but he’ll never understand this,” I point out, lifting a hand and letting my magic come to the surface a little so that my fingers glow in demonstration.

He smiles and lifts his own hand in a similar gesture, showing me a hint of his own magic. His essence is a grayish blue, much like the tones in his wolf’s fur, and mine is a vibrant green, but the resonances of the gentle vibrations our essences create sound almost the same, to my ears at least.

“That is true, and just so you know, I wasn’t complaining,” he assures me. “I’m glad that you’ve been blessed with so many people who love and care for you, and I’m glad that you’ve found in him a friend and confidant as well as a parent.”

“Then why do you say stuff like that? It makes me feel guilty for giving him special attention,” I do complain.

But when he pats his lap and holds up his hand in the way that I recognize as an invitation for me to rest my head against his leg so he can pet my hair, I don’t hesitate. It’s something that Tian has always done with me, and I can’t explain why exactly, but I love it. It never fails to make me feel better when I’m hurting, and I guess my father has picked up on that.

“That wasn’t my point. My goal was to stop you from feeling guilty about the time and attention that Tian gives you. He may not have put you in your mother’s belly –”

“Gross,” I complain, interrupting him in a way that makes him chuckle softly.

“But he is as much your father as I am. He's your dad in all the important ways, and just as responsible for your well-being,” he goes on explaining, barely reacting to my interruption other than with his gentle laughter.

And though I appreciate his point, I have a feeling that his goal is greater than that. It doesn’t take him long to segue into talking about the finer points of the complicated parenting relationship that all four of my parents share and eventually bring the conversation around to talking about when he first met my mom.

“It happened suddenly for me as well, you know,” he says, and in response, I turn my face to look up at him and scrunch my nose in confusion. “My love for her, I mean. One second, I was at home with your Aunt Lizaine, the two of us driving each other up a wall from how long we’d been stuck there together, and the next Tian was at our doorstep. After that, it wasn’t long at all until we were stepping out our front door for the first time in literal centuries, and then we were in Oregon, and your mother was standing in front of me. Two seconds later, I felt a pang in my chest, a tightness in my belly, an urge to be near her and soak up everything she said and did, and I could no longer recognize myself. I had no idea what was happening, but I knew I felt different. From the moment we met, I could sense that I'd somehow been irreversibly changed from the inside out, and it left me feeling unsettled in an exciting new way.”

“I don’t know why you’re telling me this now,” I complain, shifting back to feeling sorry for myself. “To rub it in my face that you found the love of your life and I didn’t?”

“Well, no,” he tells me, gasping softly and seeming taken aback that that’s what I took from that. “I mean, in a way, I suppose I did hope to illustrate a contrast, but there was no rubbing anyone’s face in anything intended there.”

“Okay, fine,” I sigh, resigning myself to having to listen to a story or a lecture I’m already certain I won’t enjoy hearing. “Illustrate your contrast for me then.”

“Well, for starters, I suppose my point is that you’re not at all silly for falling for someone as quickly as you did. It does happen, and it even happened to me.”

“But you said that Lee is not the one for me,” I can’t help reminding him.

“He’s not, but it’s not the falling for him that’s the problem. Not the way you did it, not how quickly it happened, and I even want to be sure that you realize that your feelings are real. No one’s saying that they aren’t or that they don’t matter.”

“Well, then wouldn’t it have made more sense to use an example that didn’t turn out to be true love with your mate and the mother of your children?”

“Well, yes I suppose it would have,” he admits, blushing slightly. “But I’ve never been all that successful with women. I don’t really have an example like that, so I had to go with what I’ve got. I was hoping we could somehow connect and relate to each other even if our experiences are not exactly the same.”

“Well, we do have something in common, if that helps,” I offer him, sensing that he’s being genuine about his intentions and choosing not to continue being such a brat about it. “I’m no good with men either.”

“You’re inexperienced is all, so there is a difference,” he tells me gently. “But I’ve gone way off course here. My original point was to describe what it did feel like to meet that person, the one who was meant for me. And though I don’t know for sure that it differs from your experience with Lee, I assume that it does. He’s not right for you, of that I am certain.”

“I don’t know. I mean, I trust you, and I believe you, but if I’m being honest, it’s really hard for me to accept your intervention and why you claim to have done it. I still don’t feel that he was wrong for me, I only know that you’ve been saying it.”

“But what did you feel? As in, what were the specific sensations?” he presses for more details, unable to suppress how eager he is to hear my answer.

“He felt right,” I tell him simply, still feeling it to be true. “When we were together, and we were talking, it just felt so natural. It felt like he listened to me, like really listened to me and cared about what I was saying, and he cared about me and how I felt. What I wanted.”

“That’s all great, and I’m glad to hear it. I’m glad you had such a positive experience and found someone to bond with,” he says cheerfully, supportively even.

I can already sense that there’s more. He says it in exactly the way that tells me that there’s a “but” coming.

“But,” he continues as predicted, “and forgive me, because I know this will upset you to hear, but I could say those same things about my relationship with Adam. Or even with Tian, at least some of the time. I could say that about all of my friends.”

“Lee is more than a friend,” I immediately feel the need to argue, automatically lifting myself into a sitting position so I can turn and glare at him.

“I know he is, and I know you were starting to develop real feelings for him,” he assures me, reaching out to grasp my arm instead. “But the point I’m driving at is he’s not your mate. I know it, but you should know it too. It sounds like you didn’t feel the things that meeting your mate will make you feel.”

“I don’t have my wolf yet,” I protest his claim.

“No, but I didn’t have a wolf at all when I met your mother,” he offers as a counterpoint.

“But you weren’t born a hybrid.”

“You’re right, I wasn’t,” he concedes.

He does it so quickly and confidently that I know he’s about to explain why it’s not a legitimate argument against his point, and I have to suppress the urge to groan in protest. I probably don’t want to hear this. I’m too attached not only to Lee, but to the righteousness I feel in grieving the loss of what I had with him.

“And that’s why before I came to you about this, I looked into it,” he begins explaining. “It’s true that you won’t sense everything about your mate that you will ultimately come to experience with him until your wolf awakens, but at the moment that your magic awakened, you became able to sense everything that a caster with a mate can feel, assuming that your mate is also of age for his kind. So, if Lee was your mate, then you should have felt everything that I felt for your mother the moment that I recognized our pull. Granted, it often happens that a pull can be felt long before it is recognized, which is why I’m interested to know more so I can help you sort that out. What did you feel? Sensations-wise, what was happening when you looked at him? Touched him? Heard him speak? What sensations were going on in your body?”

I have to pause and think about that for a few moments as it finally dawns on me what he’s getting at. He’s not asking what I thought about Lee, or what feelings I came to develop for him. He’s asking whether something happened when I met him. Something that I could physically feel. And I really have to wonder, did anything like that happen? Did I feel forever changed, unable to recognize my former self the way he described?

No. My heart sinks a bit as I remember back to the first time I met Lee. I was unimpressed by him. Intimidated because he’s a hulking Alpha male, annoyed because all he seemed to want to do was complain to his dad, and relieved once that first meal together was over. It wasn’t just him that contributed to that, but if he was really my mate, then there probably would have been something about him that called to me or at least piqued my interest.

And yet I didn’t really have an interest in him until he needed me. Even then, though I was worried for him considering the state he was in, I can’t say that I was any more worried about him than I get when I tend to a wounded warrior in the clinic at the hospital. I help people in need, that’s who I am and what I’m designed to do, and that was my only interest in him at first.

My father might be right. We bonded as friends, nothing more, but I developed a crush on him. Of course I did. He’s handsome, and he was showing an interest in me. And now that I think of it, it wasn’t until he started to make that apparent that I gave him a second thought. Before then, his attempts to flirt and tell me crude jokes just made me uncomfortable.

Worst of all, I don’t think there were any physical sensations, not until I gave myself permission to be attracted to and interested in him. The physical sensations came once we started petting and kissing each other. I may even have gotten in my own head and created some of them just from wanting him to be my mate.

“I don’t think that there were any sensations at first,” I finally admit out loud, sounding a bit defeated. “I mean, eventually there were, but I think I might have just been excited, flattered by the attention, getting caught up in the moment. I don’t really know. But it wasn’t one of those things where I looked in his eyes and just knew or anything like that. I even had my hands on him to heal him and didn’t feel a pull or attraction to him yet, not until later.”

“Which is what I expected, and maybe even hoped was true, though I know it’s a harsh truth for you to accept. But from my perspective, I’m glad. I’m glad that even your broken heart is starting to recognize that Lee wasn’t what you thought he was, and I’m glad I wasn’t wrong about that. I feel awful about having to burst in and break it up the way that I did, but I promise you that it was necessary. And not just because he’s not your fated mate. Honestly, it wasn’t about that at all. If you want to choose a mate, and you choose someone who makes you happy, then I’m all for it. But Lee isn’t that person, and the relationship you would have created with him wouldn’t have been worth the cost.”

I’m shocked to hear him say that he doesn’t have a problem with chosen mates because I’ve kind of always gotten the impression that he does, at least where I’m concerned. But I choose to ignore that part for now.

“I’m guessing you’re not actually about to tell me what else you saw that has you feeling so certain about that,” I say instead, curious to know more about the full picture and glean some hint of what to look out for in the future.

But as usual, he’s not willing to be all that forthcoming about it, choosing instead to answer me vaguely and brush it off, as if the bigger picture isn’t all that important right now. I’d love to make some sassy comment about how his whole point of dropping in and breaking me and Lee up was because he claimed that it was that important, but the whiny, sassy, complaining person I’ve been lately isn’t the version of me that I want to continue to be, and quite frankly, I’ve suddenly grown sick of her.

I’m better than that, and I know that it’s finally time to pick myself up and move on. And as much as I never would have expected it, I think my talk with my father actually helped to put things into perspective for me. I should be enjoying myself and my freedom rather than lying here pining over some guy who was never mine to begin with.

“Assuming that I haven’t messed everything up, I’d like to get out of here tomorrow,” I declare. “Tian had more plans for us, though I don’t know what they were, and I think they were supposed to happen this past weekend.”

“You’ve not messed anything up, Anna Jade,” he tries to assure me. “I’m sure he’d be willing to make the arrangements again, even if you’ve missed the original plans. I’ll call him and see if he’s available to join us in the morning.”

“Is the ‘no motorcycles’ rule gone now?” I can’t help asking him, both because I’m curious to know if he made that rule to try to prevent me from getting close to Lee, and because I kind of liked riding on the back of one. Maybe I could convince Tian to get us one to play with at some point.

“Goddess, no,” he responds, practically gasping with shock and outrage. “Lee was part of my reason for that as I’m sure you’ve figured out, but he wasn’t the only thing that factored into that decision. I won’t say more, but no, the danger of motorcycles has not yet passed.”

“Will it ever?”

“No,” he replies flatly, obviously not wanting to discuss it further.

But I’m starting to suspect that it’s not any specific motorcycle or driver he’s worried about. Maybe he just doesn’t like them. I feel like there might be a story there, but I’ll leave it alone for now.

Especially since I have an urge to press my luck in a different way.

“Do you know who my real fated mate is? Is it something you’ve seen in your dreams?”

He had reclined himself back against the pillows and started to relax a bit, but that question makes him tense and sit up slightly.

“Why would you ask me that?” he questions instead of answering. “You know I don’t ever share details like that. It would influence you too much, change the course of things too greatly by creating too narrow of a path in one direction.”

“Well, because I …”

Why did I ask him that? I knew he wasn’t going to tell me. Even if he admits to knowing who my mate is, and I’m getting the strong sense that he does, he’s right that I already knew he wouldn’t tell me.

“I guess I just thought that if you were certain enough that Lee wasn’t my mate to come and intervene the way that you did, then you must know who it is, and I thought that maybe you’d tell me so we could prevent stuff like that from happening again,” I reveal to him what feels like the most honest answer, though I’m still not entirely certain why I had an urge to know.

Though I will say that after two days of knowing Lee and three days spent pining over him, wasting almost a week of my travel time on a situation that I never should have been involved with in the first place, I’m about done with boy drama. It would be great if I could avoid it ever happening again.

“Broken hearts are a normal life experience,” he says, sitting all the way up again so that he can reach over and take my hand. “I know it doesn’t seem like it, but I’d be doing you a disservice by just giving away the answer like that. You need to find your way to your mate and decide whether he’s the one for you, just like every other werewolf. You don’t get to cheat at life just because your father hasn’t slept well in almost two decades as the result of an ability he never wanted.”

He gives my hand a final squeeze and starts to lie back down, pausing part of the way to add, “And for the record, it wasn’t because he’s not your true mate that I chose to intervene. That fact is important, especially considering that he is your sister’s mate, but there was a greater purpose I was serving by shutting that down before it got out of hand. And that’s all I’ll say about it.”

He relaxes himself against the pillows once again, and I get up and head off to the bathroom to get ready for bed. There’s a lot more that I wish he would talk to me about, but I can already sense that he’s shut down that conversation. I’m not meant to know more about the “greater purpose” or how Lee and I fit into it yet, so there’s no point in asking.

But once I make it back to the bed, my two-day-old clothes now swapped out for clean pajamas, there is one thing that I feel I must ask. I have to know. The thoughts swirling around in my head after everything we talked about demand an answer, or I will be the one not sleeping.

“Dad, just one more thing,” I whisper to him, leaning over to turn off the lamp on the nightstand as I get into the bed.

“You can ask, but I won’t promise you an answer,” he responds in the way that I expected, but it doesn’t deter me.

“I know you don’t want to tell me who my mate is, but I really have to know just one thing about it."

I feel him tense beside me, bracing himself for yet another round of me demanding answers he can't give me, but I must surprise him by asking, "Is it Tian?”

He's quiet for a second before he starts laughing, the sound slightly muffled by the arm he has draped over his face.

“I really should not answer that even a little bit. It’s technically cheating,” he comments, and I can hear the smile in his voice.

He’s quite amused, to my relief. Amused means my guess is probably not correct. I mean, I love Tian, but he’s my dad. I don’t think I could handle having to switch from seeing him as my parent to seeing him as … that.

“No, sweetheart. It’s not Tian. Tian is your mother’s mate, and he’s family to us, but not in that way. I would not have allowed him the access to you that I have if I’d have seen something like that in your future.”

“Okay, just checking, since we were talking about Tian and then it somehow led to a discussion about mate bonds,” I quickly explain, not wanting him to think that my idea is totally ridiculous. “But I’m glad it’s not him. That would be too weird, and it would break too many parts of my life and his.”

“Agreed,” he says gruffly, reaching out to grasp my hand. “But we’re finished with this topic. Good night, Anna Jade.”

“Night, Dad.”

And though I am relieved to learn that Tian is and will always be just my dad, and I also feel like I’ve come a long way in a short time where my feelings about Lee are concerned, none of that seems to help me sleep. I spend most of the night trapped in my head worrying, mostly about what things will be like once my trip is over and I finally have to go home.

How long is Margot going to hate me for screwing everything up with her secret mate? Who is going to be Alpha now that she’s stuck with Lee? Who will turn out to be my mate, and how long will I have to wait to find him? Will I like him when I do? Will he like me?

Although it’s annoying to have a man right next to me who could answer those questions but chooses not to, I suppose that ultimately, I’m glad not to be him or be burdened by his ability. Worrying about possibilities for my own future is bad enough, but worrying about endless probabilities for everyone and knowing details about things that could influence events and outcomes while being powerless to do anything but watch it all unfold seems way worse.

But it certainly makes me glad to know that Tian agreed to join us in the morning so we can get back to our travels. I’m finally past the need to be stuck here wallowing and beyond ready for the distraction. Now I suppose the only question that matters currently is where to go next?