Chapter 4

Because my brother, your uncle Nigel, had told me he had explained it all to you, but that also seems to have been a lie. We have a lot of investigating to do. However, not now, once your mate is better, she is more important than that right now.

Yes, Father, she definitely is, but if someone starts talking, I want updates. I won’t let them hurt her anymore. I…I didn’t mean to hurt her; I thought it was being made as a trade to get the land I had to mate with Aretha. I didn’t know she was once the daughter of an Alpha I…I was told that her mother was a gold digger, and well, that meant that Aretha would be just like her mother. That her mother was given the title of Luna to make sure the pack had a leader, and you just got sucked into mating with her because her mother had passed.

Who told you a lie like that?

Elder Gillian said that your mating with my stepmother would damage our bloodline. I’m not sure how she feels about my half-siblings, Lola and Otto. But what could she say? But a good place to start, if she didn’t like Aretha, there is a good chance she’s gone after Lola and Otto as well.

She better not have, but then most of the pack seem to love both Lola and Otto; it wouldn’t make sense for her to go after them. It should have been the Goddess herself who blessed my union with your stepmother, Nicolette. It would be harder for her to target them as they are born to both halves of the joint pack. What I have heard from your Alpha Heir Unit is that it’s only Aretha that has been in their sights. However, if Fawn had gotten her way, things might have been different.

Damn it, why didn’t I see it? Why didn’t I listen? Father, we’re almost there. She’s still not awake, though.

Sometimes we have to see with our own eyes to believe what is right in front of us, and what we’re about to lose when we have chosen not to see. I should check on Lola and Otto. Although it’s unlikely, I should still ask them; they have been fighting to stay awake till Aretha, and you both returned home.

Understood, father. Based on the landmarks, we’re about five minutes away. Make sure the healers are ready.

They are ready and waiting just outside the packhouse doors.

With those final words, Dante closed the mindlink with his father. He paused for a moment to catch his breath, and he stopped at a nearby seat to take a quick rest. The adrenaline that had carried him to find her and get Aretha home was starting to fade as they got closer and closer to the packhouse.

“Forgive me, Aretha. I just need a quick rest, we’re almost home.” Dante whispered in her ear, “Funny, it's something you once told me, even Alphas need rest sometimes.”

Dante looked down at her face, which looked peaceful, as if sleeping beyond the tear tracks down her face, “After what they did to you today, you wanted to see your father. I knew you played the flute, although rarely, but I never understood why you played so beautifully.” He paused as he brushed a strand of hair from her face, “I need you to know something, Aretha. I know you might not be able to hear me right now, but I need to say it. I…I love you and I…I always have, even when I was being an ass.”

He placed his forehead against hers in the intimate wolf gesture as he breathed in her scent.

“I should get us home. I know that you couldn’t hear the mindlink between father and me, but until you're better, I’ll or uh we’ll be sharing a room. Your wolf and your body need the strength of our mate bond. I won’t mark you until we’re both ready, whenever that may be, but please fight your way back to me.”

Before Dante began to push himself back up, he planted a small kiss on her hair, hoping that somehow Aretha could feel his truth within that gesture. It was true that Dante hated that his mating with Aretha was at first due to paperwork, but a part of him loved the idea too, knowing that he didn’t have to worry so much politically. Until finding out the whole story behind their mating, he had blamed it on Aretha, but now, armed with the knowledge that it was and had been his father’s, not Aretha’s. His own father had tied their lives together shortly after Aretha was born. Now that he had thought about knowing the whole truth that Aretha was born an Alpha’s daughter, it made sense. It was rare for an Alpha female to be born, and her mother had given birth to two. Any Alpha would have tried to get a mating contract with her father’s pack, which meant that their Heir’s pups would be stronger than usual.

This changed everything he knew about their shared history, as neither of them really had a choice in the mating contract, the very thing that he tried so hard to run from, not knowing that the Goddess herself had also bound the two of them to each other. Guilt and self-loathing mingled in Dante’s stomach together like stones.

He knew that he couldn’t change the past as he continued the walk towards the packhouse and help, and he’d be damned if anyone was going to stop him from trying to fix things between himself and Aretha. He also knew that all he could do now was prove to her that the truth and his feelings were real, and that his eyes were now open to the dark truth that had done everything to keep them apart until now.