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There’s a low hum ringing in my ears. I sit up to find Aizen lying next to me, practicing his calligraphy on an app he asked me to get for him yesterday. I feel a whole lot better. The aches in my body are gone, and the urgent feeling I felt before is nowhere to be felt. The best part is that I feel like I’ve gotten a whole lot of rest.
“Hi, Mommy,” he looks back at me with a smile.
“Hi, baby,” I pull him to me. He laughs as I tickle his sides. He needs a haircut, but
looks good. I run my fingers through
his hair. He smells amazing. I’ve always liked how they both smell, but my wolf senses are all over it right now. “Where’s Ayrie?”
“With dad and grandpa on the beach,”
“Why aren’t you with them?” I ask.
“Are they ever going to leave?” he sits up, expecting an answer.
“Who?” oh, no. Did something happen between him and Knight?
He sighs and scoots off the edge of the bed to point out the window. I follow without hesitation. There are cars and wolves all over the place. They must have called reinforcements.
What the hell happened? Where are the bodies and the blood? Fuck, there was so much blood.
“Let’s go find out,” I say, looking around for some shoes. “Go get some shoes on,”
It’s only then that I see someone dressed me in baggy sweatpants and my favorite JJK hoodie. I slip my Vans on and go into the bathroom to make sure I’m presentable. I look like I’ve recently bathed, and I don’t have to use the facilities.
“Mommy?” he calls out. I dry my hands and walk to him, ready in a hoodie and his favorite Docks.
“All ready,” I tell him.
He takes my hand, and we go outside to find Knight and his father watching Ayrie build a sandcastle. The two of them turn back to look at me. Aizen lets go of my hand and runs over to Ayrie to praise the work she’s already done. She waves at me and immediately starts giving him orders.
I sit between Knight and his father, take a deep breath, and let it out slowly. The two of them laugh without saying a word. I watch Knight open his mouth a couple of times to try and get something out. His father seems to be in the same boat. I press my lips together, already feeling embarrassment creep up.
“Was it bad?” I whisper. The two of them inhale sharply to answer and then can’t get a single word out. Not even a sound.” Oh, god. What? What happened?”
“There have been a few developments, Phoebe,” Mr. Knightly says.
“Okay,” I nod. “Let’s start at the beginning,”
“What’s the last thing I remember?”
“Assholes trying to kill us. He howled,” I point at Knight. “And you left,”
“Nothing else?” Knight asks.
“I remember Midnight. She said she was going to make everything safe. Did she?”
“She did,” the two of them say in the same tone.
“Oh, shit. Okay. So now what?”
“We’re not sure,” Mr. Knightly is the one who answers me. I stare at him because he’s usually the one who has the answers. Even if we don’t like them.
“So, I freak out now or wait until the twins go to bed? I’m confused,”
“It’s Saturday, they have a day off this upcoming Monday, and it’s two P.M.,”
I pull my legs up to rest my chin on my arms so I can watch them.
Ayrie goes to the water to scoop some up in her pink pail. She brings it back to Aizen, who dumps it on the sand. He shows Ayrie how to mash the sand to soften it. Ayrie then scoops it back into the pail and takes it over to a spot where she made a perfect round trench.
“You are what we alphas call a Silverback,” Mr. Knightly continues to explain. “It’s a rare kind of alpha that is born into some of the most hostile environments known to our kind. There have only been two other alphas born with your specific kind of wolf, and the only other known Silverback alive is the Alpha King,”
“So, what does that mean for me?” I ask. “Can I learn to control it?”
“Well,” the two of them say at the same time.
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“Come on, guys. What the fuck?” I bump Knight.
“Silverbacks aren’t like our wolves. You don’t control them. In fact, you have to maintain a very good relationship with your wolf to keep it from rampaging when she needs to be let out. Essentially, you’re two beings in one,” Knight says.
“Translation,” I look over at his father because I already knew that information.
“In mortal terms, you’re Dr. Jekyll, and she’s Alpha Hyde,” he smiles and turns to look at me. “The good news is that you rarely have to shift. It’s a last resort kind of thing. The bad news is that when you give into her, she can walk in your skin and pretend to be you for as long as she wants,”
I stare at him for what is considered a very embarrassing amount of time. I take a moment to take in his words. I think about everything that happened. One thing jumps out at me, and it’s Mr. Knigthly’s comment about the twins not needing to go to school on Monday and then the fact that he said it’s two PM, on a Saturday.
“She pretended to be me for three days?” I whisper.
“Just around the twins. We knew it wasn’t you from the moment she shifted back,” Knight says as if he were disappointed.
“Do you hate her?” I ask because I feel like that’s important.
“I’ll give you two a moment,” Mr. Knightly says. He then goes over to the twins to ask them how he can assist them. Ayrie immediately gives him the job of water boy.
“Angel, why would you ask me that? No, why would it even cross your mind?” he scoots closer.
“The tone you used. It sounded like you weren’t very happy about it. Did she do something crazy?”
“Come here,” he grips my sweatpants and pulls me close to him. “She didn’t do anything inappropriate. She was well- behaved. If I didn’t know you as well as I do, it wouldn’t have been noticeable,”
“You think I’m well–behaved?” I laugh.
“I do,” he smirks. “I’m not exactly happy about this, Phoebs,”
“Does it have to do with our wolves? Does he not like her?” I place my hand on his chest.
“He is all over her. He was in love the moment we laid eyes on her,”
“You are doing that thing when your draw shit out, and if I don’t like it in the bedroom, it’s not cute now,”
“My father can hear you, Baby,” he grins.
“Knight,” a growl comes out of me. It only makes his smile bigger and brighter. He sighs heavily and links our fingers as he gets serious.
“There are laws against what your stepmother and father did to you, Angel. Silverbacks are only granted to those who need to be protected. Silverbacks are what we consider gladiators. The Alpha King is a Silverback because when he was born, he was taken from his parents and buried alive in a crate for three days. Until an old man found him in the woods behind his house with a metal detector, he was playing with.
“It’s illegal to push a person to a point where their wolf has to protect them this way. It’s an even worse punishment to those who do this to a pup of royal blood because it’s always a toss–up for the spirits that are going to choose us.
“The wolves that came for us took the information back to the King, and you are, as of right now, a rogue silverback alpha female. An investigation will start into your family history. Perry and Roman are trying their best to keep it under wraps, but the information we have on you will soon become public record, along with what was done to Ayrie,”
“Ayrie?” I ask, snapping my attention back to her. I sit up and turn back to him.
“Ayrie will be like you because of the poison she was given. The time you told me she was scared of you and that she doesn’t remember. That was the first sign,”
“What’s going to happen to us?” my vision blurs with tears.
“Nothing. I will always make sure of that, Angel. ” He moves, so I’m sitting between his legs. He wraps his arms around me tightly. “My goal in life now is making sure you’re never in a position where you would need to shift out of desperation like you did that morning,” he presses a kiss to my temple. Maybe it’s a little too soon for your human upbringing, Phoebe.
“But I need you to know this so you don’t get it in your head that you’re some kind of burden or like you can’t be yourself around me. I love you. I fell in love the moment our eyes met outside that elevator. I fall in love with you every time I learn something new about you.
“The way you look at me. It’s the same way you look at our kids. The same way you look at my family, even my fucked up father. I love that your favorite color is green. How you try to sneak it into your clothes every day. The little green flame stitch on the twins‘ clothes you make. Your laugh heals a little part of me every time I hear it.
“I’ve never been happy before, but when I look at you and the twins, I swear I don’t remember ever feeling anything else. So, if I have to destroy everything around us to make sure you are safe, I will burn the six kingdoms to hell for it,” his lips graze the back of my neck, sending goosebumps through my entire body. “I’ve been asking myself why the fuck fate would make
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me like this when you’re such a gentle girl he pulls me back and turns my head so I can look at him. His thumbs wipe
away my tears. It was all for you, my pretty Phoebe,
