The Strength of a Pack

Chapter 18

Chapter 18

Thankfully, Tyler didn’t say “that’s impossible” again. Instead he just stared. For about a full minute.

Talk about awkward…

“Okay…” he finally stuttered out. “And who else knows this?”

“My dad, Charlie, and Christopher. I didn’t even know it was… odd… until they showed up.”

“So why does your birth certificate say December 31st?”

“I’m not exactly sure. Growing up, I’d never really bothered thinking about it. My mom just always told me she asked them to put it as the 31st, even though I was born at midnight. Now that I know about this whole shifter thing, I can see the whole situation is a bit… shady. But my mother has refused to talk more about it, and I just decided to let it go. She had her reasons, whatever they were. But she didn’t know much about shifters so I don’t see how that has anything to do with it.”

“I don’t know. Like you said, she had to have a reason for making sure your certificate didn’t say the first. Maybe we should talk to her-”

“No,” I said immediately. “I don’t want my mom involved in this.”

Tyler looked taken aback. “Why not? She’s your mother, I’m sure she’d want to help.”

“No, she stays out of it.” I didn’t leave room in my voice for another option, and started walking out of the kitchen. I was mostly healed now, so moving around didn’t hurt as much.

Tyler grabbed onto my arm, not letting me leave. Tingles shot up and down my arm, and for one moment I completely forgot about what we were talking about. But then I remembered his hand was holding me back, not giving me a choice about leaving the room.

A growl ripped its way out of my throat. I didn’t care that I’d just told him all m secrets, and we’d been doing relatively okay lately, he had no right to hold me back or control me in any way, and I was going to make that clear.

Tyler pulled his hand away slowly and I could practically see the wheels turning in his mind.

“You’re an Alpha,” he said in a low voice, as if he could barely speak the words.

I took another step away. “Apparently.”

“But how…” Tyler shook his head, confused. “Why would your dad keep this from me? He brought you here the day I became Alpha, why did he…?”

“Because I’m a threat to you. Because I’m his daughter, I was born on the first of a month, and I’m an Alpha. And if I wanted to, I could take this pack away from you.”

I didn’t bother sugar coating the facts. We both knew it was true.

I could see the Alpha in Tyler rising, ready to fight for his pack. However, I could also see Tyler fighting to stay in control.

My own wolf was just under the edge, ready in an instant to fight for dominance in the way it had wanted to the first moment I’d met eyes with Tyler Woods.

“Let’s not do this right now Riley, we’ll figure it out. Let’s call you dad back in here.”

My wolf wanted to ask if he was just scared. She wanted to say that underneath, he knew he would never be able to win a fight with me.

But I held it in, closed my eyes, and took a deep breath. While it didn’t work perfectly, I was able to think more clearly on my own without the wolf part of me budging in for input.

However, before I could respond the sound of a car driving up caught my attention.

Tyler and I both turned towards the door, where a small silver car pulled up. For a moment, I didn’t believe my eyes.

Then my father spoke. “Diane, what are you doing here?”

“Well, in just weeks of letting her move here with you, Riley has almost died twice. And you can’t even bother to spend five minutes on the phone with me to explain what the hell happened and how she is, so I came to see for myself.”

I looked over at Tyler for a split second.

“Don’t ever think about it,” I said to him, before running out the door to calm down my seething mother.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I'm really sorry this is so short guys. I'm exhausted and just started two new AP classes today, so my time for writing is going to be cut even more... which makes me sad and depressed.

And truthfully, I want to get this story written out already! I know you guys probably get frustrated wth m infrequent updates, but trust me it makes me just as frustrated. I know what I want to happen in the story, and I want to just be able to write it all out, but it takes a lot of time. Time that i don't have right now.

... So yeah, sorry for this depressing and uninspiring mini-rant... I'm hoping the next chapter will be more interesting.