Winter Wolf

Chapter 20

The familiar path didn't feel so familiar anymore. It was a strange realization that in the past ten years between the pack conflicts and the hunt, he'd spent more time away from home than he actually spent there.

His mother and some of his siblings met him at the main road near the pack house. He figured a border guard must have run ahead to tell them of their return. Nathan had left him the moment they were back on territory.

Tristan made his way slower.

"Daddy!" Willa screamed as she ran up to him. She leapt into his arms. Tristan pulled her up and hugged her tightly. Probably too tightly.

She'd grown more than he thought possible in just four months. The strange emotion of it hit him hard. Harder then it ever had. As did the guilt of how much he was failing her.

Maybe everything was getting to him, but he had never felt it so vividly before. Tristan had barely been around her entire life. She was raised mostly by his mother and aunt. Not that he hadn't thought of her. He did. But he knew he would be no good to her in the state he was in. Not these past years.

And every time he came back after an absence, he expected her not to call him that anymore... especially not after he abandoned her again. On the long trek back, he had prepared himself for it, that she might finally have given up on the whole idea that he would ever be there for her.

But every time she did, it strangely warmed him. He never encouraged it. Never once told her he was. She had done it all on her own.

"Tristan." His mother's voice sounded relieved. Tristan glanced up at her, then to the rest of his siblings that were there. It was most of his younger siblings and Cal.

His eyes went to his youngest sister. Millie. She stood beside their mother. Nine years old. Out of all of their siblings, just he and her had a mark of fate.

"We were worried." Cal said. He was the first to approach him.

"Did you kill them all?" Owen asked angrily, his seventeen year old brother. He was beside Emmet and James. Sixteen and fifteen. Faye was the only one missing of the younger group. She was James's litter mate.

"Owen." Ada scolded. Tristan looked at Cal, and instantly knew things were worse than what his mother had let on. He rarely wore his emotions on his sleeve, and he looked deeply worried.

"Where's dad?" Tristan asked as he set Willa down. He needed to see it for himself. He looked at his mother when her face turned slightly pained.

"The house." She said. Tristan truly didn't like what he saw in her eyes. He glanced in the direction of the Alpha housing, but before he could go...

"Wait... we have a lot to discuss before you see him." Ada said. Tristan glanced at the rest of his siblings. The worry on their faces was etched deep. Ada looked to the younger ones.

"Go on," She told them, but none of them moved. Ada just turned and started back toward the pack house. Tristan followed, along with Cal. He cast one last glance back at Willa, but Owen had stopped the younger ones from following.

"Get back to your lessons." He said firmly.

They went to his mother's office. Dena was waiting for them there.

"What's going on with dad?" Tristan asked the moment she'd closed the door. He just wanted straight answers now. His wolf was already on edge.

"Your father is okay when he's on the ama... but he's taken to going weeks refusing it. When he did it a few months ago, Edith managed to get him to take it again, but now... he's not listening to anyone." Ada said with a heavy tone.