Check-Mate

44. Parents

Terk Pov 

"I don't want you to be part of my and my pup's lives." Warm announces.

"But, why?" This is not happening! How can this happen? We already agreed that we would raise our pup together, right? Why is he saying otherwise?

"Because you are your father's son."

"What do you mean by that?" I don't understand what he is saying.

"Since we are talking about official business, let's take a seat, shall we?" He sits on the cushioned chair and gestures me to the chair opposite to him.

My body subconsciously moves, and I get seated in the chair he is pointing at.

"You are someone who justifies the actions of a man who abandoned your mother. What guarantee do I have if I let you participate in pup's life, you wouldn't pit him against me like your father?" He has a sarcastic 

"My dad never pitted me against my mom!"

"Oh really?" His sarcastic smile grows bigger. "Maybe that's why you and your mother are really close."

"I am not close to my mother because of my own reasons to not be close to her."

"Oh? If you don't mind, would you be kind enough to tell me at least a few of your 'reasons' for not being close to her? Because I am really curious as to what hideous 'crimes' she had committed that you are even willing to take in the child of the woman for whom your father left you and your mother but is unwilling to even meet her?"

"She forced my dad into marking her! Even after he unmarked her and told her that he was in love with your aunt, she still used her family to pressurize him to stay by her side! In the end, she had my uncle hunt down your aunt and massacred the whole pack! This eventually killed my dad as well! He greed for his powers killed my father! How am I supposed to be close to such a women?"

"Typical enigma mentality," He snickers.

Does he not understand what I said? My mother caused his whole maternal family to be wiped out. Is he still going to take her side?

"The cause of all the trouble was your father. It was his incompetency as an enigma that led to the disaster that followed. Neither was he a good mate nor a good father."

"Do you even know what you are talking about? The person you are talking about is my father!"

"Why are you being so touchy about this? Am I not telling the truth? Was he a good mate? Was he a good father? Let's just say that what you said is true and your parents had an arranged marriage. Do you think that it was only your father who was at disadvantage in the marriage? Your mother was at disadvantage too. She got married to a man who would never be fully hers. She came into terms with that, didn't she?"

No, she didn't! If she did, she wouldn't have had my uncle kill your aunt. Warm, you are wrong.

"I know what you are thinking in your mind. You must be thinking that she didn't agree, right?" He smirks.

Does he have the ability to read my mind or something?

"The fact that she let him marl her knowing that she couldn't mark him back is the biggest evidence to show that she did. Or else, just the way you put pressure on P' Gym to take blood oath for Chain, she could also have had her family pressure you dad to make the oath. She didn't, did she?"

That's true but...

"Let me ask you this, do you think that you were a result of a one-time thing between them?"

"Pardon?"

"I am asking, you being born, your mother getting pregnant with you, are you that it was a result of mating one time? I mean, in our case, though you were in rut and I was in heat, I certainly know that I didn't get pregnant from a single round of mating. I don't even know how many times we mated that I got pregnant with your child."

"He was just performing his duty," When he was arranged to mark my mother, it was his duty to mate with her and produce an offspring.

"Performing his duty? Then, is his duty only that of a sperm donor? He doesn't have any duty towards her as her mate? He doesn't have any duty towards her after he got her pregnant? He doesn't have any duty towards her after she gives birth to his child? Are you going to tell me that all his duties towards her had ended the moment he impregnated her?" He looks so amused and enraged at the same time.

"I didn't say that. I..." 

"See? You are speechless! You can't even come up with an excuse to explain your father's behavior! One more thing, you and Chain, you are barely three years apart. From what I heard from my mom, your father and my aunt had been together for nearly two years before she got pregnant with Chain. That means your father was out there finding 'love' when your mother was nursing her baby. Am I, right?"

"He was an enigma, Warm. There's nothing wrong with him finding another mate."

"I never said that it was wrong of him to find another mate. It was wrong of him to desert your mother to be with my aunt. In order to imprint my aunt, he unmarked your mother. Do you even have a slightest idea how big of an impact this decision of your father would have her life? 

She was a marked and mated werewolf. According to the rules, she no longer had any place in her paternal pack. Due to his unmarking, she didn't have any place in this pack either! Where was she supposed to go with a one-year-old baby in her arms?"

Why? Why does all the things that he is saying sound so reasonable? Just why?

"If not for the fact that your uncle loved your mother enough to disregard those rules and take you and your mother back into his pack, can you imagine what would have happened to you? Let me tell you one more thing, phi. By unmarking your mother, he was not only discarding her, he was discarding you as well. After the unmarking, you no longer had the right to call him your father, even though you are biologically related."

I sit there feeling frozen. My heart has turned cold and my brain can't accept this. How can my father be such a person.

"Your mother being a very powerful alpha, do you think that it was not right for her to be hostile towards your father and my aunt? You say that your mother forced your dad to go back to her. Do you actually think that you would have had your 'dad' present in your life, huh?" He taunts.

"Maybe... maybe it's because he was in love~"

"Love my foot!" He interrupts me in a ruthless tone. "He left my aunt when she was just two months into her pregnancy. She went through the whole term alone, gave birth alone and raised Chain till the day she died, alone. If your father loved her so much, to the extent that he was willing to unmark his previous mate who bore a child for him, shouldn't he have the courage to take her with him rather than leaving her behind to fend for herself?"