THE ALPHA'S REJECTED MATE ( I have a baby for him)

Part 23

ALORA

The day had been long, with routine training and evaluation. Sebastian allowed me to have few training with our enlistee guards after hours of begging and him saying no. I knew he was scared within himself what might happen to me if Constance made a move so he allowed me to train alongside the guards. 

Rome was with his nanny, safe and sound, but my mind was heavy with the thought of what lay ahead. Waylen had asked to see me, and though I had agreed, a part of me was nervous. It had been four years since we truly spoke, before Cara's death, and the memories of our past were far from pleasant.

I found him waiting in one of the smaller sitting rooms, his back to me as he stared out the window. 

"Waylen," I called softly, stepping into the room.

He turned slowly, his face a mixture of emotions I couldn't quite place. There was something different about him—an air of regret, perhaps, or maybe just the weight of years gone by. "Alora," he greeted, his voice rougher than I remembered, as if carrying the burden of things left unsaid.

I moved closer, unsure of how to begin. The silence stretched between us, thick with the echoes of the past. Finally, Waylen broke it, his gaze dropping to the floor. "I've wanted to talk to you for a long time," he started, his tone filled with a vulnerability I hadn't expected. "There's so much I need to say, so much I need to apologize for."

I held my breath, waiting for him to continue. The anger I'd carried for so long bubbled up inside me, but it was tempered by the curiosity of what he might say, what he might apologize for.

"You were always different," Waylen began, his eyes lifting to meet mine. "You were so different. Father... he loved you more than any of us. More than me, Orson, or Arlo. It was as if you were his entire world, you were perfect in his eyes, with the perfect grades, perfect words to say, perfect action. He adored you more than anything and his love for you only grew after mother passed. It was like you were the suitable replacement to that emptiness in his heart. He never saw that in us, he saw everything in you." 

His words hit me like a punch to the gut, but I stayed silent, letting him speak.

"At first, I didn't understand it," he continued, his voice thick with emotion. "Why you? Why did he care so much about you? We were his sons, his blood... but you, you were something else entirely. And I hated you for it, Alora. I hated you because no matter what we did, we could never measure up to you in his eyes."

Tears pricked at the corners of my eyes, but I blinked them away, refusing to let them fall. "Waylen..."

He held up a hand, stopping me. "Please, let me finish. I'm not saying this to justify my actions. There's something you need to know, something I should have told you a long time ago."

My heart pounded in my chest as I waited for him to speak, each second stretching out painfully.

"You weren't... you aren't... his biological child, Alora," Waylen said, his voice breaking slightly. "Father found you, took you in as his own, but you were never truly his by blood. And yet, he loved you more than anything. More than us, more than the pack, more than himself."

I staggered back, the weight of his words crashing down on me. Not his biological child? The world spun around me, and I clutched the back of a chair to steady myself. My entire life, everything I'd known, suddenly felt like a lie.

Waylen stepped forward, concern etched on his face. "Alora, I'm so sorry. I didn't know how to tell you, but you deserve to know the truth. After everything I had done to you, what Arlo did to you, you deserve to know the truth. It is not a justification, what we did to you was terrible and unjust and I'd spend the rest of my life regretting what I did to you."