Penance of Honor | BOOK 2 ✔️

Chapter: Twenty-One

Pierce's P.O.V

I look from my father to my brother who keeps a firm grip on the table we are sitting at. My father was so happy to see him. After all these years he had thought he was dead. Never would he had thought he would see him again.

"Aaron..." He squeezes his eyes shut and turns his head way from our father's voice. It's as if hearing his voice brings him pain.

"Why did you come back?" I hiss. "You said you wanted nothing to do with me or father! So why are you here?"

"So you didn't tell him or any of them...?"

"Why would I when you nearly choked the life from me!"

"You what?" Our father chimed in but Aaron's eyes only narrowed.

"I had to...treat you poorly, Pierce. Sanuel would have killed you for certain if he knew you and I were related."

My eyes fall.

"I do care for you. You are my brother. My younger brother. Nothing has changed since then."

I blink way from him remembering the very night he was taken from us. It was supposed to be me, not him.

"Despite me saying that, Sanuel... Please forgive his actions. He does not make the best decisions at times and he is too prideful to admit to it. He knows he has done wrong..."

"Aaron!" Our father shouts. "You came here to plead his case? After all these years! All these years, you come to seek forgiveness for a human? Not to see us. Not to be with us." Our father's voice grows weary towards the end.

Aaron can hardly look him in the eye.

"Forgive me...father. I had broken one promise to him. I will not break another."

"P-promise?" Our father sputters out. "Do not tell me- Goddess, do not tell me you have grown feelings for the human thing?"

My eyes narrow as his falls to the floor.

" I do not care what any one of you thinks of him. I did not come here for your blessings."

"Pierce has already become such a catastrophic disappointment to me, but you Aaron. You I would have never thought!"

"I do not care, father. I have been without you for years. I can live without burden because of your feelings towards my choices."

"You are no son of mine," he hisses. "Neither one of you!"

Aaron looks at me as I let out a shaky sigh full of hurt.

"He says what he does not mean, Pierce."

"Go on and love that Northern Alpha. Do not bother to speak to me. Do not bother to speak of me no longer! You have made your choice and have accepted it," he spits.

"He is my mate. Why can you not accept that? Accept him? He is not his father."

That only makes him scoff before he shake his head.

"That boy is his father in the flesh. His very image. I'm sure he is planning to be rid of me, right?" He laughs.

"That's how they always handle their problems. Not with war or petty things such as taking something precious from you that can leave you in pieces. No, you see, the north doesn't care to see you suffer. They will try to go for the root of the problem and put an end to it."

My lips part.

"You think you know your mate so well. But, really, you do not. He will only tell you all he thinks you should know and go on with whatever he is planning. That is just how they are."