Forever (Book 1) (Editing)

Chapter Forty Six

So the little she devil was carrying my father's pup. She was going to bringing my own sibling into this world. I wasn't exactly sure how I felt about that, or even how I should feel. I didn’t like Layla. She had never once given me any reason to like her. This was just the topping on the cake. The fact that she’d lied and tried to play it off as Colt’s, when all along it was my father’s. I knew it wasn’t right for me to force her to spill the truth, but really what was I supposed to do. I was done playing her games. I was done being as nice as I could be.

I was almost happy to hear that my mate wasn’t really the father, but that was drowned out by the fact that my own father was. I never would have imagined that he would stoop to that level as a means to regain control over his lost pack. That both he and Layla even thought something like that would work just blew my mind. Then again he’d been planning it on the fact that I wasn’t wolf. It wasn’t hard to see where he was going with this all. The pack would choose the Royal, and he would raise the unborn pup to follow in his footsteps for the day it would take over. He had not anticipated that I was wolf. Not when I was so late in shifting. And he’d neglected to take the packs loyalty into account. I’d done my best to earn it and I had. They were on my side. I knew it the moment those words had left my mouth as I told them all the truth.

When Layla had unwillingly told me the truth I’d had no choice to leave. I could bear to look at her any longer. My decision wouldn’t change either. I’d decided that I would raise that pup whether it was Colt’s or not. That decision became all the more solid when she’d made it known it was heir to my father. I could never let a child be raised by a man filled with so much evil anger inside him. That child deserved to grow up filled with love and light, just as I always should have been. I knew what being treated badly by a parent felt like. I knew it before my father ever waltzed back into my life. I knew it with the woman I’d grown up thinking was my mother. The fact that she was my aunt didn’t change how my mind thought of her. She would always be my mother.

But this child, this sweet unborn life, deserved everything that I never had growing up and I wanted so badly to be the one to provide it. I may hate my father. I may hate the child’s mother. But I could never hate my own brother or sister. It wasn’t its fault that its parents were not good people. And it was for that reason that I wanted to take it under my wing and raise it as though it were my own.

Already pack members were beginning to whisper about what had just happened, already their words were drifting to my ears.

“If I were her I would’ve rip her head off.”

“She has so much compassion, she’s gonna make a great leader.”

“I can’t believe Colt would do something like that.”

And they words just kept on flowing through the crowd as I pushed my way through and left the room. I felt like some sort of monster, even though I was being more than fair about this. I felt like I was making the wrong decision regarding Layla. But I wouldn’t change what I said. I’d spoke the words out loud in front of them all and it didn’t matter if the pup was not Colt’s. It didn’t matter that Layla deserved every word I said. It just mattered that I didn’t like being mean or cruel to others. I didn’t like being the one to state it in front of a room full of people that I wanted her out of this pack and out of this town. It was worse because she’d made her home here long before I ever got here. It just felt wrong for me to just walk in and demand she leave.

My heart was breaking once again. It was nowhere near the pain of walking in on her and Colt as I had, but it was close enough. To know that my own father was trying to steal my place from beneath me, and using Layla as his pawn, hurt. It cut me deeply. I knew this child meant nothing to him. Not really. And by coming to that realization I knew that I too meant nothing. Even if he had loved my mother all those years ago, he didn’t love me now. He wasn’t my father anymore. He was just a man who looked like him.