Shifting Love

Chapter 17: Memories Never Fade

"No, absolutely not!" Dante yelled and slammed his fist onto the wooden table.

We were sitting in his office with Cooper and a few others of our pack. We were trying to discuss the best way to deal with the hunters and the traitor wolf shifters. I had just relayed my plan to him. I was certain it would work but he refused to even consider it. It was extremely dangerous and not a hundred percent fool proof. But it was also the only thing remotely plausible to work.

I had been thinking this plan over the course of the past couple of days. Dante and I had been acting like we were kids playing house. Our days were filled with cuddling on his bed or walks through the woods as we talked about our pasts.

He opened up about his father and the life he was forced into leading. Sometimes he would tell me stories about my father and how much he really meant to him. It was enough to make me wish I had seen them together. I wanted my father to know that we were mates.

We talked about his mother last night. At one point he brought up her funeral. It was a day that I actually remembered after a lot of thinking.

The entire week it had been pouring rain. The day that his mother was going to be buried was no different. I was six at the time so I didn't fully understand the severity of the situation; that an Alpha female and someone's mother was being laid to rest.

There had been big men in and out of our house all week. I barely had any time to play with father. I spent most of my time in the kitchen with mother and Aunt Fiona cooking for the funeral and for the Hollows family. When I wasn't pretending to cook, I was playing games with Logan and Scott.

The day of the funeral mother dressed me in a black dress. Back then I hated wearing dresses. I would always get them dirty after Logan and I played in the woods. Mother was constantly scolding us for ruining our nice clothes. But today I wouldn't get away with anything. She already lectured us about the proper behavior at a funeral. This was the first of many that I would attend.

When we got into the village, instead of going to the ice cream shop like I was accustomed to at that age, we turned left and made our way to the cemetery. Alphas and their families were put to rest in a large marble mausoleum. I had only been in there once when father showed me where Grandma and Grandpa were buried.

We were some of the first to arrive. The pack funeral would happen tomorrow. This funeral was arranged for just Alphas and their families to pay their respects. That's what father told me yesterday when he explained what happened when someone powerful and important died. I had asked him what happened to her but he wouldn't tell me anything. He said I was too little to understand. In years to come he would inform me that she was murdered but the culprit was never caught.

The only ones who were there before us was the Hollows family themselves. Alpha Eric was a large, well-built man. His jaw was firmly set and his eyes were hardened. He just gazed at the spot where his wife's casket was sitting in front of the spot where it would be placed into. He was ten years older than father and already had grey hair.

Standing beside him was a boy who looked like he was just starting his teenage years. He had black hair that was neatly combed. When he looked at me his piercing blue eyes held mine captive. My breath caught at the severity of his stare. I found it a little odd that he wasn't crying. There wasn't a trace of sadness behind his hard glare at me.

At the age of six, the funeral itself was extremely boring. A lot of the Alphas spoke highly of her and even Alpha Eric had a few kind words to say about his wife. He never said a nice thing to anyone in the years that I knew him. I had thought he only had one son. There was only one of them standing with him the whole time. I was wrong.