The Alpha's Daughter: Whispers in the Wind [on hold]

Whispers in the Wind - Chapter 10

Chapter 10:

Gordon:

I hadn’t had a smoke in years, but there I was; standing on the porch like a teenager, puffing away on a cigarette that I’d slipped from Rollo’s pack when he wasn’t attached to them. Not an easy feat, of course. As the vapour filled my lungs, my eyes scanned across the drive, which reached into the forest temptingly, gravel and earth merging into one.

At the sound of the door swinging open behind me, the cigarette was quickly tossed over the railings, landing somewhere in the darkness and far away from me.

“I won’t tell,” the person mumbled. I looked around, watching as Sierra sat down on the steps, hugging her knees to her chest sadly as tears rolled down her cheeks. It struck me, suddenly, how Jase had ended up mated to someone who looked so much like his mother. Was that not a sign of true love? Finding it with someone who looked like your parents?

Mirae looks like your mother, my wolf reminded me helpfully.

“Are you alright?” I asked awkwardly, trying not to squirm at the thought of someone crying. I’d lived for almost five decades, and tears still made me want to run and hide like a little boy. It wasn’t some deep, psychological fear; I just hated them.

Sierra nodded, wiping the offending tracks away with the back of her hand determinedly.

“Y-Yeah,” she said, forcing a smile. “I’m great.” It should have been a sin to let someone like Sierra get upset like that; she was always smiling. In fact, I was pretty sure that I’d never seen her cry like this before. Not proper crying.

“Sure?”

A sob rose up her throat, which she quickly stifled by ducking her head. Why was it that it was me comforting Jase’s distraught wife? I didn’t exactly have the best track record when it came to women, did I? Perhaps it was just God’s way of making me realised just how much I had screwed it up with my own wife.

“I’m sorry,” she whimpered, wiping at her eyes with the back of her hand. “I thought I could put up with it, I really could.” It didn’t take a scientist of any shape or form to work out what she was on about.

Sometimes I wondered if it was my fault that Jase cheated. Maybe he had subconsciously picked up on the fact that I had been less than faithful to his mother, just had Annie had inevitably done. At least he didn’t know…the whole truth.

I was waiting for the right time.

But when was the right time to tell your son – the child that you had raised from birth – that his parentage was in doubt?

“It’s fine,” I mumbled, sitting down beside her. My eyes searched her tearful face, and suddenly I was wracked with guilt. This hadn’t been the first time I’d sat and tried to console an upset red head; in fact, I’d spent most of my marriage to Selene trying to make amends for all the stress I put her under. And yet I couldn’t help it; something within me drove me to treat her with little respect, with little appreciation which she obviously deserved.

I was a bad man. I was the sort of man that ought to be shot on sight. But that was neither here nor there anymore. Selene was long gone, and the products of my mistakes had now grown up.

“I love him,” Sierra whispered, hugging herself tightly. “I love him so much, and he just…won’t stop.” She trembled, crying quietly to herself as she rested her head against a pillar. “I keep trying to think about what I’ve done wrong, what I can do to change, but I can’t think of anything, Gordon; he just doesn’t want to stay with me.”