XXXIII. Begin Again-2

"I'm sorry, Sara," Shea murmured comfortingly. "I hope this is a consolation, but I know your dad is planning on sticking around." I lifted my head up. "How do you know that? Did he say something to you? Have you spoken to him?" Thanks mostly to my mom never leaving my side while I was in the hospital, I hadn't had a chance to speak to Shea privately about my dad after I'd asked him to check in on him. Some things could not be communicated via text message. "Obviously there's a lot of unfinished business and questions from our end," he started, implying that there was a lot of pack drama, "but we understand rejection and how that affects a lycan. Your dad was rejected by his mate, and his child was taken from him. While his actions were extreme, abandonment isn't as ridiculous as you might think amongst our kind." I wondered how common it really is. I wondered if it was humans that were the ones to reject their mates. I wanted to ask, but I knew it was a soft spot for Shea. "My dad was the Alpha, wasn't he?" I asked, changing the subject. "Is he joining back up again?" Shea smiled slightly. "We're not like a baseball team where you can just sign up again when you feel like it," he replied in a slight teasing tone. "But being a blood Alpha does have its advantages. At the end of the day, I'm the son of a Beta. I'm meant to be a Beta. If he wanted to, he could challenge me." I frowned. "Challenge you? What does that mean?" "We'd fight," he said simply. "Whomever gets the other on his back first wins." "What?" I spat. I pulled away from Shea, sitting up on my own and I stared at him. "Are you actually kidding me? All this bullshit started with a damned fight. You really think I'm going to let you fight my dad?" Or let my dad fight Shea, for that matter. "Sara, it's not like that," he promised me defensively. "Neither of us will get hurt. Besides, your dad hasn't even challenged me yet." "I don't give a shit!" I retorted. "You're not fighting. I'm saying no." Images started to fill my head all of a sudden and I started to panic. I could see those giant wolves in the clearing, but them fighting each other. My dad and Shea ripping at each other. Absolutely not. Were they insane? One stray swipe and they could catch an artery. I shuddered at the memory of Shea's back after a fight with Lex. No. Nope. Not happening. "Sara –" "No!" I interrupted. "You told me that you would do anything for me. Anything I ask. I'm asking you," more like ordering, "not to fight my dad. Work it out another way. I've had enough fighting and violence to last me a lifetime." Much to my annoyance, my conviction sounded more like an emotional mess. I hated crying when I was passionate or insistent on something. Shea held his hands up and nodded reassuringly. "Okay," he agreed. "Okay. I won't fight. There won't be a fight," he promised. Relief filled me as I comprehended his words. I breathed a sigh of relief. Our conversation changed after that. Shea asked me about how I was feeling, and we got on to talking about school and what was happening there. I prodded for information about Zoey, but he didn't tell me anything about her and Josh being official. I couldn't wait to ask Josh about what I'd seen in Charlotte. But I did hope it wasn't just Zoey getting his hopes up once again. Mom still wasn't home at dinner time, so Shea ordered a pizza for us. "You like pepperoni, right? You get that in the cafeteria," Shea checked as he was filling out our order on his cell. "Hawaiian, please," I requested. "They don't offer that in the cafeteria." Shea stared at me deadpan. "You like pineapple on your pizza?" he asked me in disbelief. "Yeah," I confirmed, smirking. "Well, jeez, Sara," Shea said, running his hand back through his hair. "I just don't think this relationship is going to work out." I laughed and playfully slapped him. "Shut up! Pineapple belongs on pizza! It freshens it up!" "Pizza doesn't need freshening up!" he retorted just as humorously, however I could see that he truly did think he was right. "Pizza is perfect just the way it is. Pizza is offended by you." "Be quiet and order me my pineapple pizza." I grinned. "Gross. I'm dating a cretin," he murmured under his breath, still smirking. He typed in half pepperoni, half Hawaiian, like it was physically injuring him to do so. It felt wonderful, just for five minutes, to be arguing about something as stupid as pizza. As if that was the worst thing that had happened to either of us in the past few weeks. But I couldn't help myself. I had to ruin it. I had to ask. "Shea," I said vulnerably. He noticed the change in my tone immediately. "What is it?" He put his phone down and edged closer to me. "Is Lex dead?" I had been wondering for weeks. And today, when my dad had talked about him in the past tense, I believed that he might have been dead. But I wasn't sure. And I wanted, no needed,to know what happened. Shea's face dropped as he nodded. My heart stopped. I honestly didn't feel as relieved as I had felt before. I felt dread. I felt dread rise in me as the enormity of the admission sunk in. Holy shit. Lex was dead. Had Shea killed him? Oh my God. Was Shea capable of doing something like that? "We chased him all the way to South Carolina," Shea explained quietly after a few minutes. "I was … I was not alright. When I saw what happened to you … Jesus, Sara, it's a fucking wonder …" He huffed. "My pack, my friends, my family, they looked after me, and I hate that the burden was on them. We gave him every opportunity. We tried to stop him, to calm him, to trap him even, but he just kept coming. Even after what he did to you, I didn't want to see him dead. I didn't want it to end that way. All I know was it was self-defence. We took him back to his pack and explained everything. Lex had gone rogue. They were well aware of that." Shea was quiet for a moment, and I took that time to fully comprehend what he'd just said. It was honestly still surreal to me that this sort of thing could happen. Like it was a recurring nightmare that I was happening, and I would wake up any minute and everything would be normal again. But this was normal. My normal. My new normal. The world wasn't what I'd thought it was. The supernatural existed in reality, and not just in books and movies. My father was a lycan, and shape shifter, and so was my boyfriend. There was such a thing as mates, and my mom was it for my dad, and I was it for Shea. This bond, which I still didn't fully understand, was something incredibly powerful. "Everything will be okay, won't it?" I mumbled. Shea wrapped his arms around me and kissed the top of my head. "You will be okay, Sara. I promise." While I felt reassured, I did notice that he worded his answer carefully. My parents weren't included in that.