Chapter 116 - Unreject Me

Kaya’s pov

Confused, I grimaced. Kate was my mom. According to Helena, I looked a lot like her. Did that mean this stranger knew my mom?

“I think he is somehow related to us,” Mira muttered, taking me by surprise. My jaw dropped while a smile slowly curled on his lips, but then his forehead slightly wrinkled.

“Kate?” he asked, as though he wasn’t sure.

He must have noticed a difference in the scent. The woman standing next to him stood up and put her hand on his arm.

“Babe, do you know her?” she asked.

He didn’t look away from me. I knew that he was waiting for me to say something. I cleared my throat and offered a frail smile.

“I am not Kate. My name is Kaya,” I said.

His lips parted. I could have sworn his eyes shifted colour as he whispered my name under my breath, but he was good at hiding it. He glanced at his partner and gently placed a hand on hers before looking back at me.

“Kaya Robinson?”

I shuddered. It was getting more and more bizarre. How could a complete stranger know my last name? He must be family.

I cast a quick glance at my mate, who appeared to be equally confused.

“Yeah?” I hesitantly said, not expecting a broad grin to spread across his face.

“Oh dear. I thought I would never get to meet you. When I left, you were so small,” he said.

A deep frown creased my face. So he knew me.

“Who are you?” I asked him.

He let out a humourless laughter. “Of course you wouldn’t remember me. I am Pete Robinson. Your dad, Benedict Robinson’s brother.”

A shudder ran through my spine. My father’s brother... wouldn’t that make him my uncle? But why did he leave the pack? Why didn’t I know about his existence? I was pretty young when my parents died, but not too young to be unaware of family.

“Mate?”

Theo’s whisper forced me to come back to reality. He was standing by my side, holding my waist, staring into my face.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

I inhaled deeply, nodding my head. All the scents in the room were mixed, but I was able to differentiate between his scent and the others. It all made sense. He was closely related to me, and his scent reminded me of my father. I looked into his face, trying to see even a bit of my dad in him, but I failed. It could be because I was so young when I lost them or because my wolf had tried blocking some of my memories. Either way, I believed him. My wolf senses couldn’t lie.

“Wow. Isn’t it exciting to find lost family members?” the nurse I had befriended said, clapping her hands together. “Maybe we can easily come to an agreement about Ethan now.”

Her remark reminded us of the real reason we had to see them.

“Yeah,” I said, nodding my head. “We should.”

***

I was a little surprised when Pete gave in without any hesitation, but relieved that we would get to raise Ethan in the wolf pack. It was best for him to grow there rather than in the human city. I could tell that his wife wasn’t pleased about it, but after hearing about what happened, she agreed. Besides, Pete knew how to calm her down.

“Don’t worry, honey. We will adopt a girl, just like you originally wanted,” he said, holding her shoulders.

She sighed. “Fine. I guess we will have to wait for another year.”

“No, you don’t have to. We will start the process right away, and we will speed it up for you,” the receptionist promised.

Although she wasn’t exactly happy, she seemed to have accepted it by the time we walked out of the door. There was sadness in her eyes but also a determination. I couldn’t help but wonder the reason behind her sadness.

“How are things back in the town? Ever since I left over twenty years ago, I never returned,” Pete said.

I glanced at him. Town? Perhaps he was deliberately not using the word pack. Could it be because his wife was human?

“They are good,” I said. “I have a lot of questions.”

He laughed. “I know. You just found out you had an uncle. Your parents might not be too thrilled to hear you met me. We didn’t get along, unfortunately.”

My mouth formed an ‘o’. Perhaps that was one reason I never heard his name in my household when my parents were alive.

“How are they?” He sounded a little reluctant as he asked about them.

My lips quivered. “They are gone,” I said, looking into his eyes. He stopped dead in his tracks, and the smile on his face vanished.

“They died when I was ten. I live in my ma… Theo’s… place.”

I almost used the wrong words. If he wasn’t using the words like pack and wolves, I felt that I also shouldn’t. Perhaps she wasn’t ready to know about it yet.

“I am so sorry. I didn’t know,” he whispered. He fished his car keys from his pocket and handed them to his wife. “Honey, can you get the car, please? I want a few words with my niece.”

He waited until she was out of earshot before making eye contact with us.

“What happened?” he asked, his tone suddenly changing to a more serious one.

“Silver Claw attacked. The whole pack was murdered. I was the only survivor,” I explained as shortly as I could.

His expression remained cold. Perhaps he was processing what he just heard and was in a shock too deep to react to the news of losing everyone he once knew. But why didn’t he once try to reconnect for over twenty years? Was their fight that bad?

“I am so sorry, Kaya,” he whispered again, looking into my eyes. “I should have been there.”

I offered a smile. “If you were there, they would have killed you too. All these years, I thought I was the only one left of my original pack. You are here.”

He smiled. “Yeah, I guess,” he said, his gaze travelling towards Theo, who was holding Ethan in one hand. “Are you mates?”

We laced our fingers. “Yes,” I said.

“Which pack? You smell like an Alpha,” he remarked.

Theo’s lips curled in a lopsided smile. “Black Woods, and yes, sir. I am their Alpha.”

Pete nodded his head. “Good. Take care of this pup. I would have done my best to teach him everything, but taking his back to the forest is a better idea.”

“Is that why you wanted to adopt Ethan? You knew he wasn’t human?” Theo asked.

Pete snickered. “Yes. Kathy wanted a girl, but I convinced her. Now she can have the girl she wanted in the first place.”

“She seems nice,” I said. “Does she know about... werewolves?”

He shook his head. “She is blissfully unaware, and I want it to stay that way. I was single for a long time, but now I am married to Kathy,” Pete said. “She isn’t a wolf, but I like her. She knows nothing about my past. She knows I left my town after a bad fight with my brother, but she didn’t pry to know more. Which is why I liked her the most.”

I raised a brow. Well, I wasn’t Kathy, and I wanted to know what the fight was about. However, it wasn’t the time or the place to have that conversation. We were standing on the road in front of the orphanage, holding a baby. Before long, Kathy approached us with a red Mustang and rolled down the window.

“We should meet before you leave for your town. I haven’t anyone from Pete’s family, and I probably never will. Why don’t you come over for dinner tonight?” she said.

Pete gave us a glance. “Dinner sounds great. Doesn’t it, Kaya?”

***

Kathy and Pete seemed like nice people. Although I had a lot of questions for Pete, I refrained from asking any because Kathy was with us. She was pleasant to be around, and the dinner they hosted was spectacular. Since they wanted to stay in touch, we exchanged our phone numbers. After saying goodbye to them, Theo and I started our journey back to Black Woods. I thought of inviting them to visit our pack but hesitated because Kathy was oblivious to the existence of werewolves.

On our way back to the pack, I kept thinking about my family. It was funny how I was never told about Pete. I wondered what my dad, and he fought about. Was it about who would inherit the pack? But if my father was the eldest, he would be the next Alpha. That was a wildly accepted fact in our world. I wondered what made him leave the wolf territory altogether.

“What are you thinking about?” Theo broke the silence. His eyes were on the road, but he wasn’t unaware of my mental turmoil.

“I have an uncle living here.”

He chuckled. “Does it feel weird?”

I ran my tongue over my lower lip. “Yeah. I keep wondering why he left and never tried to reconnect with us. Or why my parents never spoke about him.” A sigh escaped my lips. “Maybe I just don’t remember.”

“Maybe,” he said. “And maybe when Pete tried to contact you all, Golden Cresent was no more. His calls wouldn’t have reached through if he had tried too late.”

“So he didn’t try to call for ten years?”

“We wouldn’t know that. You were young, right?”

My lips pursed in a grim line. He was right. If my parents disliked him, they wouldn’t tell me anything. I wonder if he ever tried to return to the pack. If he had, he would have found the ruins, but apparently, his reaction told me that he knew nothing about the massacre. What could have the brothers possibly fought about? I glanced at Ethan, who was sleeping soundly in the car seat. He and Archie would grow as brothers. I just hoped that they would never fight about something so badly that they cut each other off from their lives.

***

“Who is this?” Archie asked, pointing at Ethan.

“That’s Ethan. Your new brother, Archie. Do you like him?” I asked.

He looked at the little brown-haired pup who was busy biting into one of the toys.

“Yeah! We can be friends,” he said.

My lips curled into a smile as I watched them. Taking care of three pups was a lot of work, but I had a lot of help. All the omegas working in the packhouse were only too happy to be their nannies if I needed help. Besides, Helena and William loved them like their own grandchildren. I was truly blessed.

The door of the Alpha quarters flung open. A smile curled on my lips when Theo’s scent hit my nostrils.

“There she is!” He tackled me into a hug from behind. But then, our little moment was interrupted by the ringing of his phone.

“Hello? Okay, who?” His eyebrows raised. “Sure, send him to the meeting room. We will be there.”

I waited for him to tell me what that was about.

“That was Ezekiel. Pete’s at the border requesting to meet us,” he said.

My lips parted. “Pete? My uncle?”

He nodded. “Yeah. him.”