Chapter 20

She shut her eyes tightly, her heart thumping so loud that I could hear it. My dick felt so fucking hard in my jeans, pressing against the restrictive material. I wanted Aurora to touch it, suck on it, and slide onto it until my load pumped into her cunt.

“Please, Alpha, can I come?”

“Come for me.”

Pussy pulsing on my fingers, she started to tremble. I decided to toy with her a bit and draw all the attention to us. She had teased me one too many times.

Still playing with my mate’s pussy, I turned to Dad. “There is something

I’ve been meaning to ask you.”

Dad wiped his mouth with a paper napkin. “What is it?”

Aurora squeezed my wrist and growled through the mind link at me for drawing attention to her, but I loved seeing her embarrassed and panting for me. I continued to move my fingers in and out of her, letting her ride out her orgasm.

“When Aurora and I went to the cave, they were trying to revive Mom,” I said, pulling my fingers out of her pussy and shamelessly sucking them into my mouth to calm myself. “Why do you think that hound wants Mom back?”

The thought of seeing Mom as nothing but bones had been haunting me for the past few days. All I wanted to do was go retrieve her bones, so she could rest in peace. But our pack wasn’t prepared to face that kind of challenge. We needed more information on the hounds and to build a larger army. I hoped that the necromancer in the south could help us in some way.

“Son,” Dad said, glancing nervously at Charlotte. When he returned his gaze to me, I saw fear in his eyes. “There is something that I’ve never told you about your mother.” He paused and sucked in a deep breath. “I loved your mother more than anything else in this entire world, but I was your mother’s second-chance mate. And—”

Unable to hold my wolf back, I growled and ripped my claws into Dad’s wooden dining room table. I had a bad fucking feeling about what he was about to say next, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to handle the truth.

“Don’t say it,” I said through clenched teeth. I ripped a chunk of the table off and crumbled it into dust in my fist. “Don’t fucking tell me that the

bastard hound was her original mate. I’ll fucking lose it.”

Dad cleared his throat. “Fenris was your mother’s first mate.”

My body shook, trembled, twitched. I stared at the wall with fury pumping through my veins and terror running through my mind. I saw red. I saw blood. I saw betrayal. This couldn’t be fucking happening. It fucking couldn’t.

Charlotte gasped. “Oh my Goddess …”

Aurora placed her hand on my shoulder, rubbing gently. “Calm down.”

“Why the fuck didn’t you tell me about this sooner?” I seethed at him and postured over him, my father. I couldn’t believe he hadn’t told me about that hound sooner. If I had known that they were second-chance mates before, I would’ve … I would’ve … I didn’t know what the fuck I would’ve done.

“I only ever heard stories of Fenris,” Dad said. “And I wanted you to see your mother and me differently. Second-chance mates or not, there was nothing but love between us. I wanted to show you strong love.”

“You knew the whole time who the fuck he was?” I shouted. “You knew?! I’ve been trying to figure it out for fucking years. Why didn’t you fucking tell me? Save me some time, so I could kill his fucking ass.”

Charlotte kicked her leg under the table and slammed it into my shin. I growled at her, baring my canines, and shook my head in disbelief. Yet she didn’t back down and almost looked … offended about what I had said.

“Ares, please, relax,” Aurora said. “You’ve been looking for this man for years. Knowing his name wouldn’t have done you any good. He’s a hound. They come and go as they please. Don’t blame your father for this.”

“And he’s dangerous,” Dad added, motioning for me to sit back down. “More dangerous than anything this pack is ready for. Not even you. You don’t know what that man is capable of.”

Filled with rage, I ripped the tablecloth from the table, the boxes flying off the table and pizza spilling everywhere. “Don’t tell me what I’m ready for. I have an alpha mate. She has the stone. We will defeat them whether or not it kills me. And if it does, then she’s strong enough to lead our pack to victory.”

Aurora widened her eyes and sucked in a breath. “Ares,” she whispered, tugging on my hand. “Please, listen to what your father is saying. I can’t lose you. I won’t let you fight blindly anymore.”

“I’ll kill the fucking bastard with my own two hands,” I said.

Charlotte growled loudly, eyes glowing a fiery gold and fingers trembling in anger. “Stop it, Ares. Just drop it,” she said, voice sharp. “If it wasn’t for him raping our mother, she’d still be alive.” “He’s my father!”

I balled my hands into fists and glared at my sister. Charlotte pushed her chair out, her legs screeching against the hardwood, and ran down the hall and up the stairs. Marcel watched her disappear and clenched his jaw, staring back and forth between me and the staircase.

Aurora stood up and walked to the hallway. “I’m going to see if she’s okay.”