Chapter 50
DAKOTA’S POV
I opened my eyes to the sound of beeping and noticed that I was in a room. I looked around and found Akela and my mom in the corner, their heads joined together, talking. I tried to sit up, and I groaned with the effort it took. Their heads snapped to mine, and they immediately made their way to me. My mom was pulling with her a pole that had a drip hanging off of it, connected to her with an IV tube.
“Honey!” She leaned down and kissed my forehead, and from the way her cheeks felt, I could tell that she had been crying.
“You scared me!”
“You scared us!” Akela piped in. I looked around and noticed that Orion wasn’t in the room. I tried getting up again and found I couldn’t do it.
“Help me up.”
Akela put his hands under my back and helped lift my upper body off the bed. I sighed and rested my back against the headboard. My mother sat on the bed and held my hand.
“Akela, could you please excuse us?”
“What?” He seemed appalled.
“It’s not like I’m going to kill her…” my mother said.
“Did I say that?”
“Akela, please…”
“But why?” I freed my hand from my mother’s hand and held his.
“Please.”
He hesitated for a bit and then nodded. I registered the hurt that he felt. I wasn’t too happy about that, but I needed to talk to my mother alone. I waited for the door to close, and only spoke when I heard his footsteps going down the hallway.
“Mom…”
“I know, I know. I have some serious questions to answer, don’t I?”
“Yes, you do.”
“What happened with you and Dad? I want to know everything. No detail should be left out. Especially that of his true mate and their child.”
My mother sighed and cleared her throat.
“See, it all began when your father went on a mission outside the pack. When he came back, I noticed two things. One, he wouldn’t look at me the same, and two, he smelt of someone else. A woman…”
“He was in another pack surrounded by women; he would smell like a woman.”
My mother sighed.
“Not that type of smell. He smelt like he had slept with another woman. Her scent was mingled with his.”
“Oh.” I was a bit confused. “You…you didn’t feel it?”
“Me and your father aren’t fated mates. We’re chosen mates. So, no, I didn’t feel any of it. Although it hurt when I found out that your father was seeing someone else, I loved him very much…” Her voice cracked. She took a deep breath and continued.
“Well, I asked him about it, but he denied everything. But he couldn’t hold that secret for long. I noticed how he was always giggling at his phone and changed the password too. That was another red flag.”
“Hmm…”
“That was until one day, a woman showed up on our doorstep, insisting she wanted to see her mate. She had a faint smell of Jacob on her and the worst part? I could hear a tiny heartbeat, one that wasn’t hers. She was pregnant.”
My mother choked on a sob. I wiped the tears away and held her hand. She whispered her thanks.
“Well, I called your father, and he welcomed her into our house with so much love. I sat there watching like an outsider when she told him that she was expecting their child. That was the only time he noticed that I was in the room. She asked him who I was, and at least he had the decency not to make me look like more of a fool. He said that I was his mate.”
“What happened?” I probed when I noticed that her consciousness was beginning to drift into the past.
“Well, she was hurt. Apparently, he hadn’t told her that he was mated. I was hurt. I loved your father. I asked him what he intended to do about us…about you. She was even more shocked. She didn’t know that he had a child, much less one your age.”
I rubbed my mother’s back, urging her to continue. I wanted her to stop, but if she did, how would I know the rest of the story. That, and I feel like she needed to tell someone about what happened and get it off of her chest.
“He said he loved me and you. But he loved his mate as well and wanted to be with her. So, I asked him what he planned to do.”
“What did he say?”
“He said that he was going to give it three years until he would leave. That was to wait for you to grow up to the age where you could understand what was going on. I just sat there like a fool while they discussed and concluded. Like my opinion wasn’t valid.”
I tried imagining myself in my mother’s shoes, and I felt sympathy for her. It began to make sense. Her reaction after my father died, how she couldn’t even bring herself to mourn him. Coming to Russia had been a breath of fresh air for her. I began to feel guilty for judging her for it.
“When she left, we had the biggest fight that we’ve ever had. But eventually, when tempers were down, and feelings were put in check, we talked. He said that he just couldn’t forget his mate and couldn’t live without her. I asked him if he planned to mate her fully and bring her into the pack. He said yes. But that isn’t allowed. Mistresses were highly looked down on. To cheat on your mate was such a big offense that you could be chased out of the pack, forcing you to become a rogue. Your father didn’t care. That was one of the major reasons why he challenged Odin. He did it for her. He wanted to take the position of Alpha so he could change that law and allow his mate into the pack.”
“Oh, my goddess…”
“He didn’t care about the ridicule that I would face if he did that. He didn’t care that we would be pushed into the background. Nothing else mattered to him but her…”
“Well, Odin found out about her and began to blackmail him. Making him do some dirty work.”
“What sort of dirty work?”
“He had him kidnap a witch. And bring her to the prisons in the forest. I’m not sure what he needed her for, but your father said it was the same witch that have him the potion that helped him defeat the previous Alpha.”
“Angela?”
“Yup. He said that he asked the witch to make the same potion but in very large quantities. He didn’t know what he needed it for, but he knew that it wouldn’t be good. So, he decided that he would challenge him. On your birthday.”
“Why on my birthday?”
“He wanted it to be symbolic.”
“What was her name?” I didn’t need to explain who the ‘her’ was.
“Evelyn. Her name was Evelyn.”