Chapter 184

Chapter 184
“He cannot forgive me,” Dax growled.

“Have you asked?” Reyland pressed.

“I cannot forgive me,” Dax replied in the same harsh tone.

“That is true. I know that is true. That impossible measure! But he should be given the choice,” Reyland continued, taking three steps forward, his shoulders hunched as he bent down toward the man he admired the most.

“I can’t,” Dax whispered hoarsely.

“You must, Father. Or this cycle will not break,” Reyland said quietly.

“You must release him. You must release yourself. Then, and only then, can you get your son back,” he continued encouragingly.

Dax’s eyes snapped to Reyland.

His lips parted.

“Dorien. Father. I mean Dorien. Only if you show that you, Dax Garrant, can forgive himself, can Dorien ever believe that you can or will forgive him,” Reyland explained patiently, his eyes searching his father’s face.

“I do not –” Dax growled.

“You must, Father. For all this to end. You must forgive him,” Reyland insisted, gently.

“Can you?!” Dax bellowed. “Have you?” he growled.

“No,” Reyland replied flatly.

“Then –” Dax shot back.

“I am not his father. You are. I am not his Alpha. You are. You are everything to that child, and he is the son of your soul,” Reyland pushed back, cutting off his father’s retort.

“I –” Dax rasped.

“I am not ashamed of that,” Reyland continued as Dax’s face contorted, turning a bad shade of grey.

“I am not sorry for it,” he remarked gently but firmly, holding his father’s eyes without a sliver of embarrassment or sadness.

“Dorien is the brother I wish was my own blood. He is the leader Lightmoon needs,” Reyland continued calmly.

“Why –” Dax rasped.

“Am I saying all this? Because I am Lycan. I cannot stay here. Even if I could, I would not,” Reyland cut in evenly, his tone and pace becoming more distant, more formal.

“What?” Dax breathed, jumping to his feet.

“I will go to Whitehall,” Reyland stated flatly.

Dax’s face fell.

“Not today,” Reyland continued swiftly, steadily, his eyes, his expression, clear, “not tomorrow.”

“But I will go, Father. And I will not leave you here surrounded by enemies or those who can be used by enemies.”

It was a declaration, an oath, made by a son to his father.

Dax croaked.

“Trust me, Alpha. Give me the chance to show you that you are not alone. And that you have never been so,” Reyland continued, his voice cracking as he held his father’s gaze.

Dax fell into the chair, again.

He stared at the wall opposite him.

Both men were silent for a long time.

“Have you…have you found your wolf? Your…Lycan?” Dax asked quietly, tiredly.

“I have.”

Dax’s gaze shifted slowly to Reyland.

“And you failed to mention this before?” he said hoarsely, his eyes wide.

“You did not ask, till now,” Reyland replied, a small smile on his lips.

Dax’s face turned from pale to a healthier shade of pink.

He swallowed.

“Have you…have you shifted?” he asked quietly.

“I don’t dare. I need Marian around when I do that for the first time,” Reyland replied smoothly, like it was something he had thought about, considered, and was now simply informing the one he was talking with.

“Why?” Dax breathed, his back straightening as his eyes widened even more.

“In case…” Reyland murmured as his eyes clouded, his mind going somewhere far, and then cleared as they returned, “in case something goes wrong.”

“What would go wrong?” Dax murmured.

“I don’t know. And I don’t want to find out,” Reyland replied tersely.

Dax sat back in his chair, gazing at his son, gazing at the first Lycan in over six hundred years.

“Do you know what it means to be Lycan?” Dax remarked evenly, eyeing his son steadily.

“The King said he would tell me everything,” Reyland replied casually.

“You are not indestructible,” Dax droned.

“I know. But I am very hard to kill,” Reyland replied in the same casual tone.

“No, son. Not if you have a mate. If you have a mate, it would be that much easier to kill you,” Dax said evenly.

“Yes, Father. But if that mate is a red wolf, I would be that much safer,” Reyland replied quietly.

Dax sat up and leaned forward, his brows shooting up.

“That’s why you want her there when you shift!” he exclaimed quietly.

Reyland smiled lightly.

Yes, THIS is my father! The young lycan mused.

“Yes. That’s why I NEED her there,” Reyland remarked softly.

“If Nakshar does not recognize her, or if Dinka does not recognize him…” Reyland’s voice trailed off.

The young Lycan could not finish his sentence.

He would not.

“I understand,” Dax rumbled, rising.

“Let it be so,” the Alpha stated formally, “As for the ones outside, ignore them until our red wolf regains her strength,” Dax continued.

“‘Our’ red wolf, Father?” Reyland remarked, feigning surprise.

“Much has happened, my son, much that you do not know,” Dax replied solemnly, but with a small smile.

Reyland smiled back, exhaling softly.

His father nodded, Reyland nodded in response.

Dax left Reyland’s house.

What the Alpha did not know, what no one apart from the Lycan knew, was that Reyland knew a great deal about a great many things that had happened while he had ‘slept’.

He had heard everything that had been said in his room from the moment Marian had been pushed out of his mind space.

Every. Single. Thing.

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The rest of the day was uneventful.

Reyland remained at his home after his father left. Then, after a bit, he went to his lake.

Reyland had been alone with his thoughts and had made many plans.

Marian had been receiving her healing and taking care of her healer, over and over.

By nightfall, Misha had fallen into a deep sleep, and Marian had gotten dressed and slipped out of the pack hospital.

No one had heard her or seen her leave the pack compound.

Misha had done an excellent job. Dinka was almost at full strength and was able to hide Marian’s presence very well.

Marian, on her part, had done a good job of keeping Misha alive and healthy.

His life was now not in any type of danger from the exertions on his body.

She remembered her father’s words about red wolves being able to heal others, and though she had never tried it, excluding whatever had happened to Reyland, which could hardly be called ‘healing’, she tested things with Misha.

By filling him with her scent, her fluids – other than blood, which was not an option between them, between her and anyone but Reyland – she had kept him strong, kept him alive, even as the pills from his pack gave him the added strength to keep putting HIS energy into HER.

Marian had gone directly to the only place her mind had been on since two nights ago.

Reyland’s lake.