False Family Ties

Kiarra

~“Are you ready?”~

Aidan was standing next to me outside the office as I looked at the door, gathering the courage to open it.

~“No, but let’s do it anyway.”~

I nodded slightly as I moved to open the door. I kept the mind-link open, just in case I needed some support.

I took a deep breath and walked into Aidan’s office.

The Kendricks were sitting on the couch as we walked in, but both stood up as soon as they heard us coming.

“Kiarra! Sweetheart!”

Before I even had the chance to react, Rose was running to me and engulfed me in a hug and I froze.

I had no fucking clue as to what I had been expecting to happen first, but this was not on the list of things I had imagined.

I was completely stunned as the woman put her arms around me, and I just stood there, stiff as a board for the first few seconds until my brain restarted again.

“G-get off me.”

I stopped myself from pushing the woman away, but the tone in my voice was not exactly friendly.

“Oh, my. I’m so sorry, I was rushing it a little bit, darling. I’m just so excited to see you.”

She let go of the hug, but kept her hands placed on my arms, stroking them gently as if trying to warm me up or some shit.

“I’m fine, but please stop touching me.”

I backed away slightly, feeling Aidan’s arms go around my waist and pull me toward him.

The hurt look on Rose’s face sent a slight pang of guilt through me, but I shook my head. I had nothing to feel guilty about. Nothing.

“You are rushing things, my love. Give Kiarra some time to adjust.”

James had walked up to Rose’s side and gave her a small shoulder hug. Wow, what a difference in fucking attitude. I looked at the man skeptically as I remembered his rude behavior from the first night.

“You are right, honey.” Rose nodded and looked at me with a smile again. “I am sorry, darling; it will take time for you to get used to seeing your father and me. I understand.”

I frowned and was about to say something not so friendly when Aidan let out a slight cough and interrupted.

“Let’s take a seat and talk.”

“Let’s.” James nodded and moved Rose around the table to take their seats on the couch again.

I hesitated for a moment before I took Aidan’s hand. We sat down together on the opposite side.

I looked at the couple in front of me with no idea of what I wanted to say or even what I wanted to hear from them.

I had gotten a glimpse of James’s personality the other night, and he hadn’t exactly made a positive impression.

~The men are speaking~. Every time I recalled that one sentence, it left a bad taste in my mouth, and I wanted to throw up.

It seemed as if they were waiting for me to speak up.

Rose watched me with an almost hyper-fixated look. I swear if she had been a cartoon, her eyes would be heart-shaped right there.

James, meanwhile, was looking at me like he was trying to figure something out, almost analyzing every fucking part of me.

It was weird and uncomfortable, but I had no clue how to proceed. If it had been anyone else and if I hadn’t promised Aidan to behave, I would have already asked them what the hell they were staring at, but I had made a promise.

“So, Mr. and Mrs. Kendrick.”

I sent a silent thank you to Aidan for being the first one to speak.

“We know there is a lot to talk about. We have a lot of questions, and I’m sure you have just as many. Let me start with the first question we had.”

I eyed Aidan but didn’t interrupt. He was going according to plan, and I was beyond impressed at the polite tone he was using.

If I had said anything, I might have started World War III. It probably wouldn’t have been completely unintentional, but definitely not useful at the moment.

“How did you find Kiarra? And how were you sure she was, in fact, your daughter?”

“See, I was abandoned at a fire station when I was two. I have no idea who my parents are, so how you know this is just ~fascinating,~” I added with a tight smile and a buttload of sarcasm.

They seemed almost surprised by the question, but it was only a fraction of a second before they controlled their expressions again.

James’s face returned to a neutral yet analyzing look, and Rose looked at me with a nauseating gaze, which some might have described as loving. I choose to describe it as creepy.

“Oh, sweetie. I am so sorry that you had to grow up that way! Thinking we abandoned you! Your father and I would never!”

By God, if this woman’s voice got any fucking sweeter, I would end up with a cavity.

“We didn’t abandon you! You were taken from us when you were very little!”

I raised an eyebrow and was about to give her a piece of my mind when I felt Aidan’s hand land on my thigh.

“~Wait, Kitten. Remember the plan.~” Aidan’s voice echoed in my head through the mind-link, and I bit my tongue.

We needed to hear exactly what they had to say and see if it matched up with the information Isaac was gathering.

“What do you mean?” was the only thing I allowed myself to say as I tried to control my expressions and my tone of voice.

Rose looked at her mate and he nodded, but otherwise kept quiet.

“When you were small, someone took you. They kidnapped you!

“We searched for you for years without ever finding a lead on where you were, and then a few months ago, someone we knew contacted us and told us they had seen you here. With Alpha Gold.”

Rose’s eyes glistened as she spoke, and I was almost tempted to believe her. I think anyone would, but I couldn’t. That horrible feeling I had had inside of me ever since I first saw them wouldn’t allow me.

“I looked at the records with the Council, and no such claims were ever presented to them.”

I wanted to give Aidan a fucking award for the actor of the fucking century. He spoke not with accusation or frustration in his voice, but with compassion.

If I didn’t know what he was doing, I would actually have believed he was trying to be understanding and figure out what had happened.

I kept quiet and watched the two of them, trying to gauge their reactions and see if I could find any fault in their body language. To my great disappointment, I saw none.

“We couldn’t go to the Council.” James finally spoke up and put his arm around his mate again, apparently trying to comfort her.

“It was a condition of your safety. If we didn’t want them to kill you, we had to stay silent and live without you.

“That was their intention. To torture us by taking away what we loved the most, letting us go through life knowing we could never see you again.”

Rose spoke in a shaky voice and wiped her eyes constantly, as if trying to catch the tears before they could escape.

I frowned as I listened to her story. Somehow it made sense, and somehow it sounded like complete and utter fucking bullshit.

It was like I was listening to a fucking soap opera, and I wasn’t a fan of it.

“Who did this?” Aidan still held my hand in his and gave it a slight squeeze as he spoke.

I was really surprised at how well he was handling everything. He took charge of the conversation when I didn’t trust myself enough to do so.

Rose once again looked at her mate, getting a small nod from the silent man, before she turned to us with a frown.

“I’m not sure what you know of our pack, but we haven’t exactly made a lot of friends outside our own borders. A lot of wolves hate us and have it out for us, so we have a lot of enemies.

“We never found out which one of them did it, no matter what we tried to get that information.”

Her voice shook slightly as she continued.

“So we never found out who did it and therefore we never found you. Not until now.”

Her eyes never strayed away from me, except for the few times she looked at her mate.

I slightly adjusted myself in my seat, feeling uncomfortable at their constant gaze and the fact that I was trying to be civil.

I had never been one to hold back on my snappy or smart-assed comments, and they were making it extremely difficult not to be my glorious, sarcastic self.

“Couldn’t imagine why someone would hate you,” I mumbled out under my breath, and I felt Aidan squeeze my hand slightly. Well, what can I say, bad habits die hard.

My barely audible remark was not only based on the feeling in my gut or the rumors I had heard from both Aidan and Isaac.

Just thinking back on our first meeting, I couldn’t come up with any other feeling than disgust. Of course, Rose had been overly charming, but James had been the definition of unlikeable.

~“How dare you stand there with my daughter hanging on your arm, pretending like you don’t know the chaos you have caused?”~

~“You know very well the protocols that go into mating with another Alpha’s daughter.”~

~“For you to neglect those responsibilities and not even inform us or even welcome us to your lands as a sign of good faith is a punishable offense! Your whole pack could face severe repercussions.”~

~“You shouldn’t speak out of turn, little girl. The men are speaking.”~

Just thinking back to the way he had spoken to us a few nights ago, my face darkened considerably.

I had a feeling that the dirtbag was keeping quiet because he was aware of how despicable he sounded when he talked.

Aidan took over once again, having heard my quiet remark.

“I can’t even imagine what you had to go through, losing your daughter like that.”

I looked at Aidan and listened to him instead of interrupting.

I had no idea how the fuck this would have gone if at least one of us hadn’t been this calm, so even though I really wanted to yell and throw stuff, I silently thanked my mate for keeping his cool in this weird-ass situation.

“However, ~my mate~ has been living her entire life without parents, and this won’t just change in a day. I’m not sure what you are expecting of her in this situation, and—”

“But we are here now! She has us now!” Rose interrupted Aidan.

I could see his face stiffen and turn colder for a moment at the abrupt interruption.

I frowned and looked at Rose, and before she could continue, I responded, “You might be here, but you are strangers.

“I don’t know the first thing about you. All I know is that I don’t feel comfortable around you. You are not my family. I don’t ’have’ you. I have my family here, with Aidan.”

Rose flinched at my words, and I could see James clenching his fists for a fraction of a second, but his body immediately relaxed again and he spoke in a calm voice.

“And that is why we think you should come home with us.”