10. Waves of confusion

Miliano’s POV

I can’t begin to explain the anger I feel towards my gamma when he hugs her. I can’t prevent the deep growl that makes it out of my mouth. She is mine! Why is that so fucking hard to understand!? When he asks Killian and me to talk privately, I’m suspicious, and I don’t even know why. Jason has dedicated his whole life to this pack ever since we found him and took him in. I feel like throwing up when he doesn’t say anything; he just looks down at his feet. I almost feel bad for him; that anxiety can’t be easy to control.

“Speak,” I say, and he clears his throat before he begins talking.

“So, I guess that you’re very perplexed right now. That’s understandable considering the circumstances... For you to understand, I have to go back to the beginning of my story.”

We let him talk without interruption, and when he finishes, I’m speechless. I would never have seen that coming.

“Why didn’t you tell her from the beginning?”

“Because I didn’t know! This is the first time I’ve met her since it happened.”

“What do we do about the ‘problem’, boss?” Killian asks.

“That doesn’t leave this room, do you hear me? No one of you is going to start babbling and tell her. She can’t handle it, and you know it,” I hiss, which makes them nod and don’t say another word.

“Good then, now we go and talk to her, help her understand.”

We stay outside the bedroom door and look at her. She’s overexerting so much that she has to hold her breath. But wow, she’s a strong she-wolf; no one can say anything about that. I can both see and sense that Jason needs to calm down; that’s why we all go our separate ways for the time being. Sometime later, we’re reentering the room, and she looks like she just woke up, which she probably did.

“Told you I could do it,” she smirks.

I give her the biggest smile I can muster and chuckles at her—my beauty.

“Baby, we need to talk, and it’s important.”

“What is it?” she asks, and I can feel her worries when we don’t answer. “What is going on?”

“Well...” Jason starts.

She looks at him with suspicion, and he breathes out a big sigh.

“I’m sorry, Aleida, I thought this would be easier than it is. Just give me a minute, please.”

Aleida’s POV

I wait with anticipation, curious about what he’s going to say.

“It all began when I was three; my mother lived alone with my older brother and me. Our dad was unknown to us, and our mom never told us who he was. She sadly passed away a few years later. I remember her telling us when we were little boys that we had a baby sister. That she had a different mommy but that she still belonged to us as our sister. You see, our dad was our mother’s second chance mate. But since he hadn’t met his true mate yet, they couldn’t be together. If his true mate were to reject him, then they could live their lives. Anyway, we were really excited when we found out about this, but at the same time sad, because our mom said that we probably never will meet her. We couldn’t understand why she wasn’t with us. We had a wonderful house and childhood with many toys to share.

We didn’t dare to speak about our sister for many years after that. I remember one day when we got home from school, and mom was sitting on the couch, crying her eyes out. We hurried to her, wondering why she was crying. She told us that our dad, his wife, and our sister had died in a tragedy,” he says, and a tear falls down my cheek as I listen. “We wouldn’t believe it. Our mother took us to the cemetery where we could see for ourselves that he was indeed gone. We ran around the whole cemetery, watching for the tombstone for our baby sister. The only problem was that we couldn’t find it. We have searched for her for many years; we never gave up hope that we would find her...”

“Did you?” I ask in a whisper, moved at his story.

“Yeah, we did,” He says and smiles brightly; I look confused at him.

“She’s seventeen years old, and her name is Aleida.”

That statement makes me shake; I don’t want to believe it.

“Wh-What’s your dad’s name?” I ask, shakingly.

“Our dad was Alpha Romeo of the Rose moon pack.”

I stare at him wide-eyed. No, this can’t be happening! I back away from the three of them.

“Aleida?”

My whole body is convulsing, and I struggle to breathe.

“Aleida!”

Everything is dark after that...

Jason’s POV

I knew from the start that it was a stupid idea to try and explain it to her. But I also knew that I had to, after my weird reaction. Well, it wasn’t odd to me, but for them, it really was. I was just so happy when I saw her face. She’s a female version of my brother, but younger, of course, because I took after my mother’s appearance more than our dad’s. Aleida is incredibly beautiful; I’ve never seen such a creature before. It almost burns in my eyes to see her facial features, her cerulean blue eyes. She suddenly looked small and weak. Those eyes have such a depth you can drown in; the problem is, however, that those deep eyes keep such pain and many unshed tears. I wanted nothing more than to take her in my arms and ask for forgiveness until she actually does forgive me. Even though I know I don’t deserve it, she needed us all these years. Instead of getting help, she was forced to live in silence and just accept all the crap. She collapses shortly after I tell her who our father was. Her body has some kind of seizure, and she falls apart. The doctor arrives only a few minutes after and checks Aleida’s vitals. According to Gina, everything looks good, and that it was a tense situation for Aleida, that’s why she had fallen apart. It had happened too much in a short time; she hasn’t had the opportunity to accept and process everything new to her. She fights an alpha, has a mate, her body gets taken over, and she finds out that she has two unknown brothers. Well, of course, she fucking breaks down! I would probably have done that, too, if I had to go through it. Above all, she had to do it alone. I’ve never met someone as strong as my baby sister; she’s a force to be reckoned with, that much I can see. We all sit in Miliano’s office; no one says anything. We just sit there together, trying to process and wait until Aleida wakes up again. I miss her already; I can only imagine how her mate must feel at the moment; I can see him in the corner of my eye. His left leg is bouncing up and down fast; he’s stressed. He has done that since we were kids. Whenever something is bothering him, that helps him. Well, that and Aleida’s touch.

“I shouldn’t have said anything...” I whisper

“Yes, you should have, and you did. Aleida needs her brothers Jason; I know that she does,” Miliano says.

“How can you know that, Miliano?”

“I know because I can feel some of her feelings. She’s not happy right now; she acts like everything’s fine when it’s not. She suppresses her feelings right now, but soon they will appear in her mind all at once since she refuses to process anything. Like when she came out of the void. She jumped in my arms the first thing she did!”

“That’s not unusual. All the mates react like that.”

“Not her... I saw her reaction when she first understood that we were mates; it was the same day we rescued her. She didn’t want it; I could see the look on her. She is terrified of having a mate; she’s terrified of this whole situation but refuses to say anything. She thinks that I don’t see, but I do, even if she doesn’t understand her situation herself.”

“Do you think she is depressed?”

“Not yet, but the risk is great that she will be when everything starts to slow down. I talked to Gina, thinking that Aleida is suffering from “Post-traumatic stress disorder” (PTSD). Not from these recent events, but from a long time ago. Does anybody here know what happened to her?” Miliano asks, and we shake our heads.

“Didn’t she tell us something in the beginning? What was it?” Killian asks himself, tapping his upper lip before he snaps his fingers. “That’s right! She told us that her parents died and that her old pack didn’t treat her right. Maybe that’s where her problems come from?”

“No shit, Sherlock,” Miliano says and rolls his eyes at Killian, who pouts like a little boy.

“It’s a possibility. The only way to know for sure is if we ask her, and that’s not going to be me,” I say.

I watch as the alpha’s eyes become foggy when someone mind links him.

“Gina says that Aleida has woken up and has asked us to come there,” he says and looks excited.

Aleida is standing at the balcony door when we walk in. She doesn’t give us any attention at all. Before someone can say something, she beats us to it.

“Do you know what I had to endure while you and our brother had a good life?” she asks without turning around. “I was a slave since mom and dad died. It hit me hard when they disappeared. I was their princess, the rightful heir, and alpha to the pack.”

“You’re an alpha?” I ask, confused.

“Yes, we saw it,” Killian says

“That was not me, Killian, and you know it. That force was not mine, and for your information, I would never force anyone to do something against their will.”

She turns to us; she has a thin white dress that flutters in the wind. With the sunset behind her, she really looks like a goddess.

“They could beat me up without any reason at all. That day you found me; I had a punishment earlier and got to fight our two best warriors. As you all can understand, I lost. I had to pay that debt in blood and had a serious injury to my leg. I still have a scar after that, actually,” she says, lifts her dress, and shows us her calf; she has at least an eleven inches long scar. She drops the dress again. “After that, I went to work and collapsed. My boss and his wife took me to the hospital, which was forbidden, by the way.”

“What?” I interrupt her.

“Yeah, I thought that was obvious. I was the slave, not worth a thing; why should I be allowed to go to the hospital? Anyway, the alpha knew what Matt and Clare had done. He took Clare, but I refused to let him hurt her, so I...”

“You?”

“I challenged him for the alpha position...” she finishes, and we all gasp.

“I wasn’t sure if that was the truth when you said that,” Killian says.

“I can understand that... Well, you know the rest since you all were there,” she answers, shrugging her shoulders.

“Yeah, and it was amazing!” Killian exclaims.

“Huh?” she asks, looking confused.

“You stood up with a fucking silver dagger in your stomach! You could have died, but still, you kept on fighting; why? You could just have submitted and...”

“No. When I challenged alpha Jonathan, I already knew which two options I had. Fight and win or fight until death. I was prepared to die; that’s why I got mad when you all interrupted.”

“What, why?”

“Jonathan doesn’t play fair; it doesn’t matter if you show him clear signs that you submit. If you can’t beat him, you die. I was so prepared and happy when I stood there with blood running out of my mouth.”

“How could you be happy!? You were going to die!” I yell at her.

“Exactly! I was so fucking prepared to have some peace finally, and then you guys come and... And...”

Fuck, I made her cry... I look at Miliano for approval before I try to touch her. When she doesn’t flinch away when I put my hand on hers, I pull her into my arms. She sobs like a little girl who lost her parents in the mall. I can feel how my heart breaks. There are so many things I want to tell her. So much, I can’t explain to her, not yet. When she stops sobbing and begins to yawn, I carefully put her down on the bed. Miliano kisses her forehead and pulls the covers up. After that, I retreat to my room.

Hey, Nathan?

Shit, hello, baby bro! Long time no talk, how are you?

Enough chit-chat, I have found her.

Huh? Found who?

Aleida...

He’s silent in the mindlink for so long that I think he cut me off when he suddenly speaks.

Where?

She’s in the Winter moon pack.

In our neighborhood territory?

You know it, when can you be here?

Tomorrow morning, prepare everyone for my arrival.

I’ll do that; take care, brother.

You too.

With that, I cut our mindlink and lay down on my bed, smiling. We will soon be together, and everything will be all right as it was supposed to be. We are going to protect our baby sister with everything we can. With that thought, I lull into dreamland.