Filed To Story: In the Shadow of the Past Luna (Lily & James)
Father’s me ntal state, the smart move would have been for me to calmly walk in and try to explain to him what had happened last night. Unfortunately, since Stephanie died, I have rarely been that smart when it comes to dealing with my father.
Instead of playing nice, I walked into the office without knocking, sat down in a guest chair, and put my feet up on his desk. “Well, hello, Father. I heard you have been looking for me.
My father spun around and glared at me. I would never tell him this, but the look in his eyes was even scarier than the looks I had gotten from Dr. Hyder last night.
“YOU! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!?!?! TELL ME WHAT YOU DID!”
my father roared.
I smiled defiantly. “As much as I would love to take credit for your current mood, I am afraid that I had nothing to do with it. All I know is that I went to Red River last night, and Alpha Brett and Dr. Hyder were already angry when I got there. Alpha Brett told me to tell you that he is cancelling the peace and trade treaties.”
My father’s eyeballs practically jumped out of his head. “The peace treaty too?”
I shrugged. “That is what he told me last night.”
“WHY?”
my father demanded.
I shrugged again. “I do not know. Alpha Brett did not offer very many details. You should probably call him.”
I ar as the
My father put his fists on his desk and leaned he was about to shift and attack me in wolf form. “WHAT DO YOU THINK I HAVE BEEN TRYING TO DO FOR THE PAST 45 MINUTES? NEITHER HE
NOR JAY WILL ANSWER MY CALLS.”
“Well, then I guess we will have to wait for the formal letter.”
“The letter is not going to include any details, you mo ron. Tell me what Alpha Brett said. He had to have
“He did. Would you like me to tell you?”
I taunted him.
Fur began to sprout on my father’s arms and his dress shirt began to rip. Okay, I guess that last taunt went a bit too far.
My mother grabbed onto my father and made him sit down. She was trying desperately to calm the situation. She sat in his lap and began stroking his arms in a soothing way before turning back to me.
“James,”
my mother said calmly but in a somewhat terrified voice. “Please just tell us what Alpha Brett and Jay said. Cancelling peace and trade treaties with us are actions that could have very severe consequences for the pack moving forward. We need to know what is happening.”
I nodded. I knew better than to continue to pressing my father’s buttons.
“They did not tell me much. Alpha Brett basically told me that they no longer believe that our values align with theirs. He said something about females and vulnerable people being abused, and about the mate bond being used for torture. And then Dr. Hyder told me to ask you, Mother, about Tyler.”
The very moment that I said the name “Tyler,”
my mother, father, and Beta Robert exchanged looks. All three of their faces paled.
i
“Why is that coming up now? It has been 27 years,”
my mother whispered. I was not sure who she was asking: my father, Beta Robert, or herself.
“Robert?”
my father asked, turning to him. My father’s voice was no longer angry; now it seemed almost numb. “Is this your way of punishing us for trying to scale back Stephanie’s birthday memorial? We already told you that we changed it back. In fact, we have agreed to Margie’s requests that it be bigger and grander than the other ones. James has even agreed to give the speech that she wanted him to give.”
Beta Robert held his hands up in surrender. “No, this did not come from us. We are loyal to you. Always have been. Besides, this can’t possibly be about Tyler. Dr. Hyder has known about Tyler the entire time.”
“But Alpha Brett did not… and Cecilia is his aunt…”
my mother whispered. Her voice was coated in fear.
I looked over at Nick, and he seemed just as confused as I was. No one said anything for a few minutes.
“What is going on?”
I finally asked. “Who is Tyler, and who is Cecilia?”
No one responded. They all seemed to be staring into space.
Finally, after the longest ten minutes of my life, my father spoke again. “Jane, you should probably tell James and Nick what happened. It has been 27 years, and they deserve to know now that the situation is again.”
“I will go with you,”
Beta Robert said somberly. “My wolf needs out, and I DEFINITELY cannot listen to this story again.”
(James POV)
After my father and Beta Robert left the office, my mother placed her head in her hands and began crying. All of the bitterness and anger in me immediately evaporated as soon as I saw her tears. I felt myself revert from a 26 year old man to a young boy who desperately wanted to make his mother feel better.
Nick sat down in a chair while I knelt beside my mother and grabbed her hand. “Mom, what asked gently. “Who is Tyler, and why are you so upset?”
is wrong?”
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My mother grasped my hand tightly, wiped her tears with her other hand, and slowly began telling us the story. Strangely, that story started not with Tyler, but with Margie.
“I know that you and Nick both know that Margie’s parents were omegas. They were absolutely delightful wolves. They were hard workers who loved their family with all that they had. They had eight pups all together including Margie, and they had this light and energy about them that was infectious.
Robert’s parents were actually friends with Margie’s parents for years. However, their friendship ended in a horrible way when Margie and Robert discovered that they were mates. Robert’s parents were openly disappointed with the mating, because they had hoped that Robert would be mated to a she-wolf with alpha, beta, or even ga mma blood.
Robert’s parents tried to talk Robert into rejecting Margie. However, Robert was absolutely smitten with
Margie from the moment that their eyes locked on Margie’s 20th birthday. They fell in love and were married within three months.
Margie and I had been friends in school, but once Margle and Robert got married and moved into the packhouse, we very quickly became best friends. We told each other everything, and we shared all of our highs and all of our lows.
Robert wanted to have a big family, and Margie believed that having pups would force Robert’s family to accept her. Margie also thought that having grandpups might somehow revive the friendship between their parents. So, soon after their wedding, Robert and Margie began trying to have a pup.
Unfortunately, the Moon Goddess did not cooperate with their plans; they ended up trying for years without success. After a year of trying, Margie began to worry that she was infertile. She went to the pack doctor, but he could not find anything wrong with her or Robert. On my suggestion, Margie then tried going to fertility experts in the human world who work with werewolves, but they also could not find anything wrong.
All of the doctors tried to reassure Margie that sometimes these things just take time, and Robert, hope. Every time Margie’s period came, she would end up crying on my shoulder for hours.
To make matters worse, Robert’s parents tried to use Margie’s inability to conceive against her. They went so far as to tell Robert that his duties to the pack required that he reject Margie and find a second chance mate who would be able to give him an heir. A few times, they went even further than that, showing Robert pictures of unmated she-wolves that they believed had ‘pup-bearing hips.”
Robert repeatedly tried to reassure Margie that he would never leave her, but as time went on, Margiel was becoming more and more disillusioned. She started to think about leaving Robert so that he would not have to feel guilty for leaving her.”
My mother paused, collecting her thoughts.
“I want you to know that I am telling you all of this because you need to understand just how much pressure Margie was under back then. It was awful and overwhelming for her, and it was awful and overwhelming for me as her friend trying to help her through it.
In fact, when Randall and I got pregnant, I was terrified to tell Margie. I knew that it would make her feel bad and it would only increase the outside pressure on Margie to produce a beta heir,
I ended up hiding my pregnancy from Margie until I began showing and she confronted me about it. Margie was really hurt that I had not told her about my pregnancy, and it created a small rift between us.
Thankfully, we were able to get through it, but it took some time.”
As I listened to the story, I wanted to be supportive, but I also wanted my mother to hurry up and get to the point.
“Mom, I do not understand. How does Margie’s prior issue with fertility have anything to do with Alpha Brett and Red River Pack? Or with this Tyler person? I mean, I am sorry that Margie and Robert had trouble conceiving at first, and that Robert’s parents were so awful to her, but they went on to have three healthy pups, so obviously things ended up working out okay in the end.”
My mother grimaced. “I am getting to that part,”
she said softly. She then looked at me and Nick with obvious regret and concern in her eyes.
“James and Nick, before I tell you the next part of the story, I beg you to understand and put yourself in my shoes… I was so young. I was even younger than you are now.”
Nick wrinkled his eyebrows. “Luna Jane, what are you saying? It almost sounds like you are implying that you did something.”
New Book: Veiled Desires of the Alpha King Novel
Dayson was the alpha of the largest pack in North America. Powerful figures from other packs sought to offer gorgeous girls as potential mates for Dayson. He steadfastly rejected these advances, he was not a pawn to be manipulated. But eventually there came a mysterious girl he could hardly say No. Who was she?