Chapter 59

“The hell you will!” 
I take a defensive stance in front of the white wolf. 
“Get out of the way, Alicent!” Logan insists again. “I’m not going to say it again.”
“You’re not going to kill him! Have you lost your mind?”
“If you don’t get out of the way, I’ll fucking shoot you anyway!”
He’s not bluffing. I know that look. My ex-husband means what he says. That’s why I yell at the wolf behind me, “Run, sweet baby! Run!”
I won’t be able to take him back to where I found him, but anything is better than what Logan intends to do to him now.
The white wolf growls at Logan again, and I turn my back to Logan and pet the wolf’s head. “Please, wolfie! Be a good boy and run! Now!”
I don’t know if he can really understand me, but the white wolf shifts his green gaze to me and stops growling. We look into each other’s eyes for a second that seems like an eternity, and a millisecond later, he jumps and runs in the direction we came from. Smart wolf, he must know the way back home.
I almost fall to the ground with the shove that Logan gives me. “Fuck, Allie! I had the beast in my sights! Why did you have to stand in front of that monster?” he snarls as his head goes from side to side, looking for the wolf. Then his head jerks my way. “Next time you stand in front of my target, I will shoot without a second thought!”
This is all my fault. I shouldn’t have got the poor wolf here. Thank God nothing happened to him. I hope he makes it back to his owner.
“Please, Logan, put the gun down. Please.”
He looks at the gun in his hand, like he’s realizing just now that he’s still pointing it at me. Then, he puts the gun back in the waistband of his pants. “Where’s my package?”
“It’s here.” I pick up the package from the floor next to the door and give it to him. “What is this?” Logan doesn’t answer. He just takes the package from my hands. “Logan, why do you have a gun?”
“Why would anyone have a gun, Allie? What a stupid question!” he says, walking through his house after closing the door behind us, much calmer. Another thing to thank God for.
“Are you in danger?” I ask.
He turns to me with a grin. “Are you worried about me, Allie?” He sets the package down on the table and then walks over to the liquor cabinet.
“Of course I am! Why do you have a gun, Logan?” I look at his clothes. Logan’s wearing a set of beige silk pajamas. Wait, he’s not wearing office clothes. Didn’t he go to the job interview?
I clench my teeth tightly together. He lied to me. Again. It makes frustration boil inside me. As Logan starts pouring himself a heavy glass of whiskey, I remember what Ethan told me. Ethan doesn’t know why I keep giving Logan money, but he’s right. I can’t go on like this. And part of me wants to obey Ethan because I feel an odd trust in him that I’ve never felt for anyone. That’s why I blurt out, looking at Logan wearing comfortable clothes without a hint of concern, “Logan... I’m not giving you any more money.” 
Logan stops what he’s doing in mid-air and looks at me as if I’ve grabbed the gun from his waistband and shot him twice in the lungs. Then he puts the bottle of whiskey next to the glass and claps his hands three times. Each clap makes me reconsider what I’ve just said. “That’s so good to know. I was just going to tell you that I got the job I mentioned. I’m not going to depend on you anymore to avoid starving, Allie. But apparently, you don’t even care.” 
My damn big mouth! Why didn’t I wait for like five minutes before saying it?
I start sweating. “Really?”
“Oh, dear Allie, I don’t need your help anymore,” he says, looking at the package on the table. 
“That’s good... Good for you, I mean,” I say, taking a step back, ready for a hole to open up in the floor and swallow me up from here and then vomit me back to Blackmoon. Is that too much to ask?
Logan turns his eyes to me. “It is good... to know how much you care about me,” he says, his voice dripping with sarcasm as he crosses his arms. Then he looks me up and down for a moment before uncrossing his arms and coming toward me. “Az told me the other day how happy he would be if the three of us moved back in together,” Logan says. “Have you been using our son to get us back, Allie?”
He tries to grab my hair but I impulsively step aside, dodging him. “I would never do that,” I say as sternly as I can. “And you know that.”
“I don’t know. The way he begged me... well, he’s not the only one who misses it, you know?”
“I have to go,” I say, making his smile widen.
Logan pats the top of the package. “Okay, I’ll see you next weekend, Allie, unless you want to see me first,” Logan suggests. “Without Az, if you know what I mean.” I quicken my pace to leave the house, and he chuckles behind me. “Don’t forget to close the door behind you.”

🐺 🐺 🐺
***Alpha Ethan***

This brat thinks that just because his mother doesn’t know about our world, he can do whatever he wants? No. Not on my watch!
My footsteps are firm on the ground as I head towards the waterfall, where he had shifted for the first time. In my hand are a change of clothes for the boy, which I tighten my grip on as I get closer to where he is.
After I finished sparring with Jordan, I summoned Lily, and she confessed what the boy did. I almost freaked out knowing the risk he put himself in, and when Seth told me that his wolf had crossed our borders and was in the woods, my blood boiled. Something happened. I try to convince myself that this is the reason I’m going to him, just to scold him and make sure he’s okay and not because I actually care about that brat.
Then I abruptly stop because the distant presence of the little boy caught my attention. The pain and fear in his aura leaves me momentarily breathless. I climb down to the shore and approach another cluster of jagged stone. Azrael is curled up between them, sitting in the damp sand naked with his knees pulled up to his chest. 
I spot a stone in one of his hands. Azrael grips the stone tightly until his knuckles turn white and then throws it into the river in front of him. SPLASH.
“Azrael,” I say. He hears me, but the boy doesn’t look at me. He grabs another stone in the sand, looks at it, and then throws it into the water again. SPLASH. 
I approach him and sit beside him. Up close, his aura vibrates with such fear, it tears through me like broken glass. His green eyes are red, like he’s been crying. His cheek is a little dirty, he didn’t bother to clean himself after shifting here.
I don’t know what happened to him, but something made him feel like this. My body suddenly heats up. “What happened?” I ask, trying to control my temper. He doesn’t need a well-deserved scolding right now. But he’ll definitely listen after he explains what happened.
“Nothing,” Azrael says, sniffing. 
“Don’t make me ask again, Azrael.” 
SPLASH, as he picks up another stone in the sand and throws it into the water again. 
“I don’t want to talk,” he mutters, wrapping his arms tightly around his knees, which are pulled up to his chest, and burying his face against them.
My heart breaks for him. His aura screams in pain and fear. “Azrael—” 
The boy whirls to me, teeth exposed in a pained snarl. “Why do you care?” Without waiting for an answer, he grabs a large stone this time and hurls it into the water. SPLASH. The sound echoes around us. 
Then, without a word, he retreats back to his previous position, folding into himself like a protective shell. His head dips forward, face pressed against his knees, shoulders hunched.
I lay my hand over his back. “Why did you run away?” Beneath my touch, his body trembles, like he’s trying hard not to cry out loud. 
“I wanted to see my dad,” he says after a moment. I already knew that, but I don’t interrupt him. “I hid in the trunk so my mom wouldn’t find out after she said I couldn’t go because I was still recovering.” He swallows hard. “I really wanted to see my dad... I thought we’d reached his house when Mom stopped the car.” He lifts his face, but he keeps his gaze straight ahead, not looking at me. “But then I smelled a foul, stinky smell and sensed a bad presence approaching.” He wrinkles his nose in disgust as if he can relive the smell.
*Rogue*. I immediately think. What the hell? I want to yell at him to ask if his mother is okay, but I let him continue. If she wasn’t, I’m pretty sure her son would start with that.
“I knew Mom would be in danger because that scent was putting my wolf on full alert. So I couldn’t control my wolf. He shifted so he could protect my mother.”
“Where is she?” I finally ask. “Is she okay? What happened next?”
“No one showed up. But I kept feeling a threat in our old building. I wanted to run to see the threat, but I remembered you saying that the best thing I could do in a situation like that was to hide or protect the most vulnerable ones... I could sense that whoever I was smelling would kill her immediately if they got close to my mom... I just felt it,” the boy says, and I feel a mix of awe for him being so young and already having this discernment that comes with years, and at the same time, I feel angry that the two of them were in danger.
“What do you mean no one showed up? And what was your mother doing there?” I snap.
“I don’t know what Mom was doing there. But after a while, she went to one of the parked cars and picked up a package. And... around the car, the foul smell was stronger.”
‘That’s where the fucking rogue was,’ Kral says in my mind.
Whose stuff was that? And what’s she doing with rogues? Fuck. I knew she was hiding something.
“Did your mom know there were rogues around?” I ask, trying to hide my suspicion from him.
“No. Mom didn’t even know anyone was around. I was thinking about how much danger she must have been in without even knowing it,” Azrael answers.
“What happened next?” 
“After that, I got in the car, and Mom thought I was someone’s pet,” he opens a small smile. Goddess. Little Dove’s so innocent. How could she think such a thing? “She intended to bring me back after she went to my dad.” His smile fades. “I guess the package was for him,” he says in a weak voice as if he wants to avoid the subject.
Something isn’t right about this. If no rogues attacked them, then why did he get here without his mom?
“How did you get here?” I narrow my eyes at him.
Azrael’s chin trembles, and he releases his arm from his knees to wipe the tears away. “I—” he tries to say but starts to cry.
“Azrael. What happened?” 
He sniffs for a moment before answering. “When Mom got to my dad’s house, I was so happy to see him. But...” his voice trails off. “When he saw me, unlike Mom, he was scared of me, and then... and then,” the boy tries to say but starts crying once more. I run my hand over his back in comfort. 
“What did he do?” 
“He pulled out a gun and wanted to kill me.” 
“He—What?” My eyes widen, my hand stopping abruptly. 
“He said I was a monster,” Azrael says, sobbing. “He said I was a beast who should die.” 
Fuck! I’m going to kill this fucker. 
‘Let’s kill him right now!’ Kral growls.
“He didn’t shoot me just because Mom got in my way,” he reveals. She did what? I want to demand to know, but he continues, “Mom asked me to run, and as much as my wolf and I wanted to protect her, we just couldn’t help but obey what she said.” 
That’s... strange. Maybe it’s because he’s her son. 
“So I ran and ran, and let my wolf take over. He ran straight to here easily because that’s where Lily is.”
I almost crack a smile at how close he and Lily are. But I’m too fucking furious for that.
“I thought when Dad saw me, he’d be impressed with me, with my wolf,” the little boy confesses. 
The brat who’s been a pain in my ass since he got here exudes an aura of pain. The brat who’s already made it clear that he hates me and doesn’t want me near his mother hugs his knees and cries loudly as he says, “He thinks I’m a monster!” The only monster here is that fucker. But this kid is hurt. This isn’t the time to indulge in the hatred I have for his shitty father. “I wish I’d never turned into a werewolf so my father wouldn’t hate me.”
“Azrael, listen to me,” I say, but he doesn’t move to turn to me. “You’re not a monster. You were very brave defending your mother today. Look at me,” I command, and he obeys. His green eyes are a little darker than his mother’s. They’re puffy and red from crying. I wipe the tears from his face. “Do you know why that rogue you sensed didn’t attack your mother?” I ask as I open the black shirt. As I slip it over his head, he gives a shake, answering me without words. I tug it down over his chest, smoothing it into place, then guide his arms through the sleeves one by one. “The rogue didn’t attack your mother because of you.”
“Me?” he asks, sniffing.
“Yes,” I reply, grabbing the black shorts I brought. I unzip them and hold them open, guiding them toward him. He steps into them sluggishly. He follows blindly as if he’s too exhausted to disobey right now. “He probably sensed your Alpha aura and decided not to approach her. Even though you’re a kid, any werewolf can sense that you’re an Alpha,” I say. “If you hadn’t been there, or if you weren’t a werewolf, you wouldn’t have been able to protect your mother today.” Now dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, at least he won’t be cold. I rest my hand on his shoulder. Even though I’m sitting and he’s standing, I’m still at eye level with him. “I’m proud of you,” I say. 
“You mean it?” he asks me in a small voice. 
I wipe away his fresh tears. “Yes, of course I am.” 
To my surprise, the boy throws himself at me, hugging me. He doesn’t say anything, just holds me tightly. I’m taken aback. I didn’t expect this reaction from Azrael. I run my hand down his back again.
Azrael starts crying again on my shoulder. “What if my parents find out? What if Dad never accepts me because I’m not human anymore?”
Fuck. I hate this fucker for making this little boy feel this way.
My skin itches to kill in his defense.
‘Let’s fucking kill him!’ Kral insists, growling.
‘We can’t. If we kill that fucker, we’ll make Az suffer even more,’ I tell Kral, but what I’m really doing is trying to convince myself. I’ve wanted to kill him ever since I met him.
“Your parents won’t find out. That’s why we’re committed to keeping our secret hidden from everyone,” I say. “But if they ever find out, I’ll be by your side the whole time, Az.” 
“Do you promise?” I can hear the slight tremor in his words. It’s not lost on me that this is the first time after we met that I called him Az because he said that day he didn’t want me to call him that. He didn’t correct me for calling him Az now, though.
“Yes. And I don’t want to hear you say you’re a monster again, do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“And be proud of who you are.” 
“Okay, Ethan.” 
“Say it.” 
“What?” His voice is muffled because his face is still buried in me.
“Say that you’re proud of who you are, Az.” 
He lets me go and then looks at me, puffing out his chest. “I’m proud of who I am.” 
“Good,” I say softly. 
“Come on, your mom will be home soon. And the next time you run away like that, you won’t be sitting comfortably for a week! She might not know what you pulled, but I do. You’re grounded.”
His jaw practically hits the floor. “What?”
I start heading back to the packhouse. “One week. No TV.”
“But that’s so unfair!”
“I can make it two if you’d prefer!” I say, fighting back a smirk as he glares at me. Honestly, I’ll take this version of him—pouting and full of attitude—over the teary, broken one from earlier.
“Ugh!” He lets out a dramatic groan and scowls, his little face twisted in indignation, but even so, *he grabs my hand*, his tiny grip warm and stubborn, as we walk back to the packhouse together.