CHAPTER 82

In front of the fireplace Bruce sat, the warm dancing flames and their reflection on the walls contrasted the concentrated air that dominated the study. Bruce had a large bulk that seemed to overwhelm the size of the office and he sat behind his large oak desk. Opposite him stood Elijah, he was not the calm Elijah that he usually is but stress was written all over his face.

‘We require direction’, Bruce said, his heavy accent heavy and his voice loud compared to the other guys. “A real one this time”, no more just doing things halfway, no more being on the back foot about predatory advertising techniques.

Elijah smiled and nodded, he ruffled his hair in agitation. “It is. But it is not that simple anymore where we are only dealing with external threats, Amelia herself is …unpredictable.”

Bruce raised an eyebrow. ‘You mean because she ran off to Seattle?’


‘Yeah,’ he nodded agreeing with her, ‘that’s part of it,’ said Elijah at last dropping into the chair across from Bruce. “But it is much more than that I think she is at war with herself, trying to find her place in all of this and I do not want the woman she becomes in that process to get hurt.”

The Alpha looked at Elijah and leaned back in his chair. They had been friends for years: brothers, practically, but without the shared DNA. But here, for a moment, Bruce got some feeling that behind Elijah’s back was something that he was hiding.


“Well, what aren’t you telling me, Elijah?” Bruce said, his voice raising concern. ‘Honestly, I don’t know what else to do; I simply can’t do my work if I don’t have all the facts’.

Elijah did not reply for what seemed like a long time and his eyes were still on the fire that was dancing in the hearth. But when he started to speak, it was with a stage whisper.

‘Amelia is my daughter.’

They made their banter say the things that they did not, things that were left unsaid but understood. Bruce stood horrified realizing that his jaw was wide open as his mind tried to come to terms with the new realization.


“Your. .. daughter?” he asked me again, and his voice was filled with disbelief. I remember thinking exactly ‘How is that possible?”


Elijah swallowed and nodded, there was a hint of sadness in his smirking lips as he did so.

"The truth?”

Bruce put his forearms on the desk and bent forward slightly. Looking at Elijah said slowly: “I think you’d better explain, old friend.”


Heaving a sigh Elijah started telling it. ‘That was several years before I became an important member of the pack, before I took everything seriously I was still a young and adventurous man wandering around the world in search of, well, I didn’t know what, when I met Rosa.’

His eyes then got a blank stare as he proceeded to say the following words. ‘She was attractive, talented and unlike anyone I have ever met before – a magical creature masquerading as an ordinary human, living among non-magical people We got involved, passionately and recklessly Due to our different backgrounds, the relationship could not work.

Bruce nodded keenly, knowing all too well about a relationship between two supernatural beings.

‘When Rosa got pregnant, we freaked out,’ Elijah said next. A werewolf and a Hybrid? That hadn’t happened before ever. So we knew that the child would be in peril from the moment of birth.

“You left,” Bruce said, suddenly realizing some things that he had not paid attention to before.

Elijah winced and nodded at the same time. Of all that Rosa had said to me, those words had been the most painful, ‘It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done,’ she had sobbed, ‘But we agreed it was for the best. Rosa would raise the child in secret, away from both the werewolf and Hybrid communities, and I … I would stay away to protect them both.’

“But you didn’t stay away, did you?” Bruce said, even though he had anticipated the response.


"I tried," Elijah admitted. ‘I gagged it for years, buried myself into pack life, into my responsibilities, into my duty but the pain never left me,’ He explained ‘Instead, I kept my eye on them from a distance, ensured that they were safe.’ However, after witnessing Amelia manifest her Half Breed nature, I had no idea she was the one until we discovered she was a Hybrid"

‘You came back into their lives,’ Bruce concluded.

Elijah nodded. ‘Stay out of it, Bruce. You aren’t ready to be a father. Amelia needs you, but she needs the truth too,’ his words haunted him “I couldn’t stay out of it any longer, Amelia needed someone to guide her, to protect her. But I couldn’t tell her the whole truth. She already had a lot on her plate discovering her werewolf and Vampire roots, finding out that we are father and daughter

After hearing all this Bruce was still for a few moments. When he opened his mouth at last his voice was thick with feeling. "Why have you been quiet like this all these years, Elijah? … I could have done something.”

‘I wanted to,’ Elijah replied, and his voice sounded heavy. Yet the fewer people knew it the safer it was for Amelia, and so after a while, it merely became easier that way.

Bruce also got up, crossed over to Elijah and put a hand on his shoulder. “Well, alright then, brother” But there would be no more secrecy In the future, not if Amelia was going to stay protected.

Elijah accepted the words with a nod of appreciation falling on his face. “Thank you, Bruce, You have been so supportive .”

Finally, Bruce’s rough and gruff opportunistic tone crept back into his voice ‘Well for starters you would probably be a lot worse at strategic planning now let's work out how to keep your daughter safe.’

For the next several hours the two men sat together with their heads bent over the chart as they planned their strategies and such. They understood they were surrounded by enemies – other packs who considered Amelia a killer who threatened their dominance; mage councils who wanted to dissect her; and secret societies who wanted to monopolize her abilities.

”Her training has to be escalated,” Bruce said making notes on a huge map that was laid on his desk. ‘And not only does it concern the control over abilities, but also the fighting, planning, any aspect of life She must be ready for anything.

Elijah nodded in agreement. ”I agree, but I don’t think we should push her this much, she is stressed too much and feels that she is trapped, if we continue, she might flee again.”

Then we must let her know how important the issue is,’ Bruce said. There should be no more lies, no more hiding of truth from Amelia She has to know the worst so that she can know what challenges she is face to face with.