63: After-shocks

**Tristan**

I don’t remember how or when, but somewhere in my crying, Lucien had gotten me in his arms, wrapped around in his warmth.

“It’s okay…” he kept on repeating. But the more he said it, the more I realised that none of this was okay. Lucien was right, I needed to change my decision and quickly.

So, I did.

I began this change by wiping my eyes and trying to steady my uneven breathing and my shaking fingers and once I’d more or less gotten a hold of myself again, I removed myself from Lucien’s grasp and stood up. He gazed up at me a little confused before standing on his own two feet.

“Feeling any better?”

Instead of answering him, I grabbed at his hand and began to head for the exit.

“Hey! Where are we going?”

“I made a mistake. I chose wrong. I’m getting us out of here.” I said as I dragged him up the dimly lit staircase. Once we reached the top, all but an old wooden door stood between us and freedom. I pushed hard at it and as the door moved forward, light poured into the space between the door and its post. But what awaited Lucien and I on the other side of the door was the opposite of freedom.

“And where do you think you’re going, soldier?” Standing before us in his wicked glory was my father. But my reaction to seeing him was *nothing* compared to Lucien’s. He stood there, pale, gaping and silent, as though he were looking at a ghost.

“F-father?” And apparently, he was.

I turned towards Lucien, confused, and asked, “Father?”

“It’s been a while, hasn’t it, son?”

Father? Son? I couldn’t believe my ears right now. In fact, I was partly convinced that I was hallucinating and feared that if I did not receive some clarity soon, I’d end up driving myself into another reckless and irrational emotional meltdown.

“Could someone please explain to me what is going on?” I asked glancing between both my adoptive father and my mate. My adoptive father just smirked down at Lucien wickedly and attempted to say something when he was shortly interrupted by Lucien.

“This man is not my uncle, he is *my* father, Ambrose Michaels… the man who murdered your parents.”

That was just ludicrous, right? There was no way that my adoptive father was actually Lucien’s father, the man who had killed my parents, right? There was no way he could have lied to the woman he considered to be his daughter, right? And I must have misheard him when he called Lucien ‘son’…. right?

“F-father… this must be a misunderstanding… s-say it’s a misunderstanding!” My voice was beginning to break, and my hands began to shake. I didn’t ask Ambrose because I didn’t believe Lucien, I asked because I couldn’t believe that the man I called ‘father’ was also the man who had put Lucien, Damon and London through hell… but more importantly I couldn’t believe that this man standing in front of me was the same man who killed my parents. But I didn’t have a choice, I *had* to believe it after these next few words left his mouth, “No, Tristan. Lucien is right. I am not his uncle. I am his father… and I did murder your parents. But that was in the past. Why don’t we all let bygones be bygones, sit down and have a little chat.”

Mad? No, I wasn’t mad.

Furious? Uh uh.

Livid? Didn’t even come close.

The emotion I now felt lit every inch of my body on fire, and this time, with rage years in the making. This didn’t even come close to how I felt when Lucien and I had our argument, how could it? My father… no, Ambrose was a fucking liar and a fucking murderer. The disgust I felt towards the man whom I once called “father” was immeasurable and I wanted so badly to voice my utter disgust and anger, but Lucien beat me to it.

“Bygones be bygones? What the fuck, are you actually insane? You killed my mate’s parents, took her in and then lied to her all her life. You stripped her of her emotions and twisted her up into something unfeeling and cold like you! You deserved to die all those years ago you sick bastard… so my question is, why didn’t you.”

Ambrose turned towards me, and I growled before looking away from him. I couldn’t even stand the sight of him at this point. “Have you ever heard of the Legend of The Blue Eyed-Alpha, son?”

The moment he said it I could feel myself become angrier. I wanted to tell Lucien about my secret myself. And so, I yelled, “Don’t you dare say another word to him! You don’t have the right to!”

But Ambrose didn’t care at all about my wishes, instead, he smirked, and a satisfied look appeared on his face, as though he enjoyed seeing me this enraged and this irritated.

“You had your chance to explain things to him. Now it’s my turn, soldier.” The way he said it made something inside of me snap in a twisted, irrational way and as this rage inside of me lurched through my body, I launched myself towards him, landing a decent punch into the side of his jaw. He grunted, fell to the ground and then chuckled before snapping his jaw back into place and spitting out blood. I tried to land another hit, but he caught my hand in his and held it there steadily, daring me to move it further, and I would have, had it not been for Lucien.

“Don’t you fucking touch her!” Lucien shouted out as he came running towards us. But I lifted my hand and stopped him.

“Enough. This is my fight.” Truth be told I didn’t want Ambrose near Lucien. Lucien was strong, but Ambrose was stronger, and I feared that he’d hurt him.

Ambrose snickered at me. “You’re right, this *is* your fight. You’ve crossed the line, Tristan. You think I didn’t know that you chose Lucien over me? I’ll admit, however, that I didn’t expect you to come waltzing back in here, but for whatever reason you did it, I’m glad you did. We’ve been pushing this day back for years now, but no longer. The only way you and your precious mate are leaving here is if you defeat me. You once wanted to be Alpha, now I’m allowing you to challenge me for the title.”

The thought of achieving the title of Alpha in this sick, dysfunctional pack now nauseated me. I wanted nothing from Ambrose, this pack was no exception. But I remembered what he had said earlier, and it made me realise that walking away from this challenge would have its own set of twisted consequences.

“What happens if I refuse?”

He smirked wickedly. “If you refuse-” he closed his eyes for a second and when he opened them, they flashed red. For a moment, there was nothing but silence. However, once that moment ended, the foliage around us began to rustle and soon other pack members emerged from the greenery. They immediately surrounded Lucien before restraining him and although he attempted to fight back, he was too outnumbered to stand a chance.

I growled lowly and tried to move towards them and stop them from touching Lucien. But as soon as I attempted to take my first step, Ambrose grabbed tightly at my arm and tugged me back. “Uh uh. If you refuse, I’ll have him killed.”

“You’d kill your own son?” I asked as I gazed up at him in horror. I knew that he was capable of hurting Lucien… he’d done so before, but murdering his own child? That was downright evil.

“I killed the woman I loved in cold blood. What makes you think I won’t kill my own flesh and blood?”

“Don’t listen to him Tristan…” Lucien yelled.

“You’re not convinced? Carlisle!”

In an instant, Carlisle plunged his clawed fingers into Lucien’s chest before dragging them along his abdomen. Lucien cried out in agony and as I saw him there, drowning in excruciating pain I felt my eyes tear up. This entire time I’d been trying to protect him, only for him to end up being hurt again. And so I knew that I had no choice but to give in to Ambrose’s request.

“Fine. I’ll challenge you for your fucking worthless title.”

“No! D-don’t T-Tristan… he’ll kill you.” Lucien’s words came out pained and muttered, but that only served to incentivize me further.

Eventually I managed to squirm my way out of Ambrose’s grasp, and when I did, I immediately ran to Lucien. He was being held up by Carlisle and Maurice and although I wanted to kill them both, I knew that Ambrose would get one of the other pack members to kill Lucien if I did. 

“D-don’t Tristan… please… I c-can’t l-lose you.”

I shushed him before placing my hands over his cheeks. “I have to do this. Not just for you, but for me too. And when this is all over… I’ll tell you everything about my blue eyes and about why your dad’s alive. Just trust me.”

“I do t-trust you. I-it’s that s…sick bastard I don’t trus...st,” He was still in a lot of pain, and although his wounds were beginning to heal, I hated seeing him in this state. And so I placed my hands on his wounds, soaking my fingers in his blood.

“Ow, that hurts! What are you-”

But before he could finish, my eyes began to turn blue and the gashes in his skin immediately closed up. This was, however the first time I had seen Lucien’s skin underneath his shirt, and although not much was visible, it was enough for me to notice the old scarring on his body. I didn’t even need him to tell me who or what they were from because I knew immediately. Every strike of pain that Ambrose had inflicted on Lucien’s body was still etched into his skin. It was yet another reason for me to finally end him and all the pain he had caused.

Lucien stared at his flesh in wonder and then looked back up at me before asking, “H-how’d you do that?”

“I told you, I’ll explain later.” I kissed at his cheek before turning back towards Ambrose who had a sick look of excitement across his face. “Great! To the pack centre! Ivan, Cameron, make an announcement to the entire pack. The day has finally come, Tristan is going to challenge me for my title.”