Chapter 71

Luara's POV
A few gasps were heard as we all stared at the young boy, holding onto my belly gently. He stood staring at me fiercely but not in anger, but adamant that I was carrying his mate.
I looked up at Bryan, who was staring down at Melvin intensely before staring back at me, just as confused as I was.
"How is this possible?" I said out loud, a question that was swirling around my mind again and again.
My daughter began kicking which made the young boy hold tighter, moving his small hands to follow her kicks.
"No." Bryan stated, staring down at Melvin.
"Mine." Maverick repeated.
"No." Bryan demanded, his voice tight and insistent. His eyes splitting into slits as he stared down at the young boy as Melvin's expression echoed his.
Bryan lowly growled in warning, from the look on his face he could kill. His anger showed, and I moved to stand up as Melvin mother who I now realised was Prince's mate, grabbed him, pulling him besides her.
"Have you told your son to do this?" Bryan snarled murderously as he glared accusingly at Prince.
"How would he know of mates, he's not even sixteen yet? He's a pup."
Peirce glared back at him, just as ferociously.
"I guess we all have a lot to talk about."
"If this is your idea of trying to get me to change my mind, you are utterly mistaken," Bryan kept eye contact with Prince as both their eyes glazed over, their wolves both coming to the surface.
"It only fuels me more." He taunted, a smirk plastering his face as his wolf took control once again.
"Stop." I said, my hand reaching for Bryan's arm once again.
"This conversation is not happening right now." I demanded, as I looked towards Melvin. He was far too young to be in eye sight or in listening view.
Melvin continued to stare at my belly, his mother was holding him in place but I could tell how restless he was to be near me.
"Let's move this to the dining hall," My mother began, she was in as much shock as I was.
"Go through that door on the left."
As I was about to walk through the door, I waited as Bryan stopped the young boy getting through.
"He is not coming into this meeting." He lowly growled as he grabbed the top of Melvin's head forcing him to turn back in the opposite direction.
"Melvin, come with me. I'll take you to the pack house." My mother intervened, defusing the situation and looked at Prince for his approval. He sent my mother a nod, and ordered three of his wolves to follow.
I watched on as Melvin hesitated, he was staring at me as if he was battling with himself. It was a strange thing to see since the boy could not have shifted already.
"Go with the Luna, Melvin." His father ordered sternly.
He followed my mom, as she pulled him along in the direction of the pack house.
Once we were all the room with our pack wolves including Prince's Beta who stood behind him. My father suddenly made an appearance. He greeted Prince and his mate Elena, before we all sat down.
My mom and dad were sitting to the side of us as Bryan and I faced Prince and Elena
I could tell by the look on my dad's face that my mom had updated him via their mind link.
There was so much tension in the room, it was awkward. How could this be possible? How could such a young boy know his mate? Wolves weren't able to do that until after they have shifted at the age of sixteen.
"You want to explain what all that was about?" Bryan's voice was tight but he was the first to break the silence.
Prince sighed as he looked at Bryan, then moved to mine before speaking. "On Melvin's first birthday, he suddenly starting having a seizure, at least, that's what we believed it was," Prince recalled.
"He would cry in agony whenever we touched him. Elena, just wanted to comfort our pup but it only seemed to hurt him."
Elena looked up sadly at her mate, remembering the pain her baby was in.
"We called our pack doctor and he immediately told us to bring him to the infirmary. We did and even he was confused."
"We stayed there for hours while he was being monitored."
"All he would do was cry," Elena commented.
"It wasn't until a few hours later that we realised he was shifting. My little baby, was suddenly staring at me through his wolf form."
Bryan and I glanced at each other, "How can that happen? He's too young to shift?" I asked, staring at Elena.
"We thought the exact same, not even our pack doctor knew why. It wasn't until we did some digging and spoke to a few elders that we realised that our son had a rare gift."
"That rare gift also applies to his mate," Prince added, looking at Bryan.
"They can both shift at the age of one, smell and meet their mate at any age and they both are able to communicate with each other without a mark."
"So, they don't need to mark each other or mate?" My father enquired, confused.
Bryan's head swirled to my dad within a second, giving him a deadly look.
"We are not talking about that. My daughter isn't even here yet - we are not talking about mating. My daughter will not be doing that."
I attempted to hold in my laugh but I couldn't help stop it from escaping my mouth.
"To answer your question," Prince began.
"They won't get the uncontrollable urge to mark or mate until they're sixteen. Although they do get all the other symptoms of finding their mate except they are unable to feel each other's emotions."
Bryan glared at Prince, a growl rumbled from deep in his chest as he was suddenly overwhelmed with the feeling of jealously and protectiveness.
"So, there's no separating them?"
I turned towards him, placing my hand over his,
"You can't separate mates Bryan, you know this." I answered him, giving him a pointed look.
He frowned, his body began shaking, and he was still clenching his teeth.
"How can a four year old claim his mate before she's even born. I haven't even held my daughter yet," He huffed angrily.
"This is going to be very testing," My father agreed, nodding his head.
"It won't be, because it's not happening." Bryan replied, his tone tight. His hands turning white from how tight he was clenching his fists against the table.
I looked at my mate, slightly disgusted with his words.
"No Bryan, it is happening."
He briefly looked at me before he directed his gaze to Peirce.
"Your son will stay away from my daughter until she's at least sixteen."
"Bryan," I narrowed my eyes on him. "You don't get to dictate in this situation. He's part of our daughter's life now, and that's the end of the conversation." I was gritting my teeth, I was infuriated by his behaviour.
"He's too old for her," He began but Prince butted in.
"He's just over four years old Bryan, he's not forty."
His words coming out sarcastic, and he included an eye roll.
Before Bryan could lose his shit, I grabbed him once again, directing his attention back to me.
"You're older than me Bryan. Plus you heard Prince, they won't have the urge to mark or mate until they are both sixteen."
"You can't separate them now, it would be like you being separated from Luara." Elena added.
"It's a difficult situation for both families, our pups will struggle to be apart meaning that we will probably have to come to an arrangement." She looked at me with a small smile.
"An arrangement as in, both pups having authority to stay on each of your territories for periods of time?" My mother questioned.
Elena looked at my mom and nodded a little, I could see she was getting a little emotional over it.
At that point, I thought it would be best to stop the conversation as the atmosphere was getting heavy,
"Look, let's discuss this more tomorrow, there's a lot for us all to take in."
Thankfully, everyone agreed and the conversation ended after that. We were yet to discuss what we had actually came here to do. Maxwell and Lucas were both being held back by pack related issues and both decided that they would arrive tomorrow so another meeting would take place then.
My parents took Prince and Elena to the pack house to get food along with the wolves they brought with them including ours, Bryan followed them and told me to go upstairs and rest which I gladly agreed to.
Not long later, Bryan brought some food up to our room for me, and we sat there in bed watching television. We decided it would be better to discuss everything relating to Melvin once we were back home, it allowed us both time to think about it.
But I did make one thing clear, he was not going to push out daughters mate away and after an argument, he reluctantly agreed.
Bryan decided he would go for a run, his wolf was restless and continued to stay on the edge, his temper still flaring. By Bryan's aura I could tell he needed to run off some steam.
There was a knock on the door, I checked the time on the clock on the wall. It was nearly 8pm, and I was already tucked in bed in my pyjamas.
I shuffled out of the bed, opening the door to see Elena and Melvin standing there.
I smiled at the pair of them.
"Hi, I know this might sound funny, but Melvin has been begging me to come see you before he goes to bed." She rubbed her hand through his hair as he looked towards me with pleading eyes.
"You want to come in?" I opened my bedroom door further, gesturing for them to come in.
"Bryan has just gone for a run, so he won't be back for a while," I sat on the bed along with Elena and Melvin.
I could see the eagerness dance in his eyes as he waited patiently for me to call him over.
"Want to touch my belly?"
He looked up at his mom, before his eyes landed back on mine. He crawled over to me, I moved a little for him to hug my belly.
Elena and I chatted while Melvin occupied himself by touching my belly, he had gotten so comfortable that he had fallen asleep as he gripped the bottom hem of my t-shirt.
"I should get him to his own bed," Elena laughed as she watched her son snuggle close to me
"If I don't, I think your mate might drag him away from you."
I smiled, a small laugh escaped my lips but as I attempted to gently move away from Melvin, his grip only seemed to latch on tighter. I laughed,
"Melvin can stay here for the night, he's comfortable and my daughter seems to be happy as it's the first time all day that she hasn't been kicking me like crazy!"
"Are you sure? I don't want to cause any problems. If he gets in the way, you can bring him back to me." She was hesitant to leave him here, she was worried with how Bryan would act.
"I promise, I can always carry him back to you if needs be. Bryan will be fine."
"You sure?" She repeated, her eyes suddenly glazed over and I could tell she was mind linking with Prince.
I waited to speak and once she was back in our conversation, she spoke again.
"We are happy for him to stay, but if anything happens to him," She began but I interrupted knowing exactly what she meant.
My wolf didn't appreciate where her words were going but we both understood and decided to let it go. "Elena, he will be fine. He's my daughters mate after all." I promised, my hand lightly stroking the hair out of Melvin's face.
Once I had settled her worries, Elena left after kissing her son on his head and wishing me a good night.
The door shut quietly and I soon found myself falling asleep, my daughter's young mate, clinging to me.
About an hour or so later, I felt the bed dip. I turned to see Bryan looking at me, he rolled his eyes before leaning over and staring at Melvin with a closed off expression.1
"He's lucky I'm letting him be so close to my mate and daughter," There was a slight threat to his voice, and I could feel his body was tense next to mine.
"This is a one night thing." He demanded, his voice stern.
A small smile creeped up on my lips from his comment and I had to bite the insides of my mouth to stop a full on grin from showing. If this was a couple of months ago, Bryan wouldn't of even considered the idea.
He was slowly changing and for that, I was happy.
I turned round and kissed him on the lips which seemed to loosen his muscles. Bryan then circled his arm under my head, and I moved my body slightly to get comfortable in his arms.
Melvin had somehow gone from his head being at the top of the bed on a pillow, to half way down the bed with his forehead leaning gently on my stomach.
I smirked, gently pulling him up towards me, to get him into a better more comfortable position. Melvin hummed as I moved him, his little arms landing on my stomach as he cuddled tight to my chest.
"He's dead lucky." Bryan warned, as he lowly growled in my ear.