The Secrets of the Panther
Chapter 6

BLAKE

After a few moments, the doors open to the pack house, and my father’s gamma walks out, “Alpha is waiting for you in his office,” he says to both of us.

We leave all the cakes in the car for the omegas to collect and sort out, ready for the ceremony.

We both walk into the pack house with the gamma leading the way but the gamma goes to another room which is next door. We head straight into the office and as we do, sitting on the couch is my father sipping on some whiskey, he looks at both of us and notices Graham. His face falls at the look that his friend gives him “She doesn’t want anything to do with me” says Graham as he walks straight over to my father and sits next to him with his head down.

My father gives him a sympathetic look.

I try to contain my excitement, but I need to know, “Dad, what the hell happened? I want to know.” I say. I hope it didn’t show how much I wanted to know. I tried to keep my face neutral so that, hopefully, he wouldn’t notice how much I needed to know, especially to win Izzy. I take a seat, the chair in front of him.

He looks between Graham and me, looking to Graham to make sure it is okay to talk about it, Graham just nods in agreement. “Okay, son, thou best get comfy, you need to know as she will be here for a while by the sounds of it.”

“She might leave sooner,” says Graham, who has now started to stare at the floor “She is only here to help Kat for a few weeks.”

I am getting angry at what Graham said. But I need to calm down.

“I want mate,” whines Axel, my wolf.

“I know, let’s replace out what we can, and then we can work on our mate after,” I say to him as I feel the same. I can still smell her scent, Mint chocolate with a hint of strawberries—my favorite smell.

“Well, tell me,” I say as I look between both men.

The shame that came off both of them was hard to bear, and that isn’t a good sign, both of their shame.

Wait! Why would my father be ashamed?

“Well, son, before Graham met Linda, he fell in love with Lucy. Lucy was Izzy’s mother. She was his everything and his mate. He would do anything for her, they soon got pregnant with Izzy not long after the meeting. You and Izzy used to play together when you were babies as your mum was best friends and always loved Lucy.” I look at my father as he moves to stand now to tell me, walking over to the window, and looking at warriors who are now at their training. “The four of us were friends. One night on the full moon dance in winter, we had many neighboring packs come that one year and Linda came to our pack for the dance looking for her mate. She found him” he said turning to look at Graham.

I am taken aback as I look between both men. “I thought Lucy was your mate,” I say, but Graham looks at me, and tears are forming in his eyes. “She was, Linda is also my mate.”

I was in shock, some people do have two mates, but this is my first time witnessing or even hearing about it happening in our pack.

“You see, I marked Lucy before she fell pregnant, but she didn’t mark me. She couldn’t as she had to be accepted into the pack. During that time, we had to wait for a vote on Lucy to be part of the pack. Then I found Linda, it came as a shock” says Graham, who seems to be thinking about that night.

My father sits next to his friend “You see son, Graham didn’t tell Lucy about Linda. He thought that she would never know till he knew it was real. He couldn’t have her mark him as he’s the Beta and we needed to come to a vote on whether Lucy could be part of the pack. Elders had a huge say in who could join, especially when an elder joined the pack. They seem to think it helps keep packs safe and have never changed the laws since. We were all for Lucy, but elder Johnson wasn’t,” my father says.

“We kept the mention of Linda from Lucy till we could tell the elders, but the next day, they knew. Elder Johnson told them that Graham was his daughter’s mate. When the elders realized that Graham had two mates, some were okay with it, but most weren’t. They decided that two mates were not acceptable and Lucy being a panther shifter was not the solution as we have to mate with wolves. An elder made Graham choose between the two women” he says.

“How can an elder make him choose? He had two mates” I ask, this is insane.

“Elder Johnson is Linda’s father, he found out from her, and he told the rest of the elders that we were mates. He was the one that made me choose. He didn’t want his daughter to be second best to a panther,” says Graham.

Graham stands up and walks to the window to stare out.

“I had no choice but to choose Linda. Elder Johnson didn’t make it easy on me. He made sure that all the elders picked Linda. She was his only child. I told him I had to tell Lucy,” he said “When I told Lucy, she was shocked. She told me that she would not reject me. She wanted to be with me. I was going to reject her, but I couldn’t. I loved her so much.”

“You kept on seeing her,” I say, suddenly realizing that I probably would do the same as he did. He nods, turning towards me with shame and pain written all over his face. He turns back towards the window.

“I hid it from Linda. I saw Lucy when I could, and Linda never knew as I never made love to Lucy again. It was hard when you want both of them. But Linda slowly started to suspect something and followed me after a few years. Izzy was six at the time, and I only saw her a few times a week. But once Linda found out I was still seeing Lucy, she told her father again. They made Lucy move to the end of the terrority away from the pack, on the outskirts, but your father made sure I worked close to where she was living on patrol. It was hard as I couldn’t go near them, and I had to spend most of my time with Linda. Linda wanted to know where I was going and who I was with all the time. I had to keep things on hold with Lucy, especially when Dale was born, and then we had Kacey not long after. Lucy was always on my mind, I never stopped thinking about her.” He says silently. “Your mum went to visit her when she could, but not all the time.”

He sighs and carries on, “After a few months of not seeing them, Lucy phoned me one day and told me that Izzy wanted to see me. I missed my little girl so much. I wanted to see her. She was growing up so fast; she was then 10. I would ring her every month in this office to hear her voice tell me about school and friends, and she would beg me to come home. But I couldn’t.”

I felt for him.

“Things got worse,” he says and looks at my father and nods; my father turns to me. “You see, Elder Johnson decided to be an elder to this pack. He wanted more involvement in the pack. Graham was at a loss, so I told him he needed to reject Lucy like he should have done years ago,” I look back at my father, stunned.

He told his friend to reject his mate.

“Before you judge him,” says Graham, looking at me. “He was right, I was being greedy. Your father told me to reject Lucy and never see her again. He made an excuse to Elder Johnson that I had to do some pack business for him, and I left that night. I went to Lucy, and Izzy was there. They both looked like twins, but Lucy didn’t look right. She looked pale and weak. She was affected by the mature bond and being away from me for too long. I told her I had to reject her, We ended up arguing, and Izzy heard everything. The last thing I did was reject Lucy by the front door as I left. She was on the floor crying, but Izzy was running towards me. I couldn’t even look at my daughter, I had to leave. I jumped in the car and drove away” he was crying again. “I had to leave them,” he finally says.