Twisting Her Fate
Chapter 79

Kathryn hangs up the phone with a shaky hand and walks into the lounge room, looking at her mate Adrian, talking to Ryan. He has tears in his eyes as he recounts the story in animated fashion. He grabs Ryan's bicep. "Son, you just don't know how good it feels to finally have one over on him. I know I have such a good life now, but growing up like that, without a father's love, with a brother like that. It does something, it is so hard to put behind me. I feel like today I finally showed him"

Kathryn shakes against the door frame. Adrian and her struggled to get pregnant. They have two younger sons, who are only ten and twelve, who are set up playing video games on the couch. Kathryn's phone vibrates in her tightly clenched hand she looks at it. Lance: 'One day or I will tell them myself and you don't want that, I will give a play by play of that night, the sounds you made, the comparison's'

Kathryn feels faint, she walks forward with shaky steps as Adrian looks at her, rushing forward to grab his mates arm with a concerned look on his face, helping her to a seat and rushing to get her a glass of water. "Are you okay honey?"

Tears pour down Kathryn's face as she looks from the concerned look on Adrian's face to the concerned look on Ryan's face. There is only one way to do this. Just rip the bandaid off, it will be fine.

"Lance is coming to pick up Ryan in the morning"

Adrian frowns heavily.

"What? Why would he do that?"

"Ryan is Lance's son"

Adrian stares at her wide-eyed.

"You are joking?"

Tears pour down his face.

"Please tell me you are joking"

"I am sorry Adrian"

Adrian runs to the kitchen sink to throw up.

"We were dating for months before we marked and mated"

Adrian laughs bitterly.

"That is why you suddenly jumped into my bed? That is why when the doctor said Ryan was measuring large you always waved it off. You slept with him while I was trying to nurture our love?" Kathryn just looks at the floor, not knowing what to say because it is all true.

"You knew who he was. I showed you photos. I told you my pain"

Ryan stands up and walks toward his father. "Dad"

Adrian looks at his son, the one he loves so much, the sweetest most caring man. How can he have Lance's DNA? The hurt cuts so deeply that he is not sure how to breathe, twenty years with this woman and he feels like he doesn't know her at all. How could she possibly keep something like this from him for all this time, has all these years and all his love just been a joke every time he complains about Lance, has she just been laughing at him?

Ryan could be anyone else's son in the entire world and his love for Kathryn might overcome it and he could maybe put it behind him. But the fact that she has made him raise Lance's own son for the last twenty years unknowingly.

Adrian throws up once again, that whole phone call this morning. He didn't win. He had no victory. No matter what Lance won he made Adrian's childhood hell and now he has just managed to break apart the family that he had built for himself.

Ryan tries again, approaching slowly as he raises a hand, not sure whether to touch the man that has given him nothing but love, suddenly feeling a massive divide with the man who is the closest person to him. Ryan has always been closer with his dad than with his mum.

"Dad?"

Adrian looks at Ryan with tears in his eyes.

"Shouldn't you be calling me uncle?"

Ryan looks down, Adrian has never hidden his hate for Lance, has always explained why there are no family gatherings, why Ryan doesn't know his uncle or his cousin.

"Do you hate me?"

Adrian looks at Kathryn and then at Ryan, closing the distance between them and embracing him.

"It isn't you that I hate"

Ryan embraces his father's trembling body, Adrian leaves after muttering sorry and runs out of the house, straight outside to shift. "Ryan"

Ryan glares at his mother.

"Ryan please"

"What the f*ck was that mother? That is not how you tell someone something like that. Lance is coming to pick up Ryan? What is that? I don't get a choice? I just go with a man that I don't know? A man that f*cked his own brother's mate? You think that is who I want to live with now? What about the family you gave me for twenty years? I am meant to leave a man that loved me for a man that hasn't shown his face?" "Ryan...."

"Shut your f*cking face, I can't even look at you"

Ryan takes off after his father, Ryan's black wolf easily catching the brown wolf, who is so heartbroken that his run appears more like a stumble. The two run side by side in silence. The brown wolf's steps get stronger and stronger with the support of the black wolf, with the support of his son, because sometimes it isn't the blood that matters, it is who was there, who is there, right by his side.

In the half-moon pack, Astrid arranges herself so that her back is against the punishment pole and Maggie's head is cradled on her lap, Simon's jacket is over Maggie and she just stares out into the trees as the day fades to night and the chill descends. She sighs slightly, trying to rub Maggie's arms to warm her up. Astrid runs a lot hotter than Maggie due to her alpha blood. She stares up at the sky. "Are you disappointed in me?"

Astrid is rarely out at night and when she is, she doesn't dare to look up at the moon or the stars. But this night that is all that can accompany her.

"That night, the only reason I didn't go with you into the next life was because I was pregnant with our precious baby girl. I wanted her to survive, but look what happened. Our girl, I didn't protect her. I lost you. I lost her"

Tears pour down Astrid's beautiful but very worn out face, years of living in so much regret and depression has taking its toll on her. The soft light of the moon illuminates her filling her with a gentle warmth. "I'm sorry I failed you"

She closes her eyes, her head leaning back against the punishment pole. Feeling like all she deserves is to be tied to the thing. But she is being punished for an eternity anyway. The internal hurt is a lot worse than a million lashings of the flesh. Flesh heals, the heart doesn't.

Astrid's arms weave around herself, not to keep the cold out, just to keep the loneliness out, but it is far too late for that, it has infused in her bones, entered every cell, deep loneliness accompanies her every step, grips every single breath. Yes, she would much rather have a whipping than the never-ending torment of her survival.

In the morning, Gabriel wakes up, his laptop open playing some sort of fetish p*rn, his face is stuck to the desk by a heavy coating of alcohol. He looks from the empty bottles of serum and alcohol on the ground to the pile of tissues. No, he refuses to go down like this.

He needs to start eliminating his problems and his top two problems at the moment are Maggie and Leilani. He cannot decide who rates higher. At the moment, they are both making him suffer, but Leilani is going to be harder to get rid of. Even though the fallout over Leilani will cause problems, she is relatively easy to deal with, just a quick rejection and it is done, she didn't seem like she would be fighting the fact at all.

For some reason that thought displeases him, he puts it down to the fact that she should be begging him instead of being hostile, or maybe it is just the fact that she would play him like she has.

Whatever reason it is, it isn't because he likes her, it isn't because he regrets what he did.

It couldn't be.

It definitely isn't because he can't get her out of his mind.

That is even more impossible.

It isn't because her look, her words, her strength is everything he has ever wanted.

It must be just because the comparison with Maggie last night was too large. It doesn't mean that he wants Leilani, it just means that Maggie is no good either.

Gabriel sighs as he gets up and drags himself to the shower, letting the hot water wash away the putrid scent of alcohol.

If he is going to go reject Leilani today, he can't go in looking like a mess. She can't know that she got the better of him, she cannot know that she affected him in anyway.

He is always the one in control.