by Aspen Grey
I felt a pang in my heart as I thought about my mother.
What is she doing now?
I’d always told myself I would go back to Grey Forks and find her, but as much as it pained me to admit it, I’d never been able to bring myself to do it. When it came to battle, being a warrior for Red, for Tate, I was always ready. Combat was where I thrived. I was able to channel all that anger, all the pain I’d experienced in my life, and let it out while defending my pack. All the hardships I’d faced as a child were what made me what I was.
But still, no matter how strong I’d become, I’d never been able to face my past and return to my mother. But now, things had changed. I was embarking on a new phase of my life, and it didn’t seem right to be there without her.
Our cabin came into view through the trees and I looked over at my mate running at my side and realized just how truly alive I felt. This was life!
But as we came out of the woods and slowed, a scent hit my nose that sent a flood of adrenaline through my body.
In my peripheral, I saw Toby tense up as we slid to a halt.
Thatcher!
There was another scent mixed with his, one I couldn’t place. My eyes scanned the lodge for trouble, but as far as I could tell, things were quiet. Then, I saw him.
Thatcher, slinking around the corner of the house. He was in human form, and didn’t seem like he was here for trouble. In fact, he looked almost hesitant, like he really didn’t want to be where he was. Then, another man came into view, standing beside him and gazing across the yard at us.
He was tall, a fox alpha, but one that looked like he had been beaten down by life. He wore a green waxed fisherman’s jacket and a tattered pair of brown work pants and boots. He looked at me, but his eyes quickly moved to Toby – and stayed there.
And from the way he was looking at my mate, I understood who he was: Toby’s father.
Toby
My heart almost fucking exploded in my chest as I smelled the scent I hadn’t smelled in years. A mixture of emotions hit me in the head like a bowling ball and my legs felt like they were ready to give out as I stared across the ground at my father.
What is he doing here!?
It didn’t even seem real. Like some sick movie montage, every bad memory I had of my life with him just started to flicker through my mind. I couldn’t control it. It was like some sick joke, to go from the pure joy of discovering I was pregnant, to this.
He took a step forward, and I saw the limp and was instantly taken back to those days he spent on the couch, pouring booze down his throat to distract himself from the pain.
Our trailer park…
Those government checks…
My father’s face…drunk…his eyes glazed over in front of the television.
I shifted.
“No!” I shouted at the top of my lungs. “What are you doing here!?”
I saw the pain on my father’s face as my voice rang out, and felt the pang in my heart again. It only made me angrier. I thought I’d escaped him, escaped my old life. I’d forged my own life, and then Kitchi had helped me escape that. And now it was all back here again, confronting me as if to say, “You can never escape this!”
“Toby,” he croaked. His voice was raspy and weak. Of course that’s what you get when you funnel alcohol down your throat and smoke like a chimney.
“Thatcher, what the fuck!” I shouted as Kitchi shifted beside me. I could feel how tense he was. “What are you doing here? What’s he doing here!?”
“He made me bring him here,” Thatcher replied, looking ashamed for once in his life. This was obviously not his decision. “He came to the house.”
“Oh, perfect!” I burst out, throwing my hands in the air in frustration. Of course my father was visiting a fucking whorehouse. There’s no way any woman was going to be turned on by his sad sack routine, lying around on the couch just waiting for his life to be over. “My father, the whore enthusiast!”
“It wasn’t like that,” he said. His voice sounded stronger as he took another step in my direction. “I – I was looking for you.”
“Toby,” Kitchi said softly so only I could hear. “I can get rid of them if you want.”
I didn’t reply. I didn’t know what I wanted. This was all just too much to handle.
“Why?” I finally said. I hated the man standing in front of me. Until now, I hadn’t realized just how much I blamed him for my life and the decisions I’d made. If only he had been a better father, maybe I wouldn’t have ended up doing what I did, going into the…profession I went into.
He just sort of hung his head and looked at his feet. I wished I could read his mind like Kitchi seemed to be able to read mine.
What are you thinking!? I was screaming inside. My blood was boiling. I wanted to punch something, smash something beautiful to pieces. All the pain I’d managed to push down inside me was threatening to erupt out of me like a volcano, and I wasn’t sure if I could stop it.
“I don’t know…” he admitted. A broken man. That’s all he was to me. A broken ankle and a broken man who had broken me. I’d lived a broken life after him, and now I was on my way to healing it – and here he was to ruin everything. “I just wanted to see you. I wanted…to apologize.”
“Apologize!” My voice tore through the space between us and I shifted. It wasn’t something I could control. My fox took over and all the pain and hatred from my life propelled me forward. I saw the shock in my father’s eyes, but it was too late.
I leapt straight at him, striking him directly in the chest and knocking him onto his back. Snarling, I pinned him to the ground and bared my fangs. It was almost like I was watching myself. Anger and pain were my only emotions as I looked down at the man beneath me, my father, who’d neglected me for so long.
“T – Toby,” he stammered, holding his hands up to his face. I was crying inside, but I couldn’t let him see it. Baring my teeth, I growled, but something hit me in the side and sent me tumbling away.
I leapt to my feet and turned to see Kitchi, in fox form, standing between me and my father. He shifted back and put a hand out in front of him.
“Toby,” he said firmly. “Calm down.”
I shifted and shouted. “Out of my way, Kitchi!”
“No,” he replied, shaking his head. “You don’t want to do this.”
“You don’t understand!” I cried out. “You don’t know what it was like!”
“I do understand,” he told me. “But no matter what this man has done, he’s still your father.”
I was shaking. My entire body was quivering and I couldn’t control it. It was the adrenaline, coursing through me like ice water. Behind Kitchi, my father was doing his best to get to his feet, but his ankle was still fucked up and he was having a hard time. Thatcher took his hand and helped him.
“You shouldn’t be here,” I said as he managed to stand. Tears were flowing out of my eyes. It was out of my hands now. I’d lost all control of my emotions.
There was nothing left to do. My father was looking at me helplessly, which was exactly how I felt. Thatcher looked ashamed. It wasn’t his fault. I’m sure my father had threatened him, forced him to lead me here, but that did nothing for my anger.
“I’m – I’m your father,” he said simply, as though that would change anything between us.
“Not anymore, you’re not,” I told him. It was harsh, but anger was the only thing that could come out of my lips.
I turned my back on him and walked away from him for the second time in my life. The first time had been easier. I was young and determined to make a life for myself. But that life hadn’t gone the way I’d hoped, and I’d been living with pain for so long. Kitchi came into my life and changed things, showed me it was possible to heal – and now he was here to bring it all back to me?
No. I didn’t have to stay with him then and I didn’t have to face him now. And I wouldn’t.
Kitchi
“Toby,” I said gently as I e
ntered the cabin. But his name was barely out of my mouth before he was screaming.
“What is he doing here!? And what the Hell is Thatcher thinking bringing him up here? How did he find us anyway!?”
“Tracked our scents, most likely,” I told him. He wasn’t thinking clearly. I could see that. “I’m sure your father gave him no choice.”
Toby was furious and my heart hurt to see the pain he was going through. Tears streamed down his eyes as I followed him through the hall into our room. I was barely through the door before he slammed it shut behind me.
“You have to get him out of here, Kitchi!” he shouted as he sat down on the bed. But he was back on his feet in an instant, pacing the room like he was ready to tear the place apart.
“Do you really want that?” I asked him. He stopped and looked at me like I’d just said something ridiculous.
“Excuse me?” he asked. “Do I really want that?”
“Hear me out,” I started to say, but I could barely finish. He shoved past me, pulled the bedroom door open and strode back into the hall. I turned and followed him back into the living room.
“Don’t fuck with me, Kitchi!” he roared, spinning around and pointing his finger at me. “Don’t fuck with me!”
“I’m not, my omega,” I said as calmly as I could. “I’m trying to get you to…consider the possibilities.”
“Possibilities!?” he screamed. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
I don’t know if it was the fact that I’d been thinking about my mother just before we saw Toby’s father, but I was thinking differently. Perhaps things would have been different a day or two ago. Maybe I would have felt the anger that Toby was feeling now. But things had changed. Toby was pregnant and my mind was on the future.
“He’s your father—”
“Exactly!” he snarled. “He wasn’t there for me, Kitchi! Why do you think I left home? Why do you think I did what I did? He’s the reason I turned into…what I am…”
“What are you, Toby?”
“I’m…trash.” The words shot out of his mouth like daggers to my chest. I wanted to scoop him up in my arms but I knew he’d push me away.
His pain way my pain, and it always would be. He was my mate now and it was my job to take care of him. All I wanted to do was take these feelings away from him. If I could put them all on me I would. But all I could do was try my best to comfort him.
If only it wasn’t his father. If only it was some terrible alpha with his mind on violence. Then I’d have an easy response. I’d just fight him off like I’d done with others who’d tried to disturb the peace of our pack. But I wasn’t about to harm Toby’s father, no matter how angry he was at him.
“You’re not trash, Toby,” I told him, my heart breaking in my chest.
“I am…”
“You’re not!” My voice boomed, louder than I’d intended, shocking even Toby. He looked up at me with surprise. “You’re not trash, Toby. You’re just a guy who’s lived a terribly hard life, but that life is over. You’re with me now. You’re my mate. And you’re going to be father to my child. Things are going to change. They’re only going to get better.”
“I wish I’d met you before…”
“We can wish for everything, Toby,” I told him, taking a step closer. “But that gets us nowhere. All we can do is work with what we have. And right now, the important thing is that we have each other.”
“You don’t know what this is like!”
“Toby,” I pleaded, trying to get him to calm down. “I can’t pretend to have gone through what you went through. But my childhood wasn’t all rosy either, if you remember.”
My words hit home and I saw his face soften a bit as he looked at me.
“My dad beat me, remember?” I asked him. “It’s weird, because when we were coming down from the woods, I couldn’t stop thinking about my mom. I haven’t seen her since I left home. And I want to.”
“Your mother didn’t neglect you,” Toby replied. “She didn’t abandon you.”
“Your father was a broken man,” I told him. “Literally. Maybe…maybe he just screwed up.”
“Yeah!” Toby shouted.
“But I don’t think he was trying to hurt you,” I said, reaching my hand out for his. I could see he was starting to calm down, just a little, but enough that I could see I was making progress.
This was a critical moment in our lives. The pain inside him was rearing its ugly head. I knew it would eventually. No matter how much I loved Toby, he still had a troubled past that would never go away – but so did I. The best either of us could do was deal with our issues when they came up. And learning how to progress through life together was the most important thing we both needed to learn.
“I – I don’t think he meant to either,” Toby finally admitted, but as I took his hand in mine, he still pulled away. “But he did!”
“He’s trying to make things right, Toby,” I told him. “He must be. That’s why he’s here now. I think – I think you should give him a chance. We both have problems in our past, and the only way to move forward is to look back and confront them. See what he has to say.”
Toby’s lips twisted in thought as he stared down at my hand, still outstretched for his. His scent filled my nose and my love for him was overwhelming. Seeing him in this amount of pain was almost too much for me, but I had to keep it together for him.
Right now – this moment – was his.
Finally, Toby’s fingers curled around mine and I gripped him tightly and pulled him close.
“Okay,” he told me, nodding against my chest. “I’ll try.”
Toby
Kitchi’s grip was all that was keeping me on my feet. All of this shit happening was a cruel goddamn joke. That son of a bitch father of mine had come here right when I was starting to get my life together.
My heart was ready to either tear in half or blow up like a firework. This morning I’d let myself think that I had my shit together. I actually had myself convinced that I was a fully functioning, rational adult that had managed to put my past behind me. But now I knew that was all just bullshit. Lies I’d been telling myself to make myself feel better.
Kitchi’s hand was strong around mine. The warmth from his body and his scent were the only comfort I had. That and the baby growing inside me.
Even though I hadn’t met my child yet, I couldn’t stop thinking about the kind of father I would be. I was so excited to do all the things a parent would do with their kid: hold him in my arms, teach him to walk and run and throw a ball, teach him to read and write and all the other things he wanted to do. I could never imagine sitting on the couch beside him, uninterested in his life, or worse, letting him run away.
But that’s what my father had done to me.
“Come on,” Kitchi said. His voice shook me, stirred me out of my head. I looked up and found the strength I needed in his face. He was such a tough bastard that I couldn’t help but smile. A bomb could hit him in the chest and he’d still be standing. A truck could run into him and shatter around him. He was my rock, my port in the storm, my ray of sunshine in the rain. “Let’s go talk to your father.”
Taking a deep breath, I let Kitchi lead me out the front door, clutching his hand like he might fly away and leave me at any moment. I looked around for Thatcher and my father, but I didn’t see them.
Must be around the back, I thought. Slowly, I made my way around the side of the little house and into the back yard. And there he was. My father, sitting on the porch, his injured leg propped out in front of him, just like I remembered him.
“Where’s Thatcher?” I asked. Anything to avoid getting right to the point.
“He left. Went back to the…” His voice trailed off. He didn’t want to say it.
“Brothel?” I finished the sentence for him, feeling suddenly defensive.
Yes, your son was a whore! I wanted to scream at him. There was no way he was proud of me. What father wants their son going
into the sex industry? He must have been ashamed of me, embarrassed about what I’d done with my life. But when I looked at him, I saw none of that there.
What I saw was…shame.
“I – I’m sorry, son,” he finally said. His words were choked and filled with pain as he forced them from his throat.
He’s trying not to cry!
My stomach convulsed as I pushed back a sob. I’d never seen this side to my father. Never once had I seen him show any kind of emotion other than irritation or disinterest.
“Don’t say that,” I replied. I don’t know why I said it, but it was all I could think of.
“What?” he asked, his eyes welling up with tears.
“Don’t – don’t say that!” I shouted. “How can you say that!?”
“Toby,” Kitchi whispered, but I tore my hand from his and walked right up beside my father. He was sitting, and I was towering over him. I’d been taller than him since my fourteenth birthday, and I’d always hated it. I hated it even more now.
“How can you possibly be sorry!?” I screamed, my pain pouring out of my lips. “Why did you let me go!? Why didn’t you come looking for me!? Do you know what I’ve been through? Why now? Why did it take you so long!?”
I collapsed to my knees, sobbing like a baby, holding my head in my hands. This was all too much. The sobs racked my stomach as tears spilled from my eyes to the porch beneath me.
I wasn’t a strong, independent man anymore. I was my father’s son, crying at his feet, begging to know why he’d let me leave.
“I tried to find you, Toby.” His words were like a shotgun to the chest. My eyes snapped to his. He had to be lying. “I got in the truck and tracked your scent as far as I could but…you crossed the river and I started to lose it. I made it to Sherwick but lost it completely in town. I stuck around for a few days, turned the whole place upside down trying to find you. But I couldn’t. You were just…gone.”