I stormed into the office determined to talk to my brother. This wasn't my home anymore but every time I returned back to this place I felt like a traitor because there was still a worlds divide between us.

I had used all kinds of excuses to justify why I hadn't spoken to Khan about anything and the more I tried to justify myself the more I began hating myself. I couldn't work on being a better man for my son if I was still stuck lying to myself and hiding from my sins. Was this what I wanted to teach him, to teach my little king, Yavan. To teach him to hide from his mistakes as if they had never existed.

I was a father now and if I couldn't do this for me then I would do it for him because that little boy was the centre of my world and when I lost him I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I couldn't say that I gave him the best me possible. The only way to do that was to confront my past and lay it all bear to my older brother, the male who had paved the way for so much of my future.

But that was the past though, I was trying to recover. To cut the chains of my old life, to soothe the burning flames that I had set alight in my past years.

I was trying to be a better man and so I swallowed my fears and stepped inside. My brothers knowing hazel eyes flickered up to meet me, shock plastered over his face at he took in the sight of me. It had been a while since we had seen each other and I knew I had grown, in height, in width, in mind. I was a different man from the one he had seen a year ago.

"Carson, what are you doing here?" He questioned, rising to a stand as he came around the table and embraced me in a tight hug. Hugging Khan always felt so weird, so awkward. It was something that I rarely remember doing with him, even in my younger years, especially then. I had just been his annoying twerp of a brother but now I was more in his eyes but less in mine. Funny that.

"How is Neema?"

"Still complaining about being fat, Noah is 5 months now and she has lost all the baby weight but she keeps complaining. Gods save us from women!" He chuckled, eyes rolling to the sky. I could only imagine what Neema was putting my brother through and because he loved her so deeply, he was only too willing to listen to every complaint. Love did that. She was naturally beautiful and motherhood gave her a glow to her that was missing, that and my brothers love. They were doing good and I couldn't be happier for them.

"Well I actually came to speak to you about something, I've been meaning to tell you from a while but I haven't because I always knew you wouldn't take this well" I took a seat on the opposite side of his desk and braced myself for his wrath. Closing my eyes, I centred myself, breathing out all my nerves. My grey eyes opened and then words slipped past my lips,

brazen but shameful words.

"Vanya is my mate," I felt like a weight had been released for my shoulders. I still hands right my wrongs and perhaps I never could but telling Khan, letting going of that poison that had corrupted my soul. It felt liberating if only for a moment.

"What?" he growled, chair crashing to the floor as his hand thudded against his desk. I thought the age to lean back from him, instead my shoulders squared and I met him head on. I wouldn't hide from this any longer. I wouldn't make Vanya suffer in silence whilst she hid this as if it where her dirty little secret when in reality it was mine. It always had been my secret to bear and I was a bastard for making her suffer through the silence.

"I said-"

"I know what you said but I must have heard you wrong because there is no way, no way you would have been her mate. No way, not while you were sleeping with other females." I grimaced at the attack, hating that there had been so many witnesses to the way had desecrated this bond.

"I thought it once, the way you reacted when she burnt herself. I thought you had to be her mate but then I caught the dank smell of one female on you and I thought better."

"You wouldn't do that to her, not sweet little Vanya," his head was shaking in such disappointment I felt it to my core, I was disappointed in myself but I hurt to see it from Khan. I had spent most of my life looking up to him and when that hadn't been enough, trying to emulate him. To see that he could only be disappointed by me, it hurt but it was one of the smaller wounds of my actions.

"I convinced myself that she couldn't be your mate, no way. Not when you were off impregnating little harpies," his eyes flashing red in anger.

"I thought no way, not my little brother!"

"The brother that Neema said any female would be lucky to have as a mate, not that smart male!" I kept quiet because there wasn't anything I could say at this point that would change what I had done.

"But to find out that you are! That you have known this long and have not told me." His body was vibrating in unbridled anger, jaw clenched and nose flaring. He was furious, feet wearing a path in his carpet as he paced around the room.

"That you knew and still continued to do those things!" he shuttered to a silence, head bowed low as his head shook and then his head tilted up and met mine. Eyes of churning red fury.

"I could fucking kill you Carson!" His jaw disfiguring as his body grew, the shift taking over him. he was changing into that third form and I couldn't sit here any longer. I couldn't just wait for him to rip me to shreds because that is surely what he would do. Khan in a rage was an animal.

"You don't deserve her, you are scum!" His fist swung out and pummelled into my cheek, my head snapped to the side and the room tilted. I collapsed to the floor, his boots meeting my stomach as he beat me to within an inch of my life. I wouldn't fight him, I deserved every punch and kick he gave me, even if it was hypocritical coming from him.

He ripped me from the floor by the collar of my shirt, gripping me high in the air as my blood trickled a dark obsidian onto his expensive carpet.

"I guess I'm just like my brother" I slurred, my jaw aching with every move. I winced in pain as blood gushed into my mouth coating my teeth in that bitter liquid.

He dropped me to the floor like hot coal, spitting in my direction as he turned his back towards me, "You are nothing like me Carson"

"No, I'm not" he was right, we were nothing alike, he was assured in whoever he was and I was just a whining grappling little boy trying to be a man.

"You fucked up brother" he sighed, falling into his chair in defeat, flexing his tensed and bruised knuckles. "You have a tough fucking head Carson" he growled annoyed, wincing with the pain shooting through his hand, it deserved him right for thumping me so hard. I wanted to laugh at his words but I couldn't find the joy in them, not at this moment, not with so much on my mind.

"I know I fucked up Khan but I'm trying, I know its a little late but I am"

"It is never too late Carson, maybe for you and Vanya it is but I don't believe you are unredeemable. If the gods can find something good in me then I'm sure there is still hope for you."

"You just need to stop pitying yourself. Yes, you messed up. You ruined the one good thing the gods have given you but you have to let it go because you cannot change the past Carson. The thought of all those wrong doings will rot your insides until you are as black as the tides where the unwanted go."

"I'm not saying you should forget, but you need to let it go. You need to do this for you Carson" and for my son. Everything I did was for him.

"Thanks Khan" I murmured rising to my feet, taking his words into the centre of me. I would take on board what he said because no one knew better than Khan how difficult it was to redeem yourself when you had done the unredeemable.

"I love you little brother and though I'm disappointed in the choices you have made... I'm proud that you are trying" tears glistened in my eyes as I patted my chest and began exiting the room.

"Love you too Khan."

Neema had changed him and I felt this bittersweet emotion at that thought. I missed her deeply, she was my only friend and now she was no more. I couldn't blame her though, I could only ever blame me. She had taken the broken parts of me into her care and when she had priced me back together I hadn't been what she thought I was but I was tired of dwelling on that. I had more important things to worry about like my son.

Climbing into the silver transporter my head thudded back on the head rest as I left the place that was meant to be a good beginning for me. I was going home now, home to my son and I didn't know when I would be back maybe never.

Everything that I had begun to build was based at my father's compound, Ryan was there now, building houses so we could bridge the gap between us and the sewage dwellers, anything to stop the growing grasp the Resentiam was beginning to grab over our world.

Our business was going well, many Alpha's saw the benefit in our work, they could find mates and minimise the issues between our kind but for me it was more than that. This was a way for me to make up for the hurt I had caused Vanya, though she would never directly benefit from our work there were hundreds and thousands of little girls who were like Vanya. Orphans who had been mentally scarred by the horrors of our world, little girls who had watched their parents be murdered and ravaged by my kind. Little girls who only wanted to feel safe, to feel good enough, to feel love. Real, true and pure love.

I hadn't been able to give her that, I had only made it worse but hopefully I could help these girls. I could make their existence a little less bleak, it was just a thought but it was what pushed me to do well, that and my son.

The Silver transporter began its decent, the journey so short but it couldn't come to an end quick enough. I was agitated, in need of a shift before I could go get Yavan. I needed to be calm, to be collected, my mind needed to be at rest and right now it was ticking. Ticking full of all my mistakes and all my hopes for the future, I needed a release and I had found a way to channel all my negative feelings that had lead me down that dark and toxic path I had been careening down.

Going for a run in my second form did something to me that I wish I had known before, it would have saved a lot of heartbreak.

It was therapeutic and I waited no time shifting as soon as the doors opened. My clothes ripped and shredded around me as my black fur took over my skin. I felt at peace already and I hadn't even moved.

//--//

I didn't know how long I was gone for but when I was done the sun had begun to dim a little, it must have been a few hours. A few hours too long because now I was desperate to see my son and I knew he would be waiting for me.

I headed up the stairs, skin still covered by true form. The form I felt the most like me in.

My head butted at the door and it opened for me, the blue clouds painted along his walls greeting me before I saw him.

He was sitting by the window staring at the garden with awe on his face, my mother was reading him a story about a giant in a garden and I knew was there imagining the giant in our very own garden.

My nails scratched against carpet and his head twisted to face me. At 2 years old my son was such a fragile little kid, that sickly yellow colour had never left his skin, in fact it seemed it would be the constant of his life because he had jaundice and though it was unsightly to others, it wasn't our worry. My son with his milky yellow skin was still the handsomest boy to me, I could see the innocence his little eyes as he called to me.

Hands waving as he giggled and laughed in excitement at my wolf, he loved the animal just as much as me but I wanted to be the one to hold him. Growling lightly in his direction, I headed off to my adjoining room and quickly shifted. I quickly wiped my bloody skin, most of the scars already fading, threw on some loose trousers and a tee before going back into his room. I nearly steam rolled right over him as he came charging into my room.

"Papa," he called excitedly, his chest rattling with the exertion of his excitement, his cheeks turning pink with his effort.

"Hello my little king, how are we this fine evening" placing on my best aristocratic voice as possible and bowing my head in subjugation.

"I is good papa" he giggled, his curly blonde hair bouncing around his face as he jumped up and down, waiting for me to eventually lift him up.

"Would your highness like a lift" I murmured trying to sound as obeisant as possible without laughing my head off.

"Yessh please, sir" he grinned, cheeks dimpling as he reached out for me. He chortled in joy as I grabbed him into my arms and smothered him with kisses, his hands clapping against my cheeks.

"We go outside papa?" he asked excitedly.

"Yes just as soon as I speak to Nana to see if you have been good today."

My mum stood by the door, her head leaning against the frame as she watched me and him interact with water in her eyes. Clearing her throat, she said "He has been the perfect little angel that he is but he had a little issue with his breathing so I suggest we take it easy in the garden."

"No giants and bears for you today Yanky," my mum murmured popping him lightly on his furrowed nose before she gave me a light kiss on the cheek.

I snickered at the nickname she had given him from 3 months old. She had been burping him and all I had heard was a wild squawking sound, I rushed into the room to see my red faced mother crying with laughter as my son fisted a good size of her long blonde hair. He had been Yanky ever since and my mum had refused to wear anything other than a bun around him for over a year.

Yavan was a lively little boy, full of life and energy but his condition often left him short breathed, he was susceptible to dizzy spells and so we never left him unattended in case he fell and hurt his head.

The doctors encouraged us to leave him on bed rest for what was left of his life but I couldn't do that, my son was full of too much life to be cooped up. He loved the garden, the greenery, anything to do with nature made him smile and so I made sure to take him out at least twice a day in the warmer weathers.

In the colder months he was cooped up but I didn't want him to catch anything not when he was so fragile but I was planning on building a green house that would be attached to our house so he could have nature even when the weather became to brittle for him to step outside.

We tried not too bring too much attention to his sickness because we didn't want him too feel different from the other kids, we knew he would start asking questions though and when he did I hoped we had the answers.

Two years in and all we knew was that he had jaundice as a result of something bigger. At first they had thought he had some sort of pulmonary disease because of his struggle with breathing but that hadn't been the case. His lungs were 100 percent affective and there was nothing wrong with his veins from the scans we had done.

We hadn't tried many remedies just because we didn't know what we were treating and so we didn't want to risk making it worse, the doctors said to play it by ear but I wasn't going to sit around and wait for my son to die.

I had contacted a healer. He was a bit unconventional from what I heard, he was often caught mumbling to himself apparently but he had a good success rate. All of his patients were cured and if not cured then he found them remedies that would lessen the symptoms and dangers of whatever disease they had. His remedies were no over the night fix, he spent years with each patient which was why he was so sought after. Everyone knew he would take the time to see the best possible outcome for each patient.

I had faith that together him and I could diagnose and cure my son. I just had to wait for him to come, whenever that was.

I wanted to save my son and I would do anything to accomplish. If I had to swear my soul to the gods to save him then I would, anything for him, my little king. My Yanky.

"Did you sort out your stuff, Carson" she questioned brows rising in that formidable look she had given me all throughout my childhood.

"Yes mother" I sighed pulling faces at my little golden child in my arms, he gurgled a large laugh before covering his mouth as if he had ruined the secret, his grey cloudy eyes wide in surprise.

I couldn't help but stare at him, he was such a beautiful little boy. I felt such awe, such humbleness that I had created such a pure child. A child that was just so good and loving, that I was raising him and he was doing okay.

He wasn't screaming or crying or throwing tantrums, he was a calm baby and though I couldn't claim all of that, I could definitely claim how smart he was. There was no way he got that from his egg donor.

No, Yavan was all the good parts of me, he was the only good thing I had ever done that was worth mentioning in my life and I prayed daily that he would have a long and happy life.

He was my being, he made every day worth living. He was my soul, my heart, my everything. He was my King and I would do anything to have him look at me with nothing but love and pride.