Chapter 7: Meet the family

I stood staring at the white door with a stained glass pattern in the window; the butterflies in my stomach were already flying around like someone had blown an air horn making them go crazy. I let Carter grab Harley out of the car, he was getting too heavy and my back just couldn’t take it anymore.

“Knocked yet?” he asked coming to stand next to me. Well not exactly. I hand done it in my head just not in reality, does that count as knocking?

“Not really”

“Luke, open the damn door!” he yelled shifting Harley on his hip and covering his ears.

“Shh, you’ll wake Harley”

“He’s already awake, aren’t you buddy?” he kissed the top of Harley’s head making him rise his little head off of Carters shoulder and started rubbing his eyes. Great.

The door opened and I was meet with familiar blue eyes and dark hair, it is freaky at how much all of the boys looked the same.

“Took you long enough” Carter said walking in past his cousin in to the house.

“Up the stairs and to the right!” he called after Carter before turning to me. “You must be Melly mouse” oh god I am going to murder Josh, was I ever going to outlive that nickname?

“I take it Josh bet us here”

“Yeah” he chuckled “come on in, I’m Luke by the way, it’s nice to finally meet you” he said holding out his hand; I shook it firmly and walked in quickly admiring the home. It was almost like a replica of the one in our territory but with a few extra little changes and most of it being white and gold.

“You too, although I hadn’t heard about you until a few minutes ago”

“Not even from Josh or Cory?”

“Sorry” I shook my head.

“Well, I’ll have to teach my brothers some manners then”

I followed him into a lounge room were a young women maybe a little older than me sat with a little girl kneeling down at the coffee table in front of her. The women had blond hair and blue eyes; she was beautiful with her slim figure and high cheek bones; while the little girl was obviously Liam’s daughter since she was the spitting image of him with dark hair and bright blue eyes. A chill ran up my spin at how much she resembled Lilly in the woods.

“Hi I’m Kate, Liam’s mate” she said walking over and giving me a hug.

Quickly smiling and introducing myself I followed her to the couch while Liam took a seat next to Kate.

“This is our daughter Mia she is turning four soon”

“Well you can’t half tell” I joked around smiling down at the little girl who rubbed her eyes.

“I’m so glad you finally came I’ve been begging Carter for years to bring you but well you know. It gets so boring up here alone.”

“I know right, sometimes I think I am going insane in that house by myself” I agreed.

“See she gets it, and you thought I was going crazy” she giggled elbowing Liam.

“So you grew up with Carter?” I asked wanting to at least get some information out of them while we were alone. In the three years I’ve known him he hasn’t told me a thing about his family, everything I know – which is that his parents died and he grew up with the twins – I had heard from everyone else.

“Yeah, he moved here with us when he was seven”

“Oh, what was he like” I leaned back and started to turn a stray piece of hair around my finger trying to act like I didn’t care although I’m pretty sure I looked a little to awkward in this position.

“He was quiet, had a temper and very serious, actually come to think of it, he hasn’t changed a bit.”

“Right” Well at least I tried.

“Although before then he was happy and a lot like the twins. Always joking around and playing pranks on everyone but he had the tendency to wonder off; he’d spend hours in the woods at a time, freaked everyone out a couple of times when he didn’t come back until late at night.”

I took in everything and smiled thinking of Carter acting like Josh and Cory. It explained a bit more about Harley and his exploring nature; I knew he didn’t get it from me!

“Is that what you wanted to know?”

“Yeah I was hoping for some dirt to use as blackmail”

“Oh well in that case do I have some stories for you” Liam said getting an excited look on his face, you could see the strong resemblance between the boys with his wide ear to ear smile.

I heard footsteps and turned around to see Carter and Josh coming around the corner of the room. Both of the boys took a seat on each side of me.

“Anyways as I was saying, when he was twelve…”

“Ok that’s enough, Liam I need to talk to you” Carter interrupted making the rest of us start to giggle.

“Oh yeah that time, I think that is his most embarrassing moment” Josh cut in before bursting into laughter at the memory.

I seriously wanted to know now.

“Now”

“Ok, relax, no need to raise your voice” the two men got up off the couch and started to walk off behind a door I hadn’t really noticed before.

“You too” he said looking over his shoulder calling out to Josh obviously not trusting him not to tell me.

I looked over to Kate and she smiled at me before bending down and picking up Mia.

“Come on, I’ll show you around”

I followed her around the house. I was right; the layout was so similar to ours. She walked into a room and quickly laid Mia down throwing her gently under the covers and creeping out of the room while I stayed leaning against the door frame.

“So I take it Carter never mentioned us?”

“No, sorry”

“It’s fine, I had no idea you even existed until Liam told me last year, their every secretive sometimes.”

“Yeah I know, I only get snippets of what’s going on.”

“Be grateful for that, I get nothing, I still don’t know why you’re here”

“Oh”

“Yeah”

We stood there both of us looking down at our shoes for a little while. I think I am beginning to doubt everything I knew. Carter had told me more than Kate knew which made me feel a little privileged but he hadn’t told me about his family, his past, was there something there that he was ashamed of or was it just traumatic for him to re visit them?

I know I try and push the thoughts of parents and brother out of my mind, I don’t want to think about what they went through or starting asking myself if there was something I could have done to prevent it.

I didn’t visit my grandfather now and no matter how much I blame Carter for that he has never stopped me from leaving to go and see him or even forbid him for coming to the house, it was me. I thought maybe creating some distance between us would make saying goodbye easier when the time came but all that it has done is make me regret the past three years of my life.

I have waisted three years. I have focussed on nothing but hate, on hating him, blaming him for everything that went wrong, for my life changing and for having no friends when it was my fault.

“Can you show me where Harley is?” I asked her shaking my head of all my thoughts.

“Sure, this way”

I followed her to the end of the corridor and she stopped at a door gesturing towards it. I quickly thanked her and opened it up walking in seeing him lying peacefully wrapped up in the blankets.

I silently walked in and sat on the bed next to him.

I brushed the hair off of his forehead staring down at him, he needed a haircut soon.  I rubbed small circles on his head softly brushing his skin and listening to him breath while his chest rose and fell.

I heard the door creek open, turning my head I watched as Carter slowly walked in watching me closely. He came to a stop at the foot of the bed and sat down next to me; I smiled at him and went back to watching Harley sleeping peacefully.

“Are you ok?” he whispered trying not to wake Harley up.

Was I ok? I had just rethought my whole entire life in only a minute and came to the conclusion that I was the problem and not the people I have been blaming, added with the fact that I was beginning to miss my parents and brother even more now and wanting nothing more than my grandfather to hug me and tell me everything was going to be ok. Yeah I was great!

“Just a bit tired”

We both turned to Harley watching him sleep.

“He’s so cute when he sleeps”

“And then he wakes up” I smiled thinking of how much trouble he has been up to lately, running off, hiding, cutting open his arm and jumping on me to wake me up.

“Come on, we should get some sleep, it’s been a long day” Carter said getting up and offering me his hand. I leaned down giving Harley a quick kiss and taking Carter’s hand letting him pull me to my feet.

We walked out of the room across the hallway into another room, this one was about the same size as the one Harley was in, and its large double bed was over towards the back wall with simple white interior and yellow spots of colour. There was a door which I assumed was the bathroom.

Walking over I jumped on the bed lying across the middle and taking up all of the space. Carter came over and pushed me aside a little too easily. Oh to have the strength of a werewolf.

“Hey, you can’t just move someone over like that!”

“I can when they take up the whole bed, now move over”

“No”

“I’ll make you”

I looked up at him seeing his bemused but serious face, he wasn’t kidding.

Sighing heavily I moved over to the right side of the bed sitting up and watching as he pulled his shirt over his head. I watched the muscles of his back move back and forth with each movement; I noticed the small little scars hidden on the surface of his skin, each one evidence of his fights with either a challenger or his cousins.

“Go to sleep” he said discarding the rest of his close and climbing into his side of the bed.

“What did you talk about?” I couldn’t help myself; I wanted to know what was going on.

“What to do with those boys and plans to tighten the boarder lines.”

“And…”

“And what?”

“What was the verdict?” I clarified a little annoyed, was he trying to dodge the question or was he just playing dumb?

“We don’t want to kill them but the truth is we should, they pose too much of a threat to Harley and Mia”

“I don’t get why, their just kids”

“Yes, but kids grow up” He said putting his arm over his eyes, clearly a little tired from the long drive and his talk with his cousins.

I still didn’t get it, was I missing something? Was it obvious or was he just beating around the bush? I just needed him to tell me everything as a whole and stop only giving me half of the story and making me put it together. My brain hurt from thinking I just need the easy short version please.

“Why can’t we just take them back to their pack, aren’t they the Alpha’s kids?” I said remembering what they had said in the barn when I was ease dropping.

“He was killed, his Beta got tired of taking orders, and their mother told them to run. When an Alpha goes down the first thing the new alpha does is kill his kids, they don’t want anyone challenging them.” Maybe it was a good idea I didn’t ‘accidently’ kill him all those years ago.

“And they’re a threat to Harley how?” If Carter was still alive and kicking how were they a threat to him?

“When they grow up they could challenge him, the drive to be an alpha will take over and they could take it from under him. I don’t want to risk that.”

“So you’re going to the kill them then?”

“We’re looking for another option”

I lay back on the pillow looking up at the roof, I didn’t want him to have to kill them, I’ve seen him execute other wolves before but each one had taken its toll on him but killing two kids, he might never come back from that. I don’t think I could let him do that, there had to be another option.

“What if we took them in, if they became friends with Harley and didn’t see him as a threat or anything then maybe they wouldn’t challenge him, like with you and the twins, they don’t challenge you but you take their opinions into account?”

Yeah that could work… in theory, but was I really going to risk my son’s life to test it out?

“It might work, but it’s a risk I don’t know if I’m willing to take”

I nodded even though he couldn’t see me. I finally understood this and taking a little too much joy in knowing what was going on unlike Kate.

Turning on my side and siting up on my elbow I looked down at him totally bemused. He moved his arm and looked up at me with a cautious look on his face.

“What?” he said a little unsure.

“So what happened when you were twelve?” I smiled and started giggling.

“Oh god, go to bed” he groaned and turned over on his side dodging the question.

Laying back I couldn’t stop the giggles that took over me. I was going to find out what happened even if I had to bribe Josh and Liam.