The Alpha & Beta’s Regret – Chapter 114

Rafe POV

The moment that his parents crossed the pack border, he felt the reconnection to not only his father, mother and siblings who had been away for many years, but the entire old Alpha Unit and all their Mates as well.

‘Son, where are you?’ His mother, Diana, mind-linked right to him, likely his father was driving.

‘In the packhouse. Jack and I will meet you out front.’

‘Luci and my grandchildren?’ she asked immediately.

‘Luci is currently not here.’ He sighed a little on the heavy side, still didn’t like that she was outside of the pack in the lake.

‘Son, if that girl has left and taken…’

‘Stop.’ He cut her off ‘The twins are here, Luci has gone swimming at the lake.’ He told her ‘Jack and I have the twins, in fact, for the day.’

‘Good to see you’ve not screwed things up further with the girl.’

He nearly snarled at his own mother, barely held it in. Severed that link to her before he did in fact snarl at the woman. He felt Jacks hand on him. “It’ll be fine, she’s just worried about Luci and those two out the front.”

Rafe sighed, Jack was likely right, but if his mother was going to come in here and round on him, she herself was going to get an earful. She had no idea just what was going on inside this pack, what had been done to him and Jack, to Luci herself.

His eyes moved to the boys. They were playing with some of the other pack children, here before he and Jack, in the kids’ entertainment zone. He also knew that both the boys would have run right passed those two she-wolves out there on the shaming posts, while chasing Alpha Terence’s helicopter. He also knew that Terence and Allen had brought the boys through the packhouse itself to them, not walked them passed those she-wolves.

The boys had no idea who those she-wolves were, and he’d like to keep it that way. Though explaining all of this to them when they were older and properly educated on what they were and how to run a pack, what a Mate was; that he wasn’t looking forward to at all.

He didn’t know if they, being half Siren, would ever like hearing how their own mother felt or why she left to raise them on her own would go down. A part of him was hoping that once everything was all sorted out, they’d just not ask at all. But was already trying to figure out a way to explain it to them.

It was just one more reason to hold off on killing those two. Needing to have all the answers not just for Luci herself, but to answer their sons’ questions as well, even if their asking was years away.

“Allen, Ian, could you please come with the boys to the foyer, watch them there, Jack and I have some explaining to do outside before introductions are made.”

He saw them both nod, and he called the boys to them. They both smiled up at him and ran over. Rafe hunkered down. “Boys, your grandparents on my and Jack’s side have just come home to meet you. They will be here in half an hour, but before you meet them, Jack and I just need to have a quick chat with them first about a few things, okay.”

“Okay.” They nodded.

“Play here for a little while longer, then Allen and Ian.” He indicated to the two of them, “Will bring you to the foyer to meet them when it’s time.” He didn’t think that they would have an issue with it. Allen and Ian were always with them when he or Jack or Luci and Addi weren’t.

“Yes, daddy.” They smiled up at him before running back to play some more.

He couldn’t help but smile. He did love hearing them call him daddy, it made him want to just hug them to him all tightly. He and Jack walked through the packhouse, to wait outside on the front step, like they would do greeting any visiting Alpha.

His eyes moved to the shaming posts, both those she-wolves were sitting on the ground, but their arms were stretched up to the top of the post. They were not designed to be comfortable. One could stand out there attached to one, or one could kneel with their arms somewhat raised, or one could sit with both arms stretched up uncomfortably as they were now.

His eyes moved to the sky above, and the darkening storm clouds that were rolling in “Going to rain.” He commented.

“A storm is predicted.” Jack nodded, and didn’t sound concerned at all.

His eyes caught movement to his right and he saw Luna Jo-anne prowling around down the end of the grassed area. Also noted that West and Terence were down there and none of them looked particularly happy right that very minute. Jo-anne kept looking at the two on the shaming posts.

“She looks ticked off.” Jack murmured.

Rafe nodded, “That she does.” Glanced at his watch. “We’ve got time, come on, let’s go find out what’s going on.”

Strolled down there, “Terence could we ask you for a favour?”

“It’s likely.” The man nodded “JoJo could use a distraction.”

He saw Jo-anne glare briefly at Terence and then go back to prowling around.

“Our man, Titan, had a run in with a witch and also has a Luna’s Order on him, which is interfering with his memories. They are fractured and jumbled up. I was wondering if we could get your mother to have a look at him. Read his mind, so to speak, and get some answers.”

He heard Terence sigh heavily and his eyes moved right to Jo-anne. She’d stopped walking herself, was now looking right at him, directly so. “What?” he asked.

“I can do that for you.” she told him. “Where is the man?”

“You have a seer ability?”

“Yes.” She stated simply “It’ll give me something to do before I butt in.” she muttered and her eyes moved right back to the two on the shaming post.

“Luna, what is wrong?” he asked her.

She looked at him with a frown, “I want answers, but am not allowed to get them.” she muttered “I was told not to interfere.”

“Ah, Hannah and her sisters.”

“Yes, to be honest, I don’t like it. Tell me what happened during the night. Did they go rogue?”

“They tried to leave in the middle of the night, to avoid punishment, and when we caught them and chained them up. They did not go rogue. Jack and I rejected them.” he sighed “Not that we needed to at all. Didn’t do anything at all.”

She was staring at him now. “Explain that further.”

“There was no pain in breaking the bond. So not our actual Mates.”

Her eyes moved right to his now. “Nothing at all?”

“No.”

“So, you’re done with them then? Luci?” she asked right away.

“Luci is not currently in the pack, left to let her siren out, gone to the lake for swimming.”

“Why are they still alive?”

“We need answers to give to Luci.”

“Why haven’t you gotten them already? Should have been the first thing you did.” She was back to frowning at him now, looked from him to Jack.

“Wearing them down, and making sure that what they did to us, to this pack, all that is actually gone. We decided 24 hours out there, then get our answers.”

“Not likely to be easy,” Jack huffed.

“Why not?”

“We…don’t exactly have all our memories intact either. We don’t know how many times they’ve erased our memories or redone to us, what they did to us in the first place.”

Rafe watched her take a full step towards him, both her arms were outstretched and saw both West and Terence shoot forward and latch on to her.

“JoJo, no.”

“Jo-anne, no.”

They both pulled her back away from him. Rafe took a step back from her himself, as did Jack. Neither of them liked the sound of that at all. “What?” he asked as he saw her being pulled further away from him. Watched the three of them converse privately.

Then he heard West sigh heavily and Terence mutter “We can’t bloody stop her West, you know it.”

And found himself under Jo-anne’s direct gaze, “I can likely help you as well.”

“Use that seers ability on us.”

“Yes, on Titan and on those two over there..” she sighed “Hannah, however, stated I wasn’t to interfere. You have to figure it out on your own. I hate being the one to make the important choice.”

“Perhaps, Luna. We’ve already done that, we know they are not our Mates, we know it is a spell of some sort and throughout the packhouse they had sachets of bespelled petals everywhere. We’ve also verbally rejected them.” Jack told her “So you won’t be interfering anymore.”

He watched her really think about it, didn’t understand what she meant about a choice, something from Hannah no doubt. “Luna, Titan, we were always going to get help from Belinda on that. So perhaps you could use your seer ability on him. That I don’t think would be seen as interfering as our decision on that man was already made before you got here.” Rafe told her.

He could see both West and Terence frowning “I wouldn’t normally ask West.” And he wouldn’t, hadn’t even known Jo-anne could do that.

“It’s not up to me,” West huffed.

“I’ll do it.” Jo-anne nodded “I’ll need somewhere quiet.”

“You can use our office.” Rafe nodded “When would suit you?”

“Now, Luci suffers, I want that fixed.” She stated flatly and walked off.

Rafe turned and watched her walk along the front of the packhouse “Headstrong.”

“You have no idea,” Terence muttered, and followed her.

“You’ll need a spew bucket.” West sighed “You know how this works, right?”

“Mm, we’ve been to the Kingdom before.” He nodded.

“Good, going to get messy around here if she has her way.” West stated, “Hope your man Titan can handle it, she’s…not exactly like a seer, can be really aggressive about this.”

Rafe got the feeling she would be. The sweet, happy kind Luna he’d known over the past three and half years now seemed to have a very Alpha dominant side to her and she clearly didn’t like taking orders. It was curious to him that both West and Terence had to snag her and drag her away.