Chapter 5 Quickly

• Alayah’s p.o.v.
• Grandma walks into the living room followed by Grandfather and I have to explain to Crystal that Grandma is my Mother’s Mother and that Grandfather is my Father’s Father. I tell Grandma to take a seat as I get up to get her some coffee and without any further a do Grandma starts telling Crystal she can have her own leadership, “It used to be something for the Royal Family, but throughout history there have been Packs that were larger and they adopted the double leadership from the Royal Family.
• If you decide it is wise to have a double leadership you need to appoint a Beta and a Gamma, they will be able to help you run the Pack when your Mate is absent and he doesn’t have to chose between taking his Gamma or his Beta. He can take both of them with him or he can take your Beta or Gamma instead of his own if the situation calls for it.” Grandma says.
• She even points out that they can add to their Deltas, something that had crossed my mind as well. Our Pack has two Deltas, a Delta is technically a Head Warrior but with a bit more responsibilities and I believe with the size of our new Pack it will be wise to have four Deltas instead of two. “Crystal, does Autumn Pack have Deltas?” I ask her and she tells me that they have two Head Warriors but no Deltas.
• “Do you think they could become Deltas?” Grandma asks and I see her thinking about it for a moment. In the meantime I ask Marc who will take over from Delta Chris, he tells me that they hadn’t found anyone to take that position and he doubted anyone in the Pack would be able to fill the position. “Noah and Nathan are our Head Warriors, they are Nero’s older Brothers and I believe they could become Deltas.
• They are the Sons of our current Gamma and I know that Nikolay, their other Brother, helps them out whenever it is necessary. With the three of them becoming Deltas we would have four Deltas after we merge the Packs and take over from our Fathers.” Crystal says and Marc asks her a few more questions about the males she offers up as Deltas, that would mean the entire Gamma family of Autumn Pack will be part of our double leadership.
• I leave the living room on the Alpha floor to go down to my new office, I want to start with digitizing our finances and make my new job a lot easier for myself. After setting up my laptop I grab the first files Alpha Randell put on my desk and I start scanning every page of the files, making it easier to get an oversight of our Pack’s finances.
• Anton showed up around lunchtime and brought me a full plate of food, I keep working as I eat my lunch. I look at the stacks of files spread out across my office and I close my eyes as I try to wrap my head around the fact that Alpha Randell chose to have an old fashioned accounting system. I know I have my work cut out for me, I will start with this year’s paperwork and work backwards to put every piece of paper in a digital accounting system.
• “Alayah, can you come to my office?” I hear Alpha Randell ask in my head and I tell him I will be there in a few seconds. I save everything I have scanned so far before I power down my laptop, I grab the tray Anton brought me to bring it back to the kitchen before I go to see Alpha Randell. If only I had known what was waiting for me in his office, I might have made a run for it and maybe try to get a transfer out of our Pack. Today was the day that changed my entire life and put me through a few very hard times.
• The door to the office is open and as I knock on the door I faintly smell a scent I haven’t smelled in over five years, Topaz pushes forward as I lock eyes with my Mother for the first time since she left. “Alpha Randell, you wanted to see me.” I say as I turn my head towards him and I hear a growl coming from the male sitting next to my Mother, not that I am impressed by it.
• Alpha Randell gestures for me to take a seat and I sit down on the couch as far away from my Mother as I can, I am not sure how to feel about this. I think the only reason I am not running from the room has to do with my psychology classes, I needed to wait over six months to start by Bachelors in accounting and chose Psychology to pass the time until I could continue my studies.
• It opened my eyes to a few questions I had over the years regarding my Mother and I learned that it was her way of dealing with Dad’s death, not that it was the best way to deal with it. When someone loses their Mate they respond in different ways and my Mother chose the worst way to deal with his death, she withdrew from her family and her Daughter.
• I remember my teacher telling us we had to detach ourselves from our patients to stay unbiased and I am glad I know how to keep a distance between me and my Mother, I need to know her side of the story. I need to know it to determent if there can be a relationship between the two of us or if she damaged our bond to a point where I will never be able to have a relationship with her.
• My eyes drift to the male sitting next to her and I wonder who he is or why he is accompanying my Mother, he looks at me rather pissed and Topaz pushes forward to show him that we are not impressed. “You have your Lycan.” My Mother whispers as she sees my eye color change. “Yes, Topaz turned up when I was thirteen. I shifted on my birthday by myself, Grandma was visiting another Pack and you had disappeared as usual.” I say without sounding accusatory, after all I am just stating a fact.
• The male next to my Mother grabs her hand as he growls at me again, “I don’t know who you are or what your connection is to her, but I suggest you tone it down. Topaz is about to rip you a second asshole if you keep being this disrespectful.” I say as I look into his eyes and I can see confusion cross his face, while my Mother is looking uncomfortable. “I doubt he knows everything about her past.” Topaz points out and I wonder if he knows that I am her Daughter.
• “I am Gamma Xavier of Autumn Pack and Mara is my Mate, we have been together for four years now.” He states as he looks at my Mother, I see the same look in their eyes I see every day in the picture next to my bed. “The future Gamma is our Stepbrother.” Topaz says and I realize I will be seeing a lot more of my Mother in the future, whether we have some sort of a relationship or not.
• “My name is Alayah and she is my Mother.” I say as I look at him and I can see the shock in his eyes. “My Father was the rightful Beta to this Pack, but due to circumstances he passed the position to his younger Brother. My Father died in a Rogue attack when he was protecting Luna Vicky, he died without knowing his Mate was with Pup.” I continue and I see tears running my Mother’s face, it is the first time in my life I see her cry at the mention of Dad.
• “I am sorry, I never meant for you to get hurt. I know I hurt you with how I dealt with Maxwell’s death, I know I hurt my family as well and I know I might have damaged our bond to badly. When I found out I was pregnant with you I was torn in two, a part of me was grateful to still have a piece of your Father and the other part was worried about you looking like him. I was so conflicted during my pregnancy that Mom had to pull me through it, I am not sure what would have happened if she hadn’t.
• After you were born I was happy, you had your Father’s eyes and it was one of his features I loved about him. For a long time I thought I could be happy again, that I could raise you with the memory of your Father somewhere in the back of my mind. I didn’t know that looking at you would eventually become to painful, the older you got the more you started to look and act like your Father and it became harder by the day to be near you.
• I think I could have lived with the fact that you inherited his hair and eye color, but you became an exact copy of your Father. The way you would look, the things you would say and the way you carried yourself. It was as if I saw your Father every moment of every day and each time I would get pulled back to that day, to see him die all over again.” She whispers and I hear Alpha Randell gasp at her admittion she had been there that day.
• “When you were fifteen I started getting help, but I was stubborn and thought I could deal with seeing you every day. I should have listened to my counselor and confided in Mom that I needed time away from you to heal myself, it took me almost two years to face the fact I could never heal if I stayed. It was the hardest decision I ever had to make, but I knew I needed to get better myself before I could build a relationship with you.
• I left you behind with the knowledge that Mom would look after you, she raised you and she would do anything to keep you safe. When I met Xavier I had just come to terms with Maxwell’s death and for the first time in years I felt I was allowed to be happy again, but I couldn’t tell him about you or the way I treated you.
• I hate to admit it, but I think I was more of a Mother to Xavier’s Pups than I ever was to you and I am really sorry about that.” My Mother says and I am not sure if I should be angry or relieved after hearing her explanation. I go over every piece of information with the knowledge I have from my classes and even though I want to be angry with her I know she made the right decision in the end, she needed to heal before she could ever become my Mother.
• “I am not going to pretend that I know or understand what you went through, I can’t feel what you felt all those years and I know it is something I will never be able to feel or understand. You hurt me by disappearing every single time, I grew up with only half of my family in my life and I know it is because of circumstances I had no control over that it happened.
• Everyone deals with grief in their own way and you chose the worst way possible, but I understand it was the only way for you to deal with it. I am glad you sought help and that you found happiness again, it is what you needed to keep healing. What I would like to know is why you didn’t come to see me sooner?” I ask and I keep looking at her as I wait for her to answer me.
• “Even though I know it might never have happened, I was waiting for the perfect time to walk back into your life. The past four years have been a reminder every day that I miss my Daughter, that I miss her bright eyes looking at me with hope after she told me about school and that I miss her blunt comments to everything she hears around her.
• When Xavier told me we would merge with Crimson Moon Pack, I knew it was the Goddess’ way to tell me that my time was up and that I had to make a decision. Wait for the bomb to drop after the merger or to come clean before the merger, I chose to come clean before the merger because I didn’t want to cause any problems.” Mom says and I know Topaz and I will allow her to be a part of our lives, just not sure what that might look like.
• “I am willing to build a relationship with you and I would like to get Xavier and his Sons, after all I will be working closely with his youngest Son in the future. However, I want you to tell Grandma and Uncle Rex what you told me, they deserve to hear this as much as I did.” I tell her and I see her nod her head at my demand. Xavier apologizes for growling at me and I tell him next time he will find out I am definitely my Father’s daughter.
• After telling Mom where she can find Grandma and Uncle Rex I head back to my office, I will be buried in work for the next few weeks and I want to get as much out of the way as quickly as I can.