Fated To the Alpha by Jessica Hall
Epilogue
Kyan POV
Cries filled the birthing suite as our son was finally born. We had all held our breaths when Marabella went into labor early, and our son’s heart rate dropped as her contractions worsened, only to become stuck, and he was eventually delivered by f0rceps.
Only when he was born he didn’t cry, and a flurry of nurses ran around, and doctors rushed in while they tried to get him breathing. So when his ear-piercing scream resounded around the room. I s****d in a breath of relief, and Jonah broke down. Those few minutes were the most intense few minutes of my life. It was heart-stopping when we were only met with silence, and the fearful look on the midwife’s face made my stomach drop.
The midwife brought him back over to Mara, setting him on her n***d chest while Jonah and I hovered, watching over them. I thought no day would ever outmatch the day my father returned to me.
How wrong I was. Our son had only been born for a few minutes, and I knew without a doubt that I loved him more than life itself, and I wouldn’t hesitate to give my last breath just so he could take another.
Commotion in the halls outside the birthing suite reached our ears, and I knew it was our fathers trying to get in. Jonah shakes his head every weekend, no matter what. Mateo, Ezra, and Kat come down to visit Mara. Andrei and Sage, every second weekend, so thank god the Manor was huge because every weekend, the house was full.
Despite them driving me nuts, I enjoyed seeing my mates happy and, for once, having a family. I didn’t realize how much I had missed out on shutting myself away from the world.
The nurse comes over and checks Mara. While the doctor gives her st*itches, Jonah leans over her shoulder and brushes his little nose with his finger, and for a while, I just watched them. Eventually, they wheeled Marabella and our son down to the maternity wards.
After some tests and Mara was settled, the midwife returned our son to us, giving him the all-clear. She hands him back to Mara when she turns to look at me. I was the only one that hadn’t held him yet out of us. He looked so small, and I was afraid of hurting him, but I could see Ella wouldn’t accept another excuse, so I held my arms out for him just like Jonah had, and she set his tiny body in my arms.
He opens his eyes, Jonah looking over my shoulder gasps, and I peer down at him as he yawns. He blinked, and I knew why Jonah felt so shocked.
His eyes were the color of smoke. No, that wasn’t an accurate description. They looked like the shadows, only a little darker, eyes wise beyond their years, and Mara sat up as I sat on the edge of the bed to look at him. He stared back at her, munching on his hand hungrily, and I passed him back to her.
I watch as he turns his face against her chest, seeking her b****t. She looks at me with worry, and my brows furrow when we hear a knock on the door. Jonah wanders off to answer it before asking if we were alright for my father to come in.
She nods her head, and I help her rearrange the blankets to make sure she is covered completely before Jonah opens the door and Kat and my father step inside the room.
They moved instantly to the bed, and Kat told us Andrei and Sage were caught in traffic but ensured they were on their way.
“Well, would you look at that?” Dad says as Mara passes our son to him. Kat stands on her tippy toes, looking at him before my father sits in one of the blue chairs that were hard as a rock. Kat brushes his little hand while my father holds him, and dad sniffles. Kat gazed down at him, brushing the back of his little head gently.
“He’s perfect,” she says, her voice cracking.
“That he is,” Dad murmurs when our son opens his eyes. They both look at each other startled.
“And shall the Shadow King rise,” my father murmurs thoughtfully.
“He is tainted by the shadows?” Mara asks worriedly. I look over at her, and she bites her lip staring at our son, but her mother shakes her head, and I sigh. A breath of relief escapes me until my father speaks. His next words sent a cold chill down my spine.
“No, he is the shadows,” Dad says, looking down at him and brushing his cheek with his thumb. Jonah looks over at my father, but he says nothing else on the matter, and Kat doesn’t either as she stares down at him with so much love.
My father passes our son to her, and she holds her arms out and sits beside him. He s***s on his hand, watching his grandmother with big eyes when she turns to look over at us. I sat next to Marabella on the edge of the bed while Jonah stood beside me.
“So, can we know the name yet?” Kat asks, and they both look over at us expectantly.
“Lucas Derrick Octavian,” Jonah says with a smile.
One Year Later
Jonah POV
Family filled the courtyard to celebrate Lucas’s first birthday. Dominic went way overboard, the kid wouldn’t even remember it, and despite only wanting a small family gathering, it somehow turned into a huge party in honor of our son. Ezra, Mateo, Dad, and Dominic had spent weeks planning it.
Though as much as Kyan complained and whined about having so many people here, I knew he secretly enjoyed it. So we let them go, Marabella was doing better, and she and Kat seemed closer than ever.
Everyone seemed happy, except two people. Casen and Eziah sat by the huge tree, watching. Casen watched Rose, who, as usual, was the life of the party, a scowl on his face. They still hadn’t patched things up, though I do know they were now living together despite my mother’s protests.
Dad had had enough of her att*itude, mum and her clashing sent him up the wall. Rose was to take over the pack; she needed to learn what it was to be on her own, even though with Casen, she was never alone. She always had a shadow. Unfortunately, that seemed to make her worse.
She wasn’t troubled. She wasn’t a bad child. She was suffocated; I get it. She grew up thinking one thing only to find out all along her mate was right beside her to witness everything. So that must have been a bit of a shock, and then to find your mate k****d his twin brother for her, the guilt, I guess would be terrible.
Wandering over to them, I sit on the bench between them, and Casen leans down to the cooler at their feet and pulls out a beer handing it to me.
Eziah sipped his beer, his eyes shadowed with dark circles, and I knew his nightmares or visions or whatever it was he suffered from had gotten worse. He had stayed a few times, and I had awoken to him stumbling around blindly in the house like he couldn’t see. I usually steered him back to bed, but last night he managed to wake up Dominic after he walked into the hall stand and broke a vase.
Dominic, at first, didn’t say a thing, just stared with that intense gaze he sometimes gets, a peculiar expression on his face.
“When all you know is darkness, how would one handle the light?” he said in an eerie voice. I glanced at him before asking what he meant. He seemed confused and claimed he said nothing. Dominic was also an odd man, intense, but I knew it was from the shadows. We put Eziah back to bed, and I watched as Dominic had stolen his dream and plucked it right out of his head.
“That is one thing he shouldn’t relive, one thing that hurt her but doesn’t need to hurt him,” he said before slipping out of the room. I had no idea what he spoke of or saw, but the look on Dominic’s face kept me from asking.
“You alright, bro,” I ask Eziah, nudging him.
“I will be, I always am,” he says, watching Marabella and Kyan help open Lucas’s presents.
“I expected the shadows to leave him. Baby’s eyes change over time, and he never did,” Eziah says.
“Yeah, Dominic has a few theories about it. Kat did tell us, though, that he has a wolf, an actual wolf. He isn’t Lycan like Kaif,” I tell him with a shrug.
“Does it worry you?” I shake my head. He was a happy boy for the most part though we had all worried because he never cried. Only the day he was born but hadn’t since. Marabella expected to be woken to feed him like a normal baby. After the third night, she started setting timers. That was when we realized he was waking during the night. He was just silent. She would find him staring blankly at the ceiling or smiling or sometimes babbling in the dark. But he never cried.
“And you?” I ask Casen.
“It Is what it is,” Casen says, tipping his beer bottle to his lips.
“And what is it?” I ask.
“Rose rejected me. She doesn’t want your parents to know, though,” he says with a shrug.
“And you accepted it?” he shrugs. “Well, I didn’t reject her rejection, nor did I accept it, so it is what it is,” he repeats.
“So you are both pretending to be mates?” I ask. Casen sighs.
“Well, what else am I supposed to do? She hates me,”
“Over Vince?” I ask.
“Kinda, but not really. She understands why I k****d Vince. It’s the others she doesn’t get,” he says while standing up, I wanted to ask what he meant, but his eyes locked on my sister as she wandered inside with one of Kyan’s warriors and her friend. She didn’t appear to be doing anything wrong, but Kyan also looked after her when Casen stormed off past him after her.
“He won’t want to start anything here,” Kyan mind links before I heard it open up again. This time Kyan was talking to the warrior she walked off with.
“Stay away from my sister-in-law. She is off-limits, Mckellen, so move away from her,” Kyan warned.
“Huh? I’m not doing anything,” I heard him reply, but regardless a second later, he came back out the doors this time alone, and Casen glared at him as he walked inside looking for Rose.
I shake my head, and Eziah slaps my chest with his hand. “Come on, Dad’s brought out the cake, and I want to get photos with the birthday boy,” Eziah says, dropping his empty beer bottle in the cooler. I chug mine doing the same and head over while Eziah fumbles for his phone to take pictures. Mara and Kyan wave me over, and I jog over before Mara passes Lucas to me while she and Kyan clear a spot for the cake on the table.
Everyone starts singing happy birthday, and Lucas giggles clapping his hands while I hold him close to his cake. He smacks it, sending icing everywhere, making me chuckle, and when everyone stops singing, Lucas tries to blow out his candle, his attempts sending slobber and spit all over the cake. Probably much to Dominic’s horror before Kyan leans down and helps him.
Lucas claps, his fingers covered in icing, and holds his finger out to Kyan, who then grabs his little wrist and l***s the icing off the finger that Lucas held out to him. Silence fell as we watched the man who hated getting d***y play with and munch on his son’s sticky hand like he wasn’t a germophobe.
Lucas laughed, smearing some cake on his cheek with his other hand. Kyan laughs and reaches for a napkin, only then realizing everyone was staring at him as if he had suddenly grown two heads. “What?” He demanded, looking at everyone.
“Nothing,” Mara said with a giggle, and the chatter restarted.
The End