Chapter 48
~Soren~
The grandeur of the castle feels more oppressive than usual today. I’ve done nothing but argue with council members when all I want to do is join Max and Bree for lunch. However, I have responsibilities to attend to. Responsibilities that weigh heavily on me, as does the guilt of leaving Max with his nanny all day long.
Not that Bree isn’t capable. She has shown she is more than qualified for the job. She’s the first nanny Max hasn’t tried to escape. Moving toward the window, the scent of freshly cut grass and blooming flowers wafts in through the open window. I peer down at the courtyard, Bree’s hair is tied back in a neat rainbow ponytail today, and she is wearing a sundress as she stands by the swings with Max. Max’s face splits into a wide grin each time he swings higher, his small frame nearly flying through the air while screaming for her to push him higher.
At this moment, the weight of fatherhood feels heavier than the castle’s stone walls. But as I gaze down at Bree and Max, their laughter and joy lift some of that weight, I suddenly miss my wife. She passed away during labor with our daughter, I lost both of them that day. It’s the only time Lycan women are
vulnerable.
Childbirth, their bodies unable to heal quickly, and
breastfeeding all take a toll on Lycan women too, she was only just getting back to herself after having Max when she fell pregnant again, Lycan women are vulnerable while
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pregnant, and up to a year after the child is born. We tried to keep the news of her second pregnancy quiet, but news travels fast, that is why they chose that day to attack, as soon as word got out she was in labor they planned an attack, I was hours away and didn’t get back in time, though I never did find out which pack tipped them off. None of my staff would have, but I was in a pack meeting at the city when I got the call to head home.
Max was two, she died protecting him, while everyone fought to get to her. Blair was never the same afterward and aged beyond her years, she was bonded to my wife, blood bonded. With her gone she will die, though that can take years, decades even, but no one blood bonded lives, they lose their immortality, and begin aging like werewolves do. Blair would have given her life for her had my wife not told her to run with Max, they hid in a cave beneath the waterfalls.
My wife in labor stood no chance but she took half those rogues with her when they attacked. We lost over a hundred people that day, they lost more by the time she was done slaughtering them, though Blair said she knew. She knew that Amelia had given up when she was shot in the stomach with a concoction of wolfsbane and liquid silver. She knew our daughter Amaya was gone; it was then that she ordered Blair to take Max and run. I returned home to a bloodbath, a week later I buried my wife and daughter.
Had I marked her she may have survived, but we would be without a daughter. But after having Max Amelia wanted to wait until our wedding day for me to mark her, I loved my wife but she was vain, she insisted on losing the baby weight from Max before marrying, she fell pregnant on our wedding night with our daughter, making marking her dangerous. Max I know still feels her loss even if he hardly remembers her now.
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Seeing Max now happy for once, a smile slips onto my face as I watch them. Bree would be a good mother. She is excellent with him, a natural. My eyes roam over her in her summer dress, hair pulled back in a ponytail high on her head. She is gorgeous, but that makes me all the more curious. She hasn’t budged on revealing anything about her past. Although I know she’s not dangerous, it makes me a bit nervous. Not to mention that my guards, well Damian, incessantly mentions that I shouldn’t be leaving her alone with Max without knowing who she is.
However, I know Max has enough of an aura that he would be able to command her while she is in this form at least if need be. Lycans are the dominant species, werewolves the mutt version of us, not that Bree is a mutt. We are the wolf, born with our instincts, we learn to control them. Werewolves however, have an altered side of them, the wolf side of them has no control under a full moon. It’s believed to be a punishment from the moon goddess, that she cursed werewolves to become savages on a full moon, a punishment to their creation which is caused by Lycan’s bedding humans.
Bree’s last full moon was a week after I brought her here, she insisted on going home to her grandfather’s cellar. I think she was home sick, I am fully equipped to have her handled here, yet I let her go, letting her that piece of privacy, though with the next full moon coming up in a couple weeks, I hope I can convince her to stay here. Max was distressed with her gone, worried another werewolf would get her. He kept me up all night worried about her.
Hearing a knock on my office door I call out over my shoulder. “Come in,” I call out loudly, slightly annoyed at being interrupted. The door creaks open, but I don’t turn to see which of my staff members it is when I hear her voice.
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“So this is how you greet us? I drove hours to get here.” Her
voice is sharp and commanding, like a whip cracking in the air.
