~~

Reece

~~~

After I slipped out of my Little Bunny's room that night, I immediately went to see Noah. I wanted to know what our friends in the basement had to say for themselves.

"Did you behave yourself?" He had asked me.

"Did you really think I wouldn't?" I countered. "Of course, I did. I held her to keep her warm. She had a nightmare once but settled down. Her temp is normal now. You can check on her soon."

"Good." He continued to glare at me. "Did you keep your hands to yourself?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You know what it means. You rejected her. I don't want you pawing all over her."

"She is still my mate Noah. I have every right."

"You have no right until she gives it to you."

"I know that." I sighed, conceding to his words. "She has told me the same thing by the way. She threatened to remove something if I didn't have her permission." Noah laughed at that and I couldn't help but laugh with him.

"Good, she's a strong girl, and stubborn."

"I'm learning that."

I learned from Noah that none of our prisoners were talking. No matter what Noah did or said. Looks like they needed a little push from the alpha to persuade them. I stalked to the basement and went into the room with the man that had pushed my Little Bunny over the edge of the cliff.

"Do you want to explain yourself now, or do I need to get creative?" I asked him. The man had the audacity to glare at me.

"You won't frighten me. You will never learn anything from me about our mission."

"Creative it is." I grinned at him. "I'm going to show you what happens to anyone who hurts my mate."

His screams echoed throughout the room for the next hour. I made sure not to kill him, otherwise I could do whatever I wanted. He would heal, eventually.

I had just snapped his thigh bone, an excruciatingly painful injury that would only take him an hour or so to heal. His agonizing cries of pains reverberating around me were like music to my ears.

"Who are you working for?" I growled at him again. "Why are all of you working together?"

"Go to hell, you pathetic low life." The rogue was crying in front of me.

"You're not going anywhere until you tell me." I told him.

"I'm not saying a word."

This process went on for hours with him and the other prisoners. We never learned anything. We continued interrogating them over the next few days and still, nothing. I was getting frustrated.

And to add to the frustration. It had been three days and my Little Bunny was still not awake. My anxiety was growing with each passing hour that she didn't wake up. Griffin had only said she would sleep until the morning, maybe a little longer. He didn't say anything about three days.

Even Griffin was worried about her. He gave a deadline. If she doesn't wake by that time, he will send an ambulance to bring her to the hospital. We were all worried, even my mother. The pack was about to lose another Luna. How could I let this happen?

I'd been in a bit of a stupor this whole time as well and I knew it. I couldn't help it. I was just too worried. That's why I was currently pacing my office and staring out my window instead of working when Noah walked in without knocking.

"Noah?" My heart sank. He had been sitting with my Little Bunny almost this whole time. "Is something wrong?"

"You would know if you went to see her yourself." He didn't look happy at all. Something bad must have happened.

"Is she alright? Did something happen?" My heart ached, and I felt like a bucket of ice water had just been dumped down my spine. Noah sighed causing my stomach to drop. I sank into the chair at my desk.

"She's fine." He finally told me. "She's awake." It felt like a balloon had just inflated inside my chest.

"Oh thank Goddess." I sighed so quietly he couldn't hear me.

"I told her the two of you need to talk." He glared at me. "About everything."

"She won't want to talk to me."

"I told her that you're the one who saved her. She didn't believe me. She didn't think there was any way you would save her. You need to stop pushing her away." He lectured me.

"I know. The attacks are not stopping even without me near her. And I don't know what's going to happen next."

Noah continued to lecture me on what I should do when it comes to my Little Bunny. But I didn't know if she would ever let me near her again. And I was nervous. I had kept her at bay to protect her, and myself. I didn't want to let her in.

I had built walls, thick high walls, around my heart to protect myself from ever getting hurt and having the same problems that had nearly destroyed my pack and Riley's pack. I didn't want to let her destroy those walls I had built. She was so unlike the other women I had met, that I had been with, that I knew she could do it. She would worm her way in and tear them down until I was soft and exposed, vulnerable to her every touch, to her every word, to her.

I was still avoiding her room. I had yet to go check on her, though I thought about it all the time. I wanted to see her. To see for myself that she was awake and safe. To even have her yell at me again. Hell, I'd even take her calling me Fido or Benji again, just to know that she was back to her old self. But I couldn't bring myself to take that last step. Not yet.

That's when mom came to see me. I was holed up in the music room tuning the piano. I had neglected the thing for so long that it was nearly impossible to play right now. She knew I wouldn't leave it until I was done, unless she made me so mad that I couldn't control it. I sat there and listened to her lecturing me.

"What in the world have you been doing?" She yelled at me as soon as she came into the room.

"I'm tuning this damn thing." I told her as I worked my way up the row of keys, I had just finished with middle 'C', halfway done.

"I meant with your mate. The story that she just told me. Honestly Reece." She snapped at me. I groaned knowing all too well what she must have heard.

"I have no excuse good enough, but I have my reasons for why I thought it was best." I told her.

"I don't care what you thought. There is nothing on this planet that should make a man, an Alpha, say those words to his mate. Do you understand me? What you did was wrong on so many levels."

"You don't understand Mom, I-."

"No Reece, you don't understand. That girl is your mate. Don't you see. She is your mate and will love you forever if you only give her a chance. But if you push her away like this, she will hate you with every fiber of her being. And she will hate herself, because she will still want to love you because of the bond you share."

"But she doesn't have a wolf Mom, the bond won't make her love me." I looked away from her, hiding the pain in my eyes.

"What makes you think that?" She demanded, her voice roaring in the room.

"Only wolves can be bonded, only wolves can be dedicated, only wolves can be true mates."

"Now, I know I've been lost for the last seven years, but boy I know I raised you better than that. What gave you the idea that only wolves can be true mates? Why is it you think that only someone with a wolf can be dedicated? She was born and raised as pack, she is pack, she may not change into a wolf, but she is wolf enough."

"But look at what happened to dad and Uncle Nolan, they died because a woman who wasn't a real wolf betrayed the man who loved her. They died because she was a spy for an enemy pack and used Steven for their own personal gain, I can't trust someone that can't form a true mate bond with me."

I watched my mother then as she threw her hands up in frustration. She paced away from me and over to the window, strumming her fingers across the harp as she went. I remember when I was little, I used to love watching her play the harp. It seemed so magical to me. It was why I wanted to learn to play so many different instruments.

"Reece, you know that Steven and Mandy didn't have a mate bond right. Steven had never met his mate, but he fell in love with Mandy and wanted to be with her, bond or no bond."

"What are you saying?" I could feel the shock coursing through the air, almost like a pulse beating against me, I didn't know anything about what she was saying.

"Most people in the pack didn't know, I guess. But no, Steven fell in love with Mandy on his trips to her family's pack. As you know she was human, fully human. Her father was a member of the Black Moon Pack, but her mother was human. She was not fortunate enough to be like the other half wolf-half human children that are born. She was not simply a weaker wolf. She was a human. But as she was born in the pack, they raised her in the pack."

"I knew she was human yes, she was no wolf, but I had assumed there had been a mate bonding but that she simply didn't feel it like we do."

"No, Reece, there never was. Steven was nearly thirty, and he was lonely. He wanted a mate, and he fell in love with a beautiful woman. She said and did everything just right to get him to trust her and fall for her. But they never had a mate bond. Steven said he didn't care. He loved her and wanted to be with her, traditions be damned."

"But I was right though, she was just using him."

"Yes, but it was not because she didn't have a wolf, it was because she was a bad person. Don't you get it Reece?"

"She was far from the only bad woman out there, Mom."

"What happened to you?"

"When I first became alpha, so many people thought I was too young. There were many men in the pack that tried to manipulate me. Most directly, some by sending women my way. They would try to sweet talk their way in, worm their way into the house to control things. But I never let any of them. Any woman I was with was taken elsewhere." I told her firmly, making sure she knew I never brought those women home.

"Those women were never allowed here at all. And when I refused to give them what they were after, when they were done prostrating and prostituting themselves for whoever sent them, when they failed, they turned ugly, nasty and mean." I remember those women clearly, those evil, vile, succubus like women.

"And as time went on almost every woman who tried to get a chance at my bed was the same way. They would degrade themselves. Flaunt their bodies for all to see. Act like their only worth was sex. And when they got the sex, and nothing else, they turned into vile demonic creatures barely resembling the women from before."

"With power comes the power seekers. That will always be true. I am sorry you had to deal with that on your own. And I am sorry I was not here to help you with your women troubles. I wish I could have helped you talk through it all, to stop you from getting to this point where you seem to have so much hatred built up." My mother looked at me with eyes full of sorrow.

"It's not your fault mom." I tried to comfort her, but I was still awkward with her. In my mind my mother was a shell of a woman who sat in a room all day. Not this woman who stood here lecturing me.

"Oh, but it is, Reece. I wasn't strong enough to survive your father's death. The sight of it, the feeling of having his bond ripped away from me, it broke me."

"Mom." I said as I wrapped my arms around her.

"You're so much like your father, mostly with how stubborn you are." She laughed at me.

"Mom, what made you wake up?" I asked her, she hadn't told me yet, and I wanted to know, now more than ever.

"I heard a voice calling out to me. Telling me to come see you Reece."

"What voice?"

"Trinity's." I knew she was going to say that.

"Mom." I swallowed hard, a lump forming in my throat as I pulled away from her. "There's something I want to tell you, about who I think Trinity's real father might be." I was nervous to tell her about my suspicions. I didn't know if I was right yet, but I had to tell her.