My breath caught in my throat as I felt my eyes grow to the size of golfballs.

"What-" I choked, my throat tightening and restricting the airflow. The tiresome pressure behind my eyes came back in a wave of sudden emotions. He knew my dad. He.. he actually knew my dad!

"Eric!" I shouted and started running towards a doorway I hadn't been through, hoping to find the kitchen. "Eric!"

Grabbing a doorframe to stop myself, I heard the scraping of metal on a pan further down the hallway. Turning in that direction, the delicious scent of raw sausage and biscuits wafted up to my nose as my hunger took over.

Jogging through the door to see Eric with bandages on his face and scraping eggs from a skillet to plate, I cleared my throat hesitantly. Eric looked up and smiled white a band-aid close to his mouth wrinkled. "Oh hey! I hope you don't mind, but I'm making sausage and eggs with some biscuits-I didn't know what you liked, so I just guessed."

I nodded and smiled distantly, not at all worried about what I'm going to have for breakfast.

"It's about noon or so in case you were wondering," he added, opening the small black oven with an oven mitt and taking out a plate of light yellow and white biscuits. "Ah!" he whimpered and slid the pan out of his grip onto the counter, jostling a few and making them roll off. Holding up the mitt to me he showed the frayed, blackened palm of thread and his flushed skin underneath. "I've never really been one for cooking," he joked with a dimple.

Chuckling at his dismissiveness halfheartedly, I slid onto one of the barstools at the kitchen island as he slid a plate of eggs and biscuits towards me, followed by a glass of orange juice and a fork. "The sausage is almost done," he assured me as he nibbled on a biscuit from the other side of the island. Nodding silently and keeping my eyes on the steaming eggs, pushing them around distractedly. "Ellie?"

I made a soft grunting sound, not completely understanding what he said. "Ellie, what's wrong? Talk to me," he placed his hand on mine and shook it sightly. Taking my eyes off of my plate and looking up at his, unshed tears clouded my vision, making his face appear distorted and misshapen.

"How did you know my dad?"

The breath he was inhaling stopped before he could breath out-he was holding his breath. Not moving or making a sound, we both stood and stared at eachother. My question hung in the air above our heads tauntingly, mocking us with its simplicity when we knew the answer would be much more difficult.

"Well?" My voice shook and I felt my chin quiver. "Are you going to just stand there and stare at me or tell me how you knew my dad?"

Looking into both of my eyes in a desperate manner, he finally dropped his gaze and sighed, retracting his hand from mine and sitting down heavily and carelessly on a stool next to him.

"First off, you need to know that your father loved you and your mother and brother very much-more so than he loved himself-and would never do anything to put you in harms way. But you already know that, don't you?"

I nodded softly and silently. "Good. Now what I'm about to tell you should not in any way change the way you look at your dad or mom, partly because it was for the best and partly because they had little say in it. Elenore, you dad Nicholas was my younger brother..I'm your Uncle, baby."

I sat frozen in shock. Vaguely feeling my jaw drop open a fraction, Eric continued.

"When you and Isaac were children, I visited your mom and dad alone to tell them I found my mate, Caylee, who was here at the time. This was around the time when you were almost 8, also around the time when Blade was killing Alpha's mates and creating panic throughout the Wolf Territories. While I was there, Alex told me that rouge attacks were getting worse-a nasty repercussion of Blades' murders. Alex and your mother made me swear to protect you and Isaac if anything happened to them, and if need be to go unnoticed until the time came to introduce myself."

"Why?" I asked after a moment of silence. "Why not show yourself until now? Why stay hidden all these years?"

"Oh, Ellie," he smiled. "I've always been around, you just haven't seen me. A year after your dad died in that attack while you were 9, Caylee and I had our first child; Stephen Burns." A faraway look in Eric's eyes took over his face as a nostalgic smile pulled at the corner of his lips. "He was perfect, I swear. Golden brown hair and chubby cheeks, with the deepest brown eyes you've ever seen," he chuckled and paused. "I visited you and Isaac from a distance atleast once a year, and when you were 12 and Stephen was 4, some of Blade's damned Rouges came and destroyed everything they saw- houses obliterated, forests burned to the ground..families ripped apart.."

Realization suddenly struck me.

"Eric," I whispered, knowing and empathizing with his emotional pain. "You don't need to go on if it's too much."

Taking a deep gulp, he nodded and grabbed an oven mitt different from before as a timer went off. Taking out a pan with round sausage patties on it, he set it down on the counter and laid the mitt beside it.

"I'm just-I'm just going to go for a walk. I'll be back soon." Swiftly walking from the kitchen, I attempted to imagine the kind of pain he must feel.

'Don't become overcome with the sadness, Ellie. He'll be fine..but will you?' Nikita suddenly spoke to me. That was a good question- would I?