leaned forward, elbows resting on his jittery bent knees. A crown of a frown sat on his forehead. I wasn't in the crowd. In fact, I was nowhere near any of my family, but I could hear his disappointed sigh from the front row. It was obvious he could see it finally.

I wasn't the son he wished he had raised.

I stood before him and witnesses a liar. A sinner, a coward, a heartless impostor wearing his son's skin. His realization made my eyes burn when I saw him shift in his seat and get up to leave. Every fibre in my being wanted to hide away and cry to myself. Despite the raging range of emotions, I held the burn behind my eyes and found the strength to push myself after him. "I know you never loved me, but could you at least say something to me?"

Where I hoped to get an answer. He tensed but continued to walk away from me.

I wasn't completely surprised by this. He would never say the words, but we all knew. That amongst all his children it's I he had always found regret in. And now I had proved the ugly part of him right.

I inhaled deeply. It was the moment I could feel myself tipping over at the edge of a void's touch, at a loss for everything that I had ever known. All I could pray for at that point was for those that were dear to my heart to understand me. So I pushed "Dad,"

He paused but didn't look to face me.

I took a step forward, as though to reach out to the paternal and good part of him. "Once the gods connect with the Oracle for the final bid. That's it! It will be... Dad. This is the last time I'll see you or ma or..." I sniffed away the burning moisture from my eyes. "Please, before... before I'm.... Please, I just need you to say something to me. Anything!"

He remained still and said nothing.

My hands shook, and my voice trembled. "Be disappointed. Tell me I've let you down. Tell me you wish I was more like Malia and could never be anything like Mateo. Say something Dad. Anything!"

The room frosted with a pristinely angered silence. The Council board that was in conversation with Brady paid some attention to us, but did not intervene. Even Jenna stepped forward to run a hand down my back comfortingly, like a caring mother.

In strained effort I saw Dad pivot to face me, then without expecting it I was knocked far back by a strong growl from my him. In it, I sensed pain and love. The care in his anguish didn't make the fear any less threatening. Something within my core coiled with the same prints of my wolf. I didn't have time to dwell on it with my ears ringing with the words from my Father, "Don't you get it?" his eyes were fierce, dry and illuminated. They held the torment of a man at the height of a defeat he held no control over from the onset.

It was a foreign look on him. "Son, I love you. I don't think I ever told you that?"

I shook my head, pain bleeding into my heart.

"Well. I love you, and I did my part in raising you but me. You and everyone here?" He extended his arms out as if to showcase all the were-people and witches inside before he continued, "We are all products of our circumstances and, especially, of the choices we make. It is unfortunate yours led you here, but it happened. Make peace with it, without needing our validation. Fighting the inevitable is what got you here. Fighting it now will only disappoint you and hurt us more than you can ever comprehend."

I knew that, though. I suppose I just wanted to hear him say something else. Something kind without the cold facts.

Then he turned his back, and he left.

My gaze roamed the gathered. Malia had her sobbing face buried on her fiancé's shoulder. Mateo's pregnant wife was holding hands with my mother, visibly holding back tears for the crumbling woman I'd made a shell of. I was going to miss out on being an uncle. I couldn't meet gazes with my mother or my favorite brother.

The guilt hurt too much. Once again, my core coiled with a pressing heat from Hell itself.

The Oracle arose to her bare feet and a cracking back with clear eyes but said nothing.

"Well?" my father's replacement on the councilmen inquired.

"His memories are to be washed clean before he's banished. Jenna is free to do whatever she bargained for."

Jenna wore a triumphant smile, waved to the Alphas, and winked at me. "You're welcome."

"That's all?" someone from the council asked.

Sadly, I understood the meaning behind his question. In their eyes, it seemed I was getting off scot-free. Danielle had been stripped of her talent to sing, but she was still a part of the pack. Hannez was going to be made a wolfless madman and his bloodline had been eternally forbidden from ever joining any sort of higher ranks or councils. Earlier, they had voted to have my head, and Jenna had expressed how she wanted to take me into her coven instead.

As announced by the Oracle, her request had been approved and theirs had been declined, with a poor alternative. An alternative that wouldn't hold in the long term because even though my memories were to be erased. There was nothing stopping Jenna and her coven from building me back up with new ones. On another note, not many of them knew this, but Jenna was a witch with Alpha Blue Blood. Therefore, under her coven, there was also nothing stopping our She-Alpha's sister from giving me a wolf spirit of her own from a bite.

My father's replacement bellowed with a precise berserk to his tenor, "Consult them again! That can't be all. We need at least one limb."

"Patience. Maulaveny." The Oracle spoke politely, hands folding behind her back as though in anticipation for more.

Council members shuffled about as though readying to leave, but the Oracle used a hand motion. Urging them to get back into their seats.

"Darling," Jenna extended her arm out for me to take. "Best we be on our way now."

My breath held. I didn't know if I could trust her to not make me into a pet for her cruel son I'd overhead guards whisper about. So I didn't move.

She urged me with reason. "If you want to move about the world on your own, you can."

I began to consider that option with favor.

"But if you come with me, it will be better for you. Maybe even your best option because if you go out there on your own with no lifeline. Who will bury you when your trauma catches you off guard?" Jenna's voice lowered, to be kinder and concerned as she addressed me. "Trust me when I say this. Your body will always remember, your genetics will always be of an unfamiliar pattern. So you can never fit in or depend on humans. I'm your best chance and my Coven will be your family. With me, you'll have a full life, and a wolf in you after I give you the bite of life."

"Why?"

"My family left me stranded when I needed them the most. Every painful minute of those years was spent wishing I'd done something to save myself. Something like what you did. Our situations are different but I see myself in you. That's why."

"If you mean that. Wouldn't you have been nice to me and Dani?"

"Darling, I said I see myself in you. It doesn't mean I'm a nice person or nice to the version of myself I see in you. Now, here here..."

I peered at the hand that she's stretched out again for me to take. Inhaling my future I raked the crowd; Brady was walking away, his Betas in tow.

The pack chattered, waiting for me to make a choice. Most of them yelled that if I went with the witch, then I was truly a snake. Triggered, I neared toward her, toward life, but something in my chest clenched tightly. So painfully hard against my soul and core, it gave me courage. "I'm sorry," I told her, walking backwards but before I turned aiming to climb down the dais to run after him. I confessed, "I don't think your bite will hold. I exercised my bond with Brady."

Aided with speed Jenna followed and grabbed my elbow. She slugged down at me as if she held all the cards that I didn't have. As if that made all the difference, and perhaps it did. "My nephew's raw mark was the first thing I smelled on your wrist. Just because none of us said anything doesn't mean we didn't know. For a bit I even thought you'd done it deliberately to deter the course of today's outcome. What? You did didn't you?"

I ran a hand over my head.

"Well, I'm a Blue Blooded Alpha wolf-witch, which makes it no question that my bite will hold. So embrace your new reality Malik. You're simply human now and he's an Alpha. He no longer has need for you, you're not even welcome here." She dropped my elbow and again gave me her hand. "Come with me. I'm your best shot at survival."

I chanced a look at Brady's retreating form.

"I'm sorry" It was more than a croak.

I wasn't sure what I was doing or what it would mean and what of the people about to watch me make a fool of myself once again. But I had to at least try. I figured I was better off feeling embarrassed than with the imprint of regret tatted on my soul.