my tiny

"How did you..." my words died as I kept replaying his words over and over in my head. He knows it's me and I'm not even going to deny it. "For once you look madly like your mother except for your eyes which are like mine the last time I checked," he started.

"Lucinda gave me one wish for her to grant before she threw me in that stupid van and I asked her to give my child my chain," his fingers played with his other chain around his neck. "I have it, I wear it almost every day," I promised honestly.

"But how? I can tell you aren't a vampire," his eyebrows knitted. I look at Evander before sighing. "With you being my father I developed some talents I guess. Silver doesn't affect me, wolfsbane doesn't affect me as it should and my wolf is faster than she should normally be," I explained. I see amusement and shock in his eyes. "Okay, well...why are you here now? Twenty fricken years later? I'm sure you want nothing to do with me," he deadpanned. My eyes widened as I thought of how to answer that but I was truly speechless.

"They told me they killed you," I choked out, finally allowing myself to break down with tears. All the emotions I was holding in since Evander let me cried in the cell were forcing back on to me. "Jessie didn't tell me he knew you were alive...I-" my voice breaks as I speak. Evander's hand was about to grab me but pulled his hand away.

"They told you I was dead?" He asked for reassurance. I nod, not wanting to repeat myself. He scoffed, looking around the room. "It's hard to believe that Lucinda turned into someone so...cruel," he whispered. I would never expect my mother to do something like this. It wasn't like her not to tell me. It really hurt me that they kept this from me. My father was innocent in all of this, he confirmed it himself. They took him away when all he wanted was to love his child. They took my father away from me and I didn't even know. I lived twenty years in a lie. Do I even know my mother at all?

"How is Jessie? The last time I saw him he was a little baby," my father asked with soft eyes. I sniffed before answering, the small smile already playing on my face. "He is a pain in the ass but he is like a brother to me, very protective of what's his and he is an amazing king," I answered, not mentioning that I've been ignoring him for a couple of months.

His eyes shift to Evander but this time he wasn't afraid to look at him. Instead, he seemed, curious or something.

"And how the hell you got this Alpha wrapped around your finger?" He glanced at Evander. I turn to look at him, opening my mouth to speak but nothing came out. I didn't really know how to answer that question.

"We're mates," Evander bluntly stated and fireworks exploded in my chest. Goddess, I've been waiting so long for him to finally say that. "Sort of," I added. I still had no idea why he had my father locked in a cage for twenty years.

"Oh, interesting," my father smirked as he leaned back in the chair. "Now I can't kill you," he adds with a smile on his face. Evander froze, actually feeling intimidated. "We don't need a war so let's move on, what happened to my mother and you after Joseph came along?" I focused back on the main topic.

Before my father can even say anything, Evander spoke. "Goddess, I'm so confused. I thought Jayden was older than you," Evander groaned. "Who the bloody hell is Jayden?" My father hissed.

"Jayden is Joseph and Lucinda's son. He is actually nineteen, not twenty-one but because of his height and muscles, everyone just assumes he is older. They believe that he is older because that's what my parents told us to tell them," I explained. "The reason why we lied about Jay's age is because they knew I wouldn't want to take my parent's place. And they were right, I'm just fine locked up in my hospital," I continued. My father gave me a short nod, Evander moved around in the chair as he listened to the information.

"When your mother left me for Joseph when she was about to make you, the former alpha of this pack kidnapped me and held me away from Luci and my family," he sadly spoke and my blood boiled. How could they do that to a fifteen-year-old boy? I look up at Evander, not liking what I was hearing and the way he looked back guilty at me, he knew I was upset.

"What happened while you were here?" I asked.

He was hesitant at first but answered me anyway. "When I first arrived I was beaten up, threatened, starved, tortured because the previous alpha wanted answers. They thought they could use me to gain an upper hand on my coven but my father barely cared about me. I told them everything I knew because I had nothing to lose. Other times the beta or the beta's son would come down to ask simple questions throughout the years like where do they train, where the castle is if I'm familiar with any of the vampires they found, where the vervain was hidden," he explained.

"I don't understand why Lucinda would give you to my father. Sure, he hated vampires like a passion and you were the king's son but how the hell did they even know each other? My father was much older compared to a fifteen-year-old at the time," Evander spoke first. He was just as confused as I was.

"I don't know, I got fed up with thinking about how betrayed and confused I was feeling. As the years progressed, I stayed in that cell, was given food and water twice a day..."

The more and more I think about it, the more I needed to know what Evander knew. I needed to know what his father knew. "Okay, well you will be reuniting with your family but I think for now you should get some rest in the guest bedroom, I need to talk with Evander," I urgently say, standing to my feet. My father follows, his eyes never leaving mine.

"Thank you, Rieka," he softly says with sincerity.

"You're welcome," I smiled.

Evander also stands," I'll take him back to the room," he says and I watched as both of them left the office. I stay there, allowing myself to comprehend and replay everything that happened today. My father is alive. My mother lied to me. Jessie knew and he didn't tell me. My eyes were still watery, no surprise there because I am an emotional mess.

The door creaked open and I'm pulled out of my thoughts. Evander walked in with a small brown book in his hand that he slid to me on the table. My eyebrows furrowed as I picked up the book. "What's this?" I asked.

"I never knew about Chansler and what my father was doing while he was down here. When my father died he gave me his journal. I thought it was a normal journal but it wasn't. It was his lab book. The whole reason why he kept your father was that he was trying to find a way to kill his father, your grandfather. On his death bed, he asked me to continue his work but I never did. Vampires never came up as an actual threat to us. Rogues were more of a threat.

I never got around to reading all of it to know how the hell he got Chansler in that dungeon but now I know. I told you it is a shitty excuse but how am I suppose to know that he was the father of a werewolf?" Evander explained as I brushed through the journal, reading through all the different dates.

My father's name was scattered all around it. "What do you mean by experiments?" I asked him curiously. "My father found out how long it took for a vampire to starve, if they can suffer from dehydration, how long they went without blood, sunlight, food, all of those things that we never knew," he answered.

"How did your father died?" I notice Evander froze which made me look up at him. "He got really old but kept pushing himself to do things that his body was incapable of doing, it was a natural death which killed him and my mother," he frowned.

"I'm sorry for that, even though he was an ass to my father," I half-joked which made him smile again. "Yeah, he was a pain in the ass," he agreed. I turned my attention back to the book, brushing through a few of the pages.

"You can keep it. I don't want it back. I'll have Brandon keep an eye on Chansler and...please come down for dinner later," he said, now close to the door. My eyes snapped to him to see the plea in his eyes. He sounded slightly nervous as well.

"I will, thank you," I assure him. Evander breathes out, tightening his smile before walking out of the office.