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“I’ll talk to Ashton,” she said after a few moments. “See what he thinks and what he wants to do. He’s old enough now to make some of his own decisions. Whatever he decides is what we’ll do.”

It wasn’t an outright no. “Fair enough.”

I desperately wanted to talk about what had happened.

To discuss us—Avery and me. My wolf was begging me to make amends, to do everything I could to get her to smile.

I’d known Avery was my mate right after my first shift.

It had been hell leaving her, and even bigger hell fighting with my wolf about my decision.

After running from Harbor Mills, I’d fallen into a depression, which was fed by my wolf’s sadness at not being with her anymore.

The anger of a dumb kid had been too hot for my wolf to argue his case.

Eventually, after years, my wolf had given up hope of ever seeing her again.

Now, with her standing right here, he was going wild with a weird mix of happiness and sadness.

I couldn’t push it, though. I’d already gotten more than I could ever hope for.

A son. An hour ago, I’d been hopeful at the prospect of seeing Avery again, but instead of being reunited with my lost love, my entire life had been shaken to its core.

Pushing for a conversation would do nothing but make things worse than they already were.

“Uh, I guess I’ll let you guys get back to moving in or whatever,” I said.

“Yeah, you probably should.”

“I turned your water turned on,” I said. “I’m not going to have the office charge a reconnection fee. We usually do, but… shit, I guess it’s the least I can do.”

“Sure. Fine. Do I need to sign something?”

I winced. “Damn, yeah. Hang on. It’s in the truck. I’ll be right back.”

As I turned to go back to my vehicle, I heard her sigh in frustration. I chastised myself. I’d been too worked up and nervous at the prospect of seeing her that I forgot the clipboard in the truck. Stupid.

When I returned, she scribbled her name on the bottom, and I noticed her last name was still Carlisle, which I took to mean she’d probably never married, or she was divorced. After handing her the receipt of work, she opened her door again and stepped inside.

“It was nice seeing you again,” I said, immediately shriveling inside at how lame and pathetic that platitude sounded. “Uh, I put my number on the receipt if you need it.”

“Yeah,” she muttered. “Mine’s on the account. Goodbye, Cole,” Avery said, and closed the door in my face.

As I stood there, staring at the closed door, I couldn’t help but think of everything I’d missed.

My wolf didn’t want to leave. It took an almost physical force of will to turn away and walk back to my truck.

Once I got moving, a new desire filled me.

It flickered like flames on gasoline, scorching the earth itself.

I needed to see my sister and ask her what the fuck was going on.

My anger hadn’t abated by the time I arrived at her house. If anything, it had grown hotter. All I could do was think about how one secret had done so much damage. To me, to Avery, but most importantly, to an innocent kid. A boy who never got to have his father.

When I knocked on her door, it was all I could do not to pound on it or kick the damn thing down.

“Farrah! Open the fuck up!”

A few seconds later, the door swung inward, and my sister stared at me in confusion. “Cole? What the hell?—”

“Spill it. All of it,” I snarled and took a step inside, forcing her to back up.

The confusion on her face melted away, and the irritation in her eyes morphed into fear. She could see the fury on my face, and she was scared. She had every right to be.

“What do you know?” Her voice trembled in a fearful way that was not like her at all.

I slammed the door shut behind me, the sound of it like a gunshot that rattled the house.

“You know goddamn well what I know.” I pointed behind me. “I just got back from seeing Avery, where I met my son. A son Avery says you knew about.”

My anger was boiling over, and my wolf’s snarling and pacing in my mind wasn’t helping. I kicked a chair in the entryway, sending it flying down the hall. Farrah flinched. Rather than feeling ashamed of my outburst, I relished it.

“Tell me why, Farrah. That’s all I want to know. Why did you lie to me? You told me Avery married some douchebag she met in college. What the fuck?”

“Cole, please calm down,” she said, patting the air with her hands.

“How can I calm down?” I bellowed. “Do you understand what you’ve done?” my voice cracked, and the tears I’d held back threatened to spill. “I have a child. All these years, I could have had a family. I missed everything , Farrah. I don’t even know where to start. Why?”

“Dad,” she said, nearly matching the volume of my own voice. “It was Dad. That’s why.”

I blinked at her, trying to process what she was saying. “What about Dad? What did he say?”

“It’s not about what he said,” Farrah said, walking away to her living room. I followed after her, and she collapsed onto her couch, digging her fingers into her hair. “It wasn’t my choice, okay?”

Pushing my anger down, I sat in the armchair across from her. “Explain.”

Farrah looked up at me, pure misery in her eyes.

“Avery came to me, told me she was pregnant.” She pulled her eyes from mine, her cheeks flushing in embarrassment.

“At first, I thought she was lying. She knew you’d vanished, and I assumed she was making up a desperate story to get you to come back.

Then I noticed her scent had changed. She was pregnant. ”

She rubbed her palms together, back and forth, side to side. It was a nervous habit she’d had since we were kids, and she only did it when she had something to say that she didn’t want to say.

“What did you do?” I growled.

She sighed and looked up at the ceiling, unable or unwilling to meet my eyes. “I may have… uh… insinuated that if she was pregnant, it might belong to someone else.”

“Jesus fucking Christ, Farrah,” I hissed. “You know Avery would never have cheated on me with some other dude.”

“I know that, Cole, but for all I knew, she was heartbroken about you leaving and did something stupid. It doesn’t matter,” she said, waving her hand dismissively.

“She convinced me to tell Dad and you. So, of course, I went to Dad first. He was the alpha, whether we liked him or not. I was ready to leave Harbor Mills, too, remember? Dad said I needed to lie to her.”

“What?” I gasped. “He… what?”

Farrah shrugged helplessly. “He said he was angry you left, but that it was for the best that you’d left Avery behind. That was the reason you guys had that last big fight. Because he thought she wasn’t good enough for a pack alpha. He always wanted you with a shifter mate.”

“You should have told him to fuck off and contacted me. Why didn’t you? Why didn’t you tell me when I called you later on?”

Farrah finally tore her eyes from the ceiling.

“Because, Cole, Dad was the alpha . He made me swear not to tell you, and to tell Avery you didn’t want anything to do with her.

I even told her to get rid of the baby before it was born.

He saw that you didn’t want to be in Harbor Mills anymore, and he was done with you.

He figured if you knew you had a baby on the way, it would have kept you here.

I think he was afraid you’d challenge him or something.

So he gave me a story to spin to Avery and you.

I couldn’t go against his wishes. He forced me. Do you get what I’m saying?”

Realization slammed into me like a punch in the gut. “He didn’t,” I said in disbelief.

“Oh, he did,” Farrah said, her eyes wet with unshed tears.

“He used his alpha influence on me. Waves of alpha energy poured over me. I’d never felt anything like it.

By the time he was done, I was on my knees, begging him to stop, promising anything.

It was the one thing he said he’d never use on his own kids. ”

An alpha’s aura could be used to intimidate and overpower his betas and other pack members.

It was only to be used in extreme cases—a disloyal member, a beta, or another lesser alpha in the pack who thought they would be better at running the pack and wanted to overthrow him outside of an official challenge.

A true pack alpha could use that energy and influence to bend people to his will.

A good alpha rarely needed to use it, and those who did used it sparingly.

They never used it on family. Using it on a mate or a child—even a sibling—was considered taboo by most, and outright immoral by some.

I gaped at her in horror. “He did that?”

She nodded, swiping away her tears. “It was the final straw. I did what he asked, and then I got the hell out of town.”

“Once you were away from his influence, you could have told me the truth, though,” I said.

Farrah glared at me. “You know I couldn’t, Cole. Dad made me promise while I was under his alpha influence. You know what that means.”

I slammed a fist onto my thigh and leaned back in the chair.

A promise made under the influence of an alpha was unbreakable, even when the subject was far away from the alpha.

It was essentially a blood oath that could kill the person who tried to break it.

The only way to get rid of such an oath was when the alpha died.

By the time my father died, nearly fifteen years had passed. All of this didn’t explain why she hadn’t told me the minute he died. It would have spared me from stumbling unprepared into the situation like a dumbass.

“I understand that, but what about after he died? He’s been dead for months, Farrah. You could have spilled it then.”