Page 60 of Assisting the Alpha
“We’ll give you guys some space,” Raj says.
“We’ll be in the conference room if you need us,” Cal says.
All five members of my team scent me as they pass. As soon as they’re gone, Ayo strokes my hair. “I’ve put up a one-way privacy ward.”
I say nothing, not sure how to get the words out. Not sure where to begin.
Ayo rubs my back, soothing me with every touch. “Talk to me, Ethan. I know what happened with your old pack was shitty in the extreme, but the team you’ve built? They would never do that.”
I swallow hard and pull back enough to be able to see the worry filling those chocolate eyes. “I haven’t told you everything.”
It’s time Ayo knew all of it.
Chapter Sixteen
AYO
“My father was a sorcerer.” Ethan’s voice is pure gravel, low and hoarse.
I try not to gape at him. I was not expecting that. At all.
“He and my mother weren’t fated, so they chose not to bond, but they did marry. They seemed happy for most of my childhood. Since shifter birth rates are lower than human, it seemed normal for me to be an only child. Looking back, I wonder if maybe they weren’t as happy as I thought.”
My poor wolf. My heart aches for him and I clearly don’t even know everything yet.
“When I was fourteen, they divorced.” He sucks in a shaky breath. “It came out of nowhere for me. My father left a note for my mother one day before walking out of pack lands. I didn’t take it well. I thought I’d never see him again.”
“But you did?” I have a sinking feeling this is connected to what he told me a while back about a rival pack attacking his own.
Ethan turns and paces away from me, then faces me from across the room, his nostrils flaring. “I saw him again when he brought a rival pack straight through our fucking wards. Wards he’d set. Turned out he’d been having an affair with the rival alpha. My mother had found out and demanded a divorce, so my father ran straight to his boyfriend.”
Oh,shit.“Was that what started…” I can’t even finish the question.
He clenches his fists. “My father got his boyfriend and his new pack to challenge us. His boyfriend killed my mother. She was insanely powerful, but her heart was broken. I can’t help thinking maybe that’s why she lost the fight. The betrayal was too much.”
I hurry over and hold him as tight as I possibly can, my heart breaking for him. “I’m amazed you trust me at all.”
He buries his face in my neck and this time it starts to feel damp. He squeezes me almost to the point of pain, but since I can still breathe I don’t say anything.
“I didn’t, not at first. You won me over.”
That has me pressing a tender kiss to his hair. Then I start to work through what he said and I stiffen in horror.
“Wait, you said… Fuck, you lost both parents and your entire pack when you were fourteen? Jeez, Ethan, that’s… I can’t even imagine. What did you do?”
It takes him a minute to answer as my neck gets wetter, but I don’t rush him. Losing my parents when I was ten was awful, but I still had family, still had my coven and my vampire aunts and uncles, as well as Zaiden and his family.
“I became homeless,” he finally says, pulling back a little and swiping at his eyes. “I grew up in rural East Anglia so I travelled to London. It’s easier to be homeless in a city, and I was good at pickpocketing. I always abandoned the cards, just took whatevercash they had so I could eat. Not long after I turned fifteen I stole a wallet from some guy who chased me down.
“Turned out he was a cheetah shifter, which was how he caught me. He bought me lunch. Told me he was in the army and that they’d love a guy like me. I’d have to hide my wolf side, but I was doing that anyway. He convinced me enlisting was better than being homeless and stealing from people. So I let him take me to the nearest army recruitment office, lied about my age, and the rest is history.”
My heart breaks for the teenager he was, so desperate to eat that he stole from people. I know how much Ethan values protecting others; it’s literally his purpose in life. How much of it is him paying it forward after this stranger changed his life? How much of it is him making amends for stealing? Or making up for feeling like he couldn’t save his mum?
“I am so fucking proud of you.” My voice is as unsteady as his, and I feel a little ridiculous saying it, what with me only being twenty and having had a much easier life, but I need him to know. I really am proud of the man he turned into after having that sort of start in life.
“Thank you,” he murmurs.
“Is that why you refuse to have a pack? Because of your dad’s betrayal?” I ask softly.
