The Challenge Two Alphas, One Girl

Chapter 39: Ferocious Fathers

Fang’s POV

I sat across from my Mom in the Beta dining room. Fallon and Fargo has showed up at the pack house looking for our parents and claiming no one had cooked their breakfast or lunch. They were too old for that bullshit but whatever. Didn’t they even know how to scramble an egg or something? They were identically useless sometimes but they were hilarious and we mostly got along well.

“Mom, why did you marry your mate’s Beta?” I had to ask her. I took a deep breath. “Was it for revenge?”

Fallon and Fargo were tense. I had never seen them resist a table filled with food before. My mother was crying silently.

“No,” she whispered shakily. “I love your father, differently. He’s my…he was like my best friend. He was there for me when Malachi rejected me and I was broken. I was trying so hard to move on especially when I heard that Malachi had proposed to someone. Elizabeth, a rich merchant’s daughter.”

“But Malachi and you kept seeing each other all that time?” I asked, feeling sorry for my mom and my dad simultaneously.

“Yeah,” my mom said, laughing sadly. She wiped her eyes. Theo handed her a tissue. I was opposite to her next to Fallon and Fargo while Theo sat next to her. He started rubbing her back with his palm to soothe her. She looked at him as though grateful.

“Malachi rejected me for being a rogue and therefore an unsuitable Luna,” my Mom explained.

I stiffened uncomfortably. The parallels between my Mom, Felicity, and Malachi versus Friday and Maze were astounding.

“He said his father wouldn’t approve of me. I was so heartbroken and offended and furious. I didn’t know then what I know now…that his father had threatened to kill me if Malachi didn’t reject me,” Mom said.

I growled. Maze’s grandfather was a fiend! I had never met him and I hoped we never crossed paths because it would not be pretty.

“But Malachi only actually managed to stay away from me for a few days, less than a week actually. He showed up on my doorstep. I had come to stay in Marigold and met your father. Malachi would meet me in secret almost every other night, bringing me gifts and sums of money. When he proposed to Elizabeth, I had been devastated. I refused to keep seeing him. He practically broke my door down. He had a diamond ring for me as well and a necklace and bracelet. He had spent a ton of money trying to placate me but it wasn’t what I wanted. I didn’t want to be hidden anymore. Malachi said he only needed Elizabeth for an heir and there was no emotion in the relationship. I didn’t believe him at first but now I see that he was telling the truth, not that it matters. It was still wrong and I do feel ashamed at times. I feel sorry for your father and for Elizabeth,” My Mom said, sniffling.

“I got engaged to Farris shortly after Malachi’s engagement. He was furious! He threatened to kill your father and I actually smacked him. I was livid. I couldn’t believe what a hypocrite he was being,” Mom said, her eyes wide.

I could not picture my mom slapping someone. She was so gentle, like Friday, but less whiny and annoying. I loved Friday but she knew how to push my buttons with her antics. I needed to get back to her story.

“So you and Malachi didn’t break it off after he was furious about your own engagement, Mom?” Asked Fallon,

Fargo nodded, curious too.

My Mom chuckled, “Malachi was shocked when I slapped him. I tried to apologise but he stormed off. He was back the next day and we began our secret affair again. We both got married. He soon had Maze with Elizabeth and he was relieved the first child was a boy so he could ignore her now. He claimed she

was insufferably dull,” my Mom said, the guilt evident on her face for the hand she had to play in another woman’s unhappiness.

“Malachi was furious when I got pregnant with the twins. He had thought I would completely stop all relations with Farris after you were born, Fang, Malachi reasoned that now Marigold had a future Beta, Fang, and a future Alpha, Maze,” Mom said.

“Malachi treated your father pretty bad, making him stay late and come early everyday. Giving him projects that had to be done over the weekends. Declining his requests for vacation leave. All because he hated the idea of Farris coming home to…lie with me. When I got pregnant with Friday, Malachi and I stopped speaking for a while and Malachi had been so upset when we found out it was a girl. I think he had secretly always wanted a little daughter to spoil after his son and heir. He treated Farris worse than ever. He refused to give him paternity leave so Farris never actually got much time with Friday as a baby. Farris had started drinking to deal with the stress at his job as well and money became tight because he spent it on alcohol. I drank with him just so I wouldn’t have to mişs Malachi. It was the longest we’d ever been apart since we had met. We stayed away from each other for about nine months: three months into the pregnancy when I found out up until Friday was three months old.

“When we reunited, it was…explosive,” whispered my mother.

I flinched.

“Malachi started ‘traveling for work. He would send his Beta, your father, on business trips far away to another pack and he would claim to be visiting a pack as well but really he was on vacation with me. We knew it was wrong but we were incredibly happy, sight-seeing together, feeling like real mates,” Mom said softly.

gasped. I remembered those chunks of time when Friday was a baby and I and the twins were small children. My father had been away on pack business and my mother claimed she had to go along with him. I though it strange how she would leave the day after him when they were supposedly going on the

trip together. Now I knew why. It was a setup, cooked up by Malachi to get Farris out of the way and his mate out of that house. I was seething. They had left us with a nanny: Nanny Mallison, a huge b***h and strict disciplinarian. The twins were taking deep breaths, their food untouched.

“Your father’s alcoholism got really bad. I had a drinking problem too. Malachi arranged a rehab for both of us but he sent your father first to one place and after he left, Malachi took me to another rehab that allowed patients to have guests stay with them. He helped me detox and get clean. We became inseparable. I never asked him to leave Elizabeth. I was comfortable with the way things were, and him leaving her meant I would have to come clean to Farris and you kids and I couldn’t bear the thought. I love you kids. I don’t want you to hate me,” her voice cracked.

I sighed. Fallon put his head in his hands. Fargo groaned.

“I could never hate you,” I muttered. I did not want to talk about this anymore. I got up to leave. My mother looked startled.

“We don’t hate you, Mom,” chorused Fallon and Fargo in unison.

“I love you, Mom,” I said quickly to her. “We love you too, Mom,” said the twins grinning.

The twins had taken this better than I thought they would. Perhaps, I did not give them enough credit. Friday had not been a part of this family meeting but she was in heat right now and I was sure she would know most if not all of what was said because Maze probably told her.

Friday’s POV

I heard a chair scraping the floor and I soundlessly straightened up from where I had been crouching on the ground. I had been eavesdropping on the conversation between my brothers and my mother in the Beta Dining Room. I crept back up the stairs quickly and sped back into my room. The patrol guards had

agreed to let me out for a few minutes “to stretch my legs.” The pain was still there but it had lessened somewhat.

I dove into the bed, under Thaddeus’ picnic blanket and began pretend-reading Maze’s journal, just as Fang walked in.

“Is it juicy?” Asked Fang, eyeing his alphas diary. I nodded.

“Yeah, right,” scoffed Fang. “Maze’s diary is probably as dry as a dinosaur bone under a heat lamp at the museum.”

Igiggled. Fang cracked his neck and shoulders as he stretched. “We just had a difficult conversation with Mom,” he informed me. I gave him my best shocked look. “Yeah,” he said nodding There was a knock on the door.

“Come in,” I called. The door swung open and in walked Fallon and Fargo.

“How’re you feeling?” Asked Fallon. “Yeah, you good?” Asked Fargo. I gave them two thumbs-up. Thaddeus’ POV All text © NôvelD(r)a'ma.Org.

I was explaining to Maze what to look for in a good campsite.

“It’s similar to what we look for when we pick a rest stop during a battle or a voyage?” Maze asked.

“Yeah, exactly. You want to be on flat land with easy access to a nearby potable water supply and make sure you’re not near to any dens whether they belong to bears or foxes. They’ll be attracted to the smell of your food and cause a commotion and you don’t wanna have to shoo them away. It’s their forest really, better to respect their boundaries,” I explained.

Maze’s POV

I was watching him with a small smile on my face. He really was admirable. He did not use his superior strength as a weapon he used it like shield to protect the weak. Perhaps, this was why he never cared for a powerful Luna. He did not mind protecting her. He just wanted the companionship, the bond. Now that I knew Friday, I considered it an honour to protect her. I sighed, thinking of her taste and the way she moaned when I sampled her.

Suddenly I felt a sharp pain cut through me. I groaned clutching my side. What was that? Thaddeus rushed over to me. “Maze! What’s wrong? Is it Friday?” He asked, shaking me.

Farris’ POV

“It’s not what I’ve done,” I said, my hand reached into my pants’ pocket. “It’s what I’m about to do.

I pulled out a hand-held gun loaded with silver bullets dipped in Wolfsbane, a lethal combination if used correctly. Malachi growled, his canines bared and his eyes black with rage. He tried to snatch the gun from me but I shot him. His sudden swipe had put the bullet slightly off course but it still connected with his chest.

A high-pitched blood-curdling scream made me jump as Malachi fell to his knees, clutching his chest, blood pouring out from between his fingers. It was Luna Elizabeth. She spotted me. She looked at me in horror. Should I shoot her too? I aimed with a shaking hand but a sharp pain in my leg cause me to stumble backwards dropping the gun. Malachi had clawed at my leg. Four deep claw marks were etched into my leg, blood soaking my pants. I scrambled towards the gun but Malachi had already reached it. I ran way before he could shoot, jumping into my car and speeding off. My heart was racing. What had I just done?!