Chapter 123

Rachel POV

"You can't just walk away from me when you're upset."

I was hyperaware of every inch of my body and I used my full weight to press against Tyler. He let me maneuver him into leaning against an alcove in the hallway out of the view of casual passersby.

I say he let me because my weight wasn't nearly enough to push Tyler Wright around even with the additional pounds I'd started to pick up in my pregnancy.

His wolf grumbled on the inside about letting a female push him around, but I knew Wynd would do anything if it comforted Rayne while pregnant.

"I need to be able to argue with you and know you'll talk to me. You'll argue back. You won't just walk away. I can't handle you just walking away, Tyler. It's too much for me."

Tyler settled his hands on my hips, pulled me even more flush against his body before saying, "I don't like to argue with you."

What did he mean by that? Did he think I liked arguing with him? Was I not supposed to argue with him?

Some Alphas subscribed to the Old Way ideal of having females who were seen without being heard. She-wolves were meant to be kept subservient to their Alphas at all times, but especially when others were around.

My mother had been a bit like that with Patrick.

She never disagreed with him in front of others. She always waited until they were alone to carefully bring up her concerns in her soft, gentle voice I could never quite recreate in my memories.

I remembered thinking my mother did all she could to raise my father up from his omega status.

"Do you---not want me to argue? To be quiet? My mother was quiet. She was careful to always be gentle with Patrick and now? Knowing she was an Alpha heir to a powerful pack? I understand why she was that way. Is that how you want me to be, Tyler? Is that the mate you want?"

"When have I ever given you the indication I wanted a mate with no backbone?"

I felt foolish as soon as he asked. My face flushed as I saw the wry lift of one dark brow which Tyler only resorted to when he was completely done with a conversation. He hadn't said anything to me about a female's place in the home or his life.

I was "borrowing trouble" as Art would say and why was I doing it? What was wrong with me?

Tears stung my eyes as I felt a wave of mixed emotions crash through me.

Fisting my hands in Tyler's shirt, I asked, "Do you think I'm going crazy? I feel so strange. Emotional. Chaotic. It's overwhelming and knowing Ethan may not---may not wake up? I don't know how to live in a world without my brother."

Ethan had been my responsibility since my mother's death, but he gave me support in his own way, too.

I had never performed in a competition without Ethan in the audience cheering for me. I had never dated a boy Ethan hadn't given 'the third degree' beforehand. I had never had a child without Ethan there to be a proud uncle---

Tyler held me as I indulged my selfish tears for a moment. We were out of the way of anyone walking by; the alcove I'd chosen was recessed enough to give me the illusion of privacy even if we were still standing in the middle of the hall. I was startled into a shriek when Art suddenly appeared beside us.

"I've been thinking -dangerous I know- and I can't stop wondering about the issue of inheritance over at Moonglow Pack."

Turning my head to face Art, I continued to cling to Tyler as I asked, "What? Art, do you really think that's what we should be talking about right now?"

"Absolutely. Ethan is the last heir of Elena Campbell. We can't offer you up for the inheritance even though you carry her blood. You're marked and mated to an Alpha House heir already. No one would expect Wright to overthrow his bloodline right to Moonrise Pack in favor of Moonglow. Ethan is the only other child we can prove Elena birthed. Unless your father is a bigger threat than I've considered to date."

"My father? Richard seems to be a big enough threat to me. Are you saying you've not been worried about him? Why did we bother going to Moonglow Pack territory if you didn't think Richard was a threat?"

"No," Art said, raking a hand through the long tangles of his hair as he tried to explain, "Not Richard Campbell. Your fake father. Patrick Flores. Have you stopped to wonder what kind of danger he offers? Doesn't it strike you as strange---how he seems to do so much damage for an omega?"

Patrick had always been resourceful. I'd grown up thinking 'for an omega' as an aside to all thoughts of Patrick, but was that fair of me?

"I don't know."

I didn't. I really had no clue where Art was going with this line of thinking.

"What do you know about Patrick? If you had to call him one thing, one word, what would you call him? You'd say he was a---?"

"Conman," I said as Tyler stated firmly, "Omega."

"I was thinking 'liar' which is just a generic word for 'conman' but Wright pointed out what I wanted him to: we don't think about what he's capable of because we just say he's an omega. As if that sums him up. From wolfen standards, Patrick Flores should be at the bottom of any pile. He's biologically disadvantaged in our society. But. He lives primarily among humans. Where he's more than them. Where he stays more than them through lies."

The longer Art talked, the more my heart sank in my chest and my tears rose again in my eyes.

I was going to create a new ocean of tears before this pregnancy was over.

"What are you thinking? He's lying about being Ethan's father? I know my mother is Ethan's mother. She was pregnant with him when I was in preschool. I remember it."

Art shook his head at me as if I were totally missing his point, "No. I'm not saying he's not Ethan's father or that Elena Campbell wasn't Ethan's mother. I'm saying Patrick Flores is a liar and the only one we have to say Elena Campbell isn't heir to House Campbell is him."

His point crashed over me with the force of a hurricane. My fingers tightened into claws gripping Tyler's shirt and I rubbed my cheek against his chest for wordless comfort as I tried to deny the idea itself entirely.

"No. My mother died. She's dead. I saw her."

"You were what? Fourteen? Ethan wasn't even in double digits. Did you watch her die? Did you hear her flatline? How do you know she was dead?"

I didn't have to close my eyes to remember how my mother had looked in her deathbed: still, silent, a soft shade of white rather than the sunny complexion she always radiated.

"She wasn't breathing. She was cold, Art. Cold. I could only touch her hand for a minute before I had to leave the room."

Wolves were only cold when they were dead or on the verge of being dead. We always ran hot. I had known my mother was wrong just from taking a look at her after I was awakened to say my goodbyes.

"So you saw her for a second. A minute. Did you see her die, Rachel?"

I shook my head against Tyler's chest, grateful for the comfort of his hands on my waist, his hard body holding me up with the strength of a beast barely leashed beneath his civilized exterior.

"Where were you when she died?"

"I was asleep. She had been doing well. She ate some. She talked about my homework with me. I was reading a book she'd read at my age. Patrick woke me up to say goodbye before they took her body away. She had to be dead," I realized, "They took her away in a body bag!"

I remembered being made to leave the room when the coroner arrived. I'd stood on the porch to watch as they wheeled in the stretcher with the empty black bag on top.

No, I hadn't seen them put my mother inside the bag, but I remembered hearing the sounds. The zipper being lowered. The sounds of bedding rustling as they picked her up to transfer her from the bed to the bag. The zipper closing.

Nausea swept through me at just the thought of the sound.

"I saw them take her out in the bag. I could tell it was her body. Her shape under the black bag. They'd buckled her in over the bag and I couldn't understand why until Patrick told me it was---it was to hold her body in place during the trip to the morgue. They took her away in a body bag, Art. She had to have been dead. She had to."

I couldn't handle any other thought because the idea of my sunny, smiling mother zipped into a black rubber coffin while still breathing was too much for me to bear.