Chapter 44

Rachel POV

Bella & Rachel's Apartment

Paper surrounded us in piles stacked so high it was as if Jack and I were barricaded behind a paperwork partition. Only I didn't feel safe behind the wall. All I felt was suffocated.

"We need to go over what we do know."

I looked at Jack, laying down the sheets I held, "Okay. I can go for a regrouping session. I need to get my head back on straight because honestly? I feel as if everything I've ever been told in my entire life has been a lie."

Nathan wanted me to petition to join Full Moon Pack which was the home pack of House Lewis. He offered me the protection of his Alpha House to fight against the Alpha House claim House Wright of Moonrise Pack had on my child.

Neither house seemed to have any physical ties to me; all the houses I had thought were my birthright also seemed to have no real connection to me which made me an orphan in a way I'd never been before.

"Patrick Flores is not your biological father. You don't share any blood with him. Ethan got the sample from his house. Our lab ran it. There's nothing to put you and Patrick together as blood relations which means your connection to his home pack -Harvest Moon Pack- is nonexistent. You could pledge there, sure, but being a Harvester won't protect you from either Full Moon or Moonrise."

I nodded my understanding. I was dazed from too much information, but I hadn't gone stupid. I knew I wouldn't gain anything by pledging to the pack where Patrick's omega house originated.

All Harvesters were known for was their relentless pursuit of greed. I didn't want anything to do with that on a personal level or a professional one. Their Alpha House wasn't even large enough to get a seat on the Alpha Council.

"We know, for a fact now, Elena Campbell is your mother's legal birth name. She was the only daughter of the Alpha House -House Campbell- of Moonglow Pack. They sit on the Alpha Council. I'm completely confused about their Alpha right now. He's Richard Campbell who was born Richard Estes of House Estes. They are an Alpha House of a smaller pack under the control of Moonglow Pack. According to everything I've found? He married your mother, took her house name, and became the Alpha by bloodright after their mating ceremony."

"So my mother had another husband before Patrick?"

I can't imagine my mother getting a divorce. Her mating to Patrick was a nightmare, but she had been utterly devoted to him and he had cared for her in a way he could only care for his fated mate.

"That's the thing---I can't find where she divorced him."

"How did she marry Patrick if she was already married to this Richard? Are you saying her marriage to my father wasn't legal?"

Jack shuffled through the papers in front of him until he found what he wanted and then he offered it to me, as he explained, "No, no, no. See here? This is the matebond license. It' comes with a bloodright petition which shows he entered into a one-way blood exchange where he was bled into House Campbell. There is no marriage license for Richard and Elena. They were mated in our courts, he was bled in to become Alpha of her house, and she was issued a death record saying she died in a car accident."

I looked the form over and saw Richard Estes and his house titles listed out followed by a long litany of agreements which went with transferring power to a new Alpha. I got tired reading all the things he agreed to in order to take the Alpha seat of House Campbell. I was particularly struck by the fact he had to cede all connections to his home house in order to become Alpha of House Campbell.

"He ceded connections to House Estes. Does that mean he can't recognize his parents anymore?"

"That means he can't recognize any members of his birth family," Jack corrected, "If he sees them, he has to treat them as if they are strangers. He can show them respect since they're an Alpha House, but he can't call them by family titles or he will offend his new house, House Campbell."

"That sounds terrible," I admitted as I tried to imagine putting my family into the position of being strangers, "Does this mean---he's probably my father? Richard Campbell who used to be Richard Estes?"

"Yes. I filed for a DNA test through the Alpha Council, but his name is on your official -and original- birth record. There's another strange thing going on with House Campbell. I don't know how to explain this one---when were you born?"

I reeled off my birthdate without thinking too much about it. My child would be born in the winter. Would I have a baby before Christmas this year?

"Well, you were born in September and Richard Campbell issued a birth announcement in July of the same year for another daughter Linda Campbell. The family calls her Lindy. She's the heir to House Campbell. Her status as the heir of the house means she's the way to inherit the Alpha seat."

"How is that possible? Could my mother have been pregnant with twins? Is it possible to deliver one twin early then carry the other to term?"

I had been reading books about pregnancy since accepting I would have my baby. There were stories of women who had given birth under all sorts of circumstances. Some women gave birth without ever having known they were pregnant; some mothers carried twins thinking they were having a single birth until suddenly they delivered two babies.

I'd never read of a woman giving birth to twins on separate dates months apart, but it seemed as if it might be possible. Twins didn't have to share the same amniotic sac. They could develop wholly separate with their own support structures so if we weren't identical, Linda and I could be twins though I couldn't explain the two month gap between our births.

"Honestly? I'm not a medical guy. I don't know. I do know your mother did not die in a car accident so the entire death record is falsified. I think they faked the girl too."

Jack looked anxious talking about it. He had developed stress lines around his eyes and his forehead seemed permanently furrowed these days as he sifted through the legal nuances of my life.

I wanted to tell him he could stop, but I couldn't lose his help. My baby needed whatever protection I could grant him or her. I would have to apply for a position with a pack before I gave birth or I would lose my child. I knew it as surely as I knew the sun rose in the east and set in the west.

"You think she wasn't born because of the accident?"

"No. I think she isn't your mother's child at all. I think Richard got her somehow and switched her out for you because your mother left him for whatever reason she did."

Jack spread his hands helplessly because we had no idea why Mother left her family behind. There weren't any helpful diaries or journals filled with her thoughts we could pour over. No one had been close to my mother while she was with Patrick and Patrick himself was a first-rate liar so nothing he said could be trusted.

"Could Patrick have had anything to do with my mother's fake death record?"

Nodding, Jack agreed, "It's very possible since he also has a fake death record for your mother only his is for Elena Flores since they were married in a human ceremony where she took his name."

"So my mother has died twice? Both times the record fake?"

"Yes---and if I'm being really honest? I don't think she's dead at all. Rachel, I think your mother is still alive."

The floor seemed to drop from under me and I felt as if I were floating in a universe where the laws of gravity no longer applied. Dizziness swept over me until I had to close my eyes to try to get myself under control again.

How many times a day did I wish my mother were alive?

I couldn't fathom a world in which my dream came true and my mother was returned to me.

There were some days when I woke up with the memory of her gentle smile as the only lasting remnant of a dream I had to wake from to live in a world where she was gone.

Ethan didn't even remember Mother very well. He had been so young when she had died.

"I remember her being sick though. Jack, she was really, really sick. We had a hospice nurse. She died at home. They took her body away in a---in a bag."

I felt sick thinking about it. I choked just saying the words.

Jack gave me a concerned look as he almost apologized with his explanation.

"I think they faked it, Rachel. All of it. I don't know why, but I really think your mother is still alive."