Chapter 37: Chapter 37
They’re just finishing the gigantic snack Weston had prepared when there’s a knock at the door.
“Weston?”
Amir’s voice comes out muffled on the other side of the door.
“Yeah? Come in!”
There’s a moment of silence where both Weston and Millan look at the door expectantly, but Amir doesn’t even move the handle.
“Amir?”
“Are you both decent?”
Weston rolls his eyes and Millan laughs.
“Yes, just come in, you twat.”
Amir is smirking as he pokes his head in the room.
“I am so sorry to interrupt, but we need you for a Council Meeting, Weston. It’s about… um… Axel Brook.”
Millan freezes, carrot half way to his mouth. He had naively thought Axel Brook would just leave them alone. Of course, he wouldn’t.
Weston is putting on pants over his boxer and a T-shirt when Millan's brain finally kicks back into gear and lets go of the carrot he was stupidly holding mid air.
Millan gets up and puts on a pair of jeans just as Weston turns to him.
“You don’t have to get up, love. I’ll be back soon.”
Millan's eyebrows rise up and he blinks slowly, a little offended by Weston’s suggestion.
“There’s no way I’m going back to bed, Wes. I’m coming to the Council Meeting.”
“Mill…”
“No, Weston, this whole Axel Brook problem is my fault. I’m going to help fix it. It’s the least I can do.”
“I understand but…”
“But what?”
“Millan…”
Millan's head snaps to Amir who’s still standing by the doorway.
“You can’t attend a Council Meeting. Not only are you not a Council member, but we haven’t had the official ceremony making you part of the pack yet.”
Millan had forgotten about the official ceremony. He’d forgotten he was still not part of the pack.
“And you’re not my mate yet.” Weston’s apologetic eyes are pleading.
Millan can see how much the conversation pains the Head Alpha. His Alpha.
Even so, Millan feels like he’s been yanked back to earth violently. Just as he starts to feel like he belongs somewhere, life reminds him he doesn’t.
However, Millan has no desire to make things harder when he’s already made such a mess of things with the Brook Pack. So he deflates and sits back on the bed.
“Right.” Millan shrugs. “Well, keep me updated, yeah?” He’s trying to look unaffected, but there’s no fooling Weston’s worried eyes.
“Of course, we’ll keep you in the loop.” Amir’s small smile tells Millan he isn’t fooled either.
Weston kisses him deeply and longer than Amir is comfortable with before they both hurry out the door.
Millan sighs and looks around the room for something to occupy his mind, to no avail. He decides to get up and try to find Madelyn or Andy, knowing that if he stays alone, he’ll just stress and wallow.
He doesn’t have to search for long before he picks up on Madelyn’s scent outside.
He hears her laugh before he sees her, sitting in a coffee shop, book discarded on the table and talking to… his aunt?
Although Millan is a bit weirded out, he decides that would be distraction enough from Axel Brook and the whole ‘you don’t belong here’ moment.
They’re both in an animated conversation and don’t notice Millan approaching.
“There’s no way you’ve read that one!
“I have.”
“No way! I had to fight the Council to get it because it was so hard to find!”
“You wouldn’t believe what I had to do to get it…”
“Try me.”
Millan has never seen his aunt so passionate before.
In truth, she used to ignore him or avoid him altogether so he’d never had the opportunity to really talk to her. He’d never been too bothered by it since a lot of people avoided him back in his father’s pack.
But now that he sees her having so much fun talking to Madelyn, he can’t help the pang of jealousy in his stomach. He has half a mind to turn around and leave them to it, but Stella sees him.
“Good morning, Millan! You can join us if you want! Actually, no. Please join us.”
It’s hard to refuse the blinding smile she sends her way, especially when Madelyn reciprocates it easily. He is surprised that Stella is even considering to include him at all.
“Uhmm. Sure.” Millan sits on the chair next to Madelyn, still dazed by Stella’s enthusiasm.
“You know each other?”
Both Stella and Madelyn speak at the same time and giggle at their synchronicity.
Millan turns to Madelyn, “She’s my aunt, from my mother’s side.”
Millan doesn’t understand the shock on Madelyn’s face, he frowns and turns to Stella.
Stella looks uncomfortable for a second that Millan thinks it was just a fragment of his imagination before a determined glint settle in her eyes. Her voice was strong albeit a bit shaky when she spoke to him and Madelyn.
“Actually… Millan… I’m glad we’re all here, because I do need to talk to you both.”
*****
Millan's head is under water.
It’s the only way he can explain the dizziness, the way Stella’s voice is barely reaching his ears and how hard it is to breathe.
“So, like… we’re brother and sister?”
“Yes, Maddie, Millan is your older brother.”
“Okay... That’s... kinda cool, right?”
Millan is going to be sick.
He tries to respond to Madelyn’s unsure smile, wanting to reassure her but there’s so much information to take in and, really, not much of it has anything to do with Madelyn.
She’s actually a beaming light in the darkness that is his family.
“So… why did Millan call you his aunt?”
Millan couldn’t be more grateful for Madelyn right this second. He is happy to let her ask the questions while he silently freaks out beside her.
He has half a mind to flee and ignore Stella’s presence until she leaves, but he also wants to know.
He wants to understand why his biological mother would ignore him altogether, why she’d let him believe a lie all this time.
Stella sits up straighter, full of a determination Millan wouldn’t dream to possess.
“Travis Caelan used to be a good Alpha. In the beginning, both my sister, Klaire, and I were confident he would make for an amazing leader. He was able to take hard decisions, but always had the pack’s well being in mind.”
Millan snorts. That’s hard to believe. The Travis Caelan he remembers didn’t give a shit about the well being of anyone but himself.
“I know… He changed a lot.”
“That’s an understatement.” Millan mumbles.
“What changed?” Madelyn is leaning over the table, big eyes, obviously fascinated by the story.
Millan is jealous. He wishes he could have Madelyn’s nonchalance about all this.
More than anything though, he wishes Stella would have never showed up in the first place.
“I’m not sure. He just became colder and colder, more distant. He started making decisions for himself without thinking of the pack.”
“Like what?”
“He implemented special taxes for werewolves of his pack to fund ‘leadership’, which basically meant his pockets. And… I mean, there are so many examples to choose from, but at some point, he even forced an omega girl to mate with his brother…”
“Uriel”, Millan whispers, tasting the bitterness of the name itself.
Stella nods. “Yeah…”
“You never thought of throwing him out?”
Stella laughs like it’s the most ridiculous idea she's ever heard. Millan smiles sympathetically. Knowing the environment Madelyn grew up in, she wouldn’t realize that other packs are cruel and much more lawless that the kind one she had.
“He was the Head Alpha, honey. That’s just not… possible…”
Madelyn is about to retort when Millan cuts her off.
“Caelan Pack doesn’t function like the Blayne do, Maddie.”
Madelyn still looks like she’s about to argue but purses her lips and nods instead, “Right.”
“So he became more and more careless and impulsive. And he was just... obsessed with this one thing...”
Stella’s eyes meet Millan's as she struggles to continue. Millan clenches his fists in an attempt to stop them from shaking.
“Obsessed with what?” Madelyn seems too impatient to pick up on the tension.
“He wanted a son. Someone who could assume leadership after his death.”
Millan knows all too well about his father’s obsession. He remembers countless times how Travis would yell at him, resenting the fact he was an omega with one breath and despising him for being a ‘defective’ with the other.
“The problem was, Klaire kept having miscarriages. She had twelve before he decided to come to me.”
Madelyn frowns. “What do you mean?”
“He Alpha Commanded me to carry his pups.”