Chapter 66
All night, it played on my mind. Even when I woke up, I suffered from the lingering effects of the dreams this knowledge caused. I
had dreamt so many possible scenarios, my dreams plagued with nightmares of each one. I needed to figure out how everything
links because I am positive there is a connection in some way.
Axton believes it doesn’t link with what is happening now, but I think it somehow does. Some incessant nagging voice in my head
that for once wasn’t Lexa telling me we were missing something. Something vital. Just seems like too much of a coincidence that
all alphas are linked to Stiles, whose missing. And those same alphas are out to stop Axton? And now
me...
Axton passes me a thermal cup full of steaming hot coffee. He had
meetings today and is debating whether to cancel them. My mother and I still have a fair bit of packing up to do, having not
finished everything yet. We still had to drag out the last of Sondra’s stuff from her room that survived Marco from the other day,
we would chuck everything in storage to be sorted later.
“Are you sure you’ll be fine?” Axton asks me for the hundredth time. It’s almost like he believes I can’t survive without him
holding my hand.
“Yes, it won’t take long. We’ll follow the truck back,” I tell him.
“If I finish early, I will come out and help,” he says, leaning inside the car and pecking my cheek while I start the car. I place my
thermal cup in the cup holder while he pulls his jacket on. I watch him climb in his car before reversing and heading to the
borderline to pick up my mother and
Luke.
This morning its particularly chilly; the rains coming, and a storm was brewing silently; I could feel it, that strange, bizarre instinct
to take cover settling over me, and the faint scent of moisture in the air, the dampening smell lingering in the breeze.
I chuckle, watching Luke climb over the front seats to squeeze between
the car seats, his shoulders rubbing the seats. He doesn’t seem to mind as he coos at his nephews while clicking in his seatbelt.
My mother climbs in with a clothes basket of cleaning products.
“We are supposed to be emptying the place, not filling it with more junk,” I tell her as she shuts the door.
“I want to leave the place clean,” she tells me.
“Axton organized cleaners to go out there Thursday,” I remind her.
“I know, but I don’t want the cleaners to think we live like pigs,” she snaps, and I raise my eyebrows at her and chuckle. Mom
was one of those people you take on holidays, and she brought a bag of cleaning products to clean the hotel room before we
left. She used to be the same back home. The house would be spotless before the cleaner came, and the poor girl would scratch
her head, wondering what to do. I used to tell her to make it look like she was busy, or she would usually spend time re- stacking
the attic or basement to kill time.
When we reach the house, Luke helps me drag the bouncers and playpen inside to set the boys up while we get to work.
Checking each room is empty while my mother frantically cleans every inch of the house. Heaven forbid the cleaners actually
had to clean.
Dragging the last box from the basement, I find my mother using the broom to sweep the cobwebs from the banisters. I set the
box by the front door before stopping to drink some of my now lukewarm coffee. “Did Dad ever say anything about Elder Stiles to
you?” Mom stops what she is doing and glances at me, her brows furrowing in confusion.
“Not really until your father found out I owned the pack. Stiles came to me and said he believed the pack was safest in my hands;
I was trying to find something to use against your father anyway,” she tells me with a shrug.
“So you didn’t know Stiles was going to report dad?” she looks at me.
Clearly, this is news to her too.
“What?”
“Yeah, Stiles and Dad were arguing. That is why Stiles wanted to give you the pack.”
“No-” Mom’s brows furrow, and I can tell she is genuinely confused.
“No, I told Stiles I wanted a divorce. He said your father wouldn’t let me leave and that I needed leverage, so he overrode the
system so I could send off the change of titles. I never put it in my name; I sent it off for it to be placed in your name. Your father
didn’t know until after I left, he only knew about the divorce. Stiles signed the paperwork for it.” she tells me.
“Stiles signed those papers?” mom nods her head.
“Yeah, said soon your father would come under fire, that he was glad because he was worried about what would happen to the
he found out. So I rejected him, and well, all hell broke loose,” she sighs, glancing toward the living room to look at Luke. She
smiles sadly, and I can see talking about my father is upsetting her, so I drop the subject, instead returning back to the tasks
while wondering who told my father about the forged divorce
papers.
Hearing one of the boys cry out, Luke sings out to tell me I’ve run out of nappies in the bag. I groan, and mom chuckles,
scrubbing the stove top; who would have thought three measly stairs on the porch could make your legs burn so badly? I’ve
trudged up them that much this morning. I’m surprised I haven’t run tracks into them. Walking back out to the car, my phone
rings, and I pull it from my back pocket. Axton.
“Yes?” I answer while propping the phone on one ear and shoulder as I start rummaging for the nappies I swore were left in the
back pocket of the
seats.
“I’m heading out to you now; only Soyer, Osiris, and Marco showed up We finished early,” Axton tells me, and I smile, digging
under the seat.
“Great, I will see you soon,” I tell him before hissing when I jam my thumb under something beneath the seat. I suck on it.
“What’s wrong?”
“Looking for the spare nappies,” I tell him.
I rummage through the car, looking for the spares I always keep.
“I chucked them in the trunk,” Axton tells me, and I groan before shutting the door, popping the trunk, and finding where Axton
placed them.
“I should be around twenty minutes. Do you want me to bring anything?”
“Coffee,” I chuckle.
He laughs. “Okay, love you, see you soon,” he tells me before hanging up Shaking my head, I move back toward the house
when I hear glass break, I jog up the steps assuming mom dropped something.
“Everything alright.” I sing out, closing the front door when my nose picks up a strange scent, my brows furrow, wondering where
I’ve smelt it before. Shaking it off to the amount of cleaning chemicals mom has used. I move past the kitchen to notice mom is
no longer there.
“Elena?” Luke croaks through the mind-link just as I round the corner into the living room. My mother has her hands out in some
placating gesture, tears trekking down her cheeks. Luke clutches Kyan, who is wailing loudly in his arms, while my mother
shields them with her body. My heart nearly stops when I see my father holding Bane..