MATED TO FATHER, FATED TO SONS

ROWAN

I was driving through the empty winding road leading to Ironcrest pack territory, my hands gripping the leather steering wheel perhaps tighter than strictly necessary, my knuckles white with tension I could not quite release.

The sun was starting to settle down warmly through the dense trees lining both sides of the narrow road.

This was when I noticed that Ryker was completely silent beside me in the passenger seat.

This was highly unusual for him. Ryker was never quiet like this, always had something sarcastic or dark or inappropriate to say, always filling any silence with his particular brand of commentary that walked the line between humor and cruelty.

But now he just sat there staring out the window, his jaw clenched tight, his body radiating tension.

My mind kept circling back obsessively to the same troubling image that had been burned into my brain - Amaris walking into Alpha Corvin’s private office. What was she doing there? What could they possibly be discussing behind that closed door? The questions ached at me relentlessly, eating away at my focus.

I could tell from the rigid tension radiating off Ryker’s body, from the way his hands kept clenching and unclenching in his lap, that he had the exact same thought consuming him.

Before I could even finish processing my own spiraling thoughts, Ryker broke the heavy silence that had been between us since we left the pack.

"Do you think she is also fucking him too?"

I looked at him briefly, taking my eyes off the road just long enough to see the darkness and the unfamiliar pain in his expression, before returning my attention to the curves ahead. "Why would you immediately jump to that conclusion? Maybe he summoned her to his office. You know she was supposed to leave yesterday before the accident happened."

"There is something about her Rowan," Ryker stated, his voice taking on that dangerous edge it got when he was working through something that bothered him deeply.

I kept my eyes fixed firmly on the road ahead, watching the trees blur past in my peripheral vision. "What is it? What do you mean?"

"I don’t know exactly," Ryker admitted, which was genuinely rare for him. He always acted like he had everything figured out. "I know I am the first one to be with her intimately but..."

He trailed off mid-sentence, probably for the best because whatever he was about to say already sounded ridiculous and paranoid even by his standards.

"Hold that thought," I interrupted firmly. "Let’s just not go around suspecting her of terrible things without any actual evidence to support it. And also, he is her intended mate whether we like it or not. We need to come to the harsh realization that he will eventually have her."

The words tasted sour in my mouth but they were true.

Ryker kept quiet for several long moments, staring out the window at the passing landscape, his reflection visible in the glass looking troubled, and then said quietly, "He doesn’t want to have her in the traditional way. He wants to artificially inseminate her and keep everything clinical."

I glanced at him briefly, unable to hide my skepticism about that arrangement lasting. "Ryker, you are definitely not that foolish. How long do you honestly think that particular arrangement will actually hold up between mates?"

"I don’t know but I am not letting him have her," Ryker stated with absolute finality in his voice.

I shook my head in genuine frustration, my hands tightening on the wheel. "Recently I don’t seem to even understand you at all anymore. First you said you just wanted her first, like she was some kind of conquest. Then you suddenly want her completely to yourself. And now you don’t want him to have her either. You cannot possibly be this confused about what you actually want from her."

Ryker looked at me directly, his dark eyes meeting mine. "Can I be completely honest with you?"

"That would be the first time in a long while so go ahead," I responded, genuinely curious what he would say.

"I don’t know what I even want from her anymore," Ryker admitted, his voice dropping lower and becoming more vulnerable than I had heard in years.

"Because part of me wants Alpha Corvin to suffer for what he did to our family. Rowan, I know you were not physically there in the room that night but I was. I watched him end her life in cold blood. I want him to pay dearly for all his crimes against us."

He paused and I could see his jaw clenching and unclenching repeatedly. "But then Amaris is completely innocent in all of this. She has done absolutely nothing wrong to anyone. But she is the only way I can figure out how to actually hurt him where it matters."

I was quiet for a long moment because I genuinely did not know what to say to him in response. This was the first time in a very long time that Ryker had been openly vulnerable with me like this, allowing me to see past his usual dark sarcastic exterior that kept everyone at a distance. It was a rare occurrence that I needed to handle very carefully.

Yes, I was not physically there in the room when Alpha Corvin killed our mother with his bare hands. But she was still my mother too. We had been close despite everything. Although I had always suspected deep down that she preferred Ryker over me, loved him just a bit more because he reminded her of the freedom she lost being Luna. But she was still my mother and I had loved her deeply.

"I hate him too, you know," I finally said, my voice rough with emotion I rarely allowed myself to show. "I truly do with everything in me. We had such a genuinely good life before everything fell apart. He ruined it all for his own selfish desires. For Freya. And innocent people lost their lives because of his terrible choices and inability to control himself."

"I am not sure I can ever forgive him," Ryker stated flatly. "I don’t think I am even capable of that kind of forgiveness."