Howl Silently My Love

Too Many Lies

I nodded contemplatively to let him know that I had taken in everything he had said. Hopefully after I took him home and things were explained he would better understand what I did and why. Yes he did seem to be a different guy but that didn’t change the circumstances very much.

“Can we go now?” I asked, in a small voice, afraid he would start another lecture.

I watched him deliberate with himself for a moment before coming down the stairs.

“Yeah, sure.” He said wrapping his arm around my waist and leading me forward. We entered the forest and made our way across. As we walked I was painstakingly reminded of how we had let down nature. The silence should have been comforting but it wasn’t. It told me that something had to be done. I almost had some hope when I heard the chirping of a bird but that quickly died when the bird flew into view and I saw the translucent glow surrounding it. It paid no attention to us as it flittered off again. She was mocking me, wasn’t she? I held my gaze forward and tried not to think about everything that Ryder and I had apparently let down.

As we stepped out of the trees I felt my heart stop for a second. Dad’s car was in the drive way . . . he was home early. What if they were waiting on me to get inside? I was hoping for a little time to get Damen settled in and you know have him a bit relaxed and oh I don’t know—make sure Dad still thought he was good news .I took a deep breath.

“What?” Damen asked, sensing my apprehension. Maybe he did have mate instincts after all.

I sighed again. “Nothing I can fix at the moment.” I mumbled before opening the front door.

Inside Dad was standing to the corner of the living room and Mom was sitting in the couch. Her face lit up just slightly when she saw me before her eyes quickly glanced over  at Dad.

“Hey Dad . . .” I said, cautiously. I wasn’t sure whether he knew or not and that was risky because if he did know then he might have already been planning murder in his head. “Why are you home so early . . . ?”

He shrugged with a smile; that was a good sign. “Your Mom just told me to make sure I got home before you did so I left work early.”

“Oh . . .”

“Well now that she’s here, John, Damen, you both have a seat.” Mom said standing and gesturing to the chair.

“No thanks.” Damen declined with a smile. I guess he would have preferred standing next to me. Not a problem . . . I guess. Dad also declined, choosing to remain where he stood.

“Right,” Mom said, not at all dejected by their responses.

Oh gosh, it was going to happen now. I wasn’t ready for this. Couldn’t I have excused myself or something? Maybe I could have said that I had a headache—or that I felt nauseous and needed to lie down, alone, for a while. I got it! I could let Ryder run away then make up an excuse that I needed to go find him while they all had their little talk. It could have worked . . . right . . .

Just then Ryder trotted down the stairs and made his way to my side.

I guess not.

Mom cleared her throat so she could catch everyone’s attention. “Okay, you both may be wondering why you’re standing in the living room with so much tension in the air and well I wish we weren’t  meeting under such circumstances  but the fact still remains that things happen sometimes and we have no control over them.” She had no idea how true she was. Dad gave her a puzzle look, she cleared her throat again. “Right, so, John, you know how we promised that we would love Alex no matter what and that we would stand behind her 150%?”

“Yeah . . .?” Great now he was getting suspicious and so was Damen who was now looking at me with the same puzzled look that Dad had. My eyes shot to the floor. I couldn’t look him in the eye, it was too much.

Ryder licked my hand. I gave him a weak smile of appreciation but no amount of comforting would have made standing here any easier.

“Well . . .” she looked me in the eye for a brief moment and I could see that she was finding this just as hard. “. . .she’s pregnant . . .” her voice broke on the last word but she didn’t start crying.

“What?!” Dad blurted. In seconds he was next to me trying to strangle Damen who was much too shocked to do anything about it. “You son of a bitch!” he began shaking him. “I’ll kill you! What have you done to my daughter?!”

“Dad stop!” I begged, trying to pull him off. Why did everyone automatically blame Damen?!

“John calm down and listen—“ Mom tried pulling him off too. Ryder on the other hand seemed to be enjoying it—a little too much!

“Calm down?! This punk got our baby pregnant!”

“No—he didn’t! Dad, please just stop!”

“Stop trying to protect him—“

“I’m not, I was raped!” I blurted.

Dad froze where he was and in that moment Damen sprung to life. He pushed passed Dad, grabbed me by my wrist and pulled me back outside. Oh boy . . .

Ryder followed right behind.

“Damen I—“

“You never thought to tell me that you were raped? Seriously? Did we just have a conversation about this? Who did it? I swear if it was one of my cousins I’m going to—“

“Will you shut the hell up and calm down? God, why do men just have to shout and display their masculine aggression every chance they get?” I said in frustration. First Dad tried killing him and then he was going to go after his cousins, and for what—a made up story that I could have fully explained to him, knowing that at least he would understand. This web of lies was getting to me and I couldn’t take it anymore. I could tell that I had offended him with what I said but before he could respond I cut him off. “Don’t bother. You’re not my parents so I can tell you the truth and you can stop worrying that some guy besides you got to use my body.”

“That’s not all I’m concerned about—“

“Yeah I know but I can tell that definitely a part of your worry with another part being that someone hurt me well relax, no one did.”

“Then why did you—“

“Because if I told my parents the real story they would find out that I’m a werewolf and that is not going to happen under my watch.”

He sighed then pulled me towards the trees again. “Alright,” he leaned against the closest tree, “explain, I’m listening, openly—just please explain how all this happen because right now I’m freaking out and I have no idea how any of this could have happened because you have been starving my flesh since the day they caught us in the living room and you took a test and you told me that you weren’t pregnant—“

“Damen you promised you would be listening, not talking.” I reminded him. He nodded, clearly deep in thought.

I took a deep breath. Wow Mom was probably inside telling a completely different story from the one I was about to tell . . . “Well I found the centre of the forest a few days ago—everything in there is still beautiful—I found Nature there and she told me that Ryder and I hadn’t done what we were supposed to do—“He was about to question that but I stopped him. “We don’t know what it is that we were supposed to do and she doesn’t want to tell us, she just kept saying that she was going to start over hence this thing in my belly,” I said gesturing down to my still flat stomach. I gave him a weak smile, “The good news is that I won’t die on the harvest moon,” his eyes shot up to me, with new hope in them but it quickly died when he saw the pain in my eyes.

“There’s something more to that isn’t there . . .?”

I nodded. “I’m afraid so . . . I’m going to die . . . giving birth . . .”