Odin's Prize

The Talk

An elevation in heart rate. The beat quickening inside a chest that's taking in faster shallower little breaths of air. It's hard to swallow down what they are telling us.

"The night before Uncle Grey was going to leave, I went to his room. I closed the door behind me knowing what I wanted to give to him." Mom's eyes guarding against my stare that's directly boring into her.

"I took everything Victoria was willing to give and I gave her back everything I wanted to give her." Uncle Grey looking between the both of us. Shamus's posturing changing.

"I don't want to know anymore." My turn to stand with words spilling out of my mouth.

"Sit down, Charlie." My mother's voice angling upwards towards my face but I don't sit down. Shamus stands with me, "how could you do this to mom?" Shamus's voice rising, while the two remain sitting in front of us.

"You're always are telling me to wait for my mate, you hypocrite. You speak big words to me, yet you don't lead by example, father." A finger point accusation towards Uncle Grey's throat. Shamus's words making my mother flinch and Uncle Grey nod with and agreement.

Both of their eyes meeting our eyes in their truths of the past.

"Sit down the both of you." It's my Dad's heavy voice that pulls down our shoulders, it's spoken with a directive to listen to him completely.

Shamus looking at his dad as if he's not who he thought he was, while I do the same to my mom. It's a disappointment I hold towards my Mother, the way her head tries to angle itself down she must understand what I think of her.

"If the wolves knew then you both should have known as well that you weren't mates. Yet you didn't care enough to listen to your soul." Shamus speaking the hard words I'm thinking.

Judgment passing between father and son, while my eyes judge my Mother. She holds my eyes with those Blue's that everyone says I take after. There is a straight line across my lips, I hold nothing but disgust for what she has done, they have done.

"I don't regret it, what I regret is that it was Finian's brother. It was my Virtue to give away, no one else's and I don't regret that choice. What I regret are the consequences that act brought upon us. I never thought that my mate could be Grey's brother. I wasn't thinking about the ramifications of what was to come because of that." Mom's voice holding steady with an unbending force of her belief it wasn't wrong to give your Virtue away to someone else that wasn't your mate.

Uncle Grey and mom both stand and move away from the other, Aunt Meela nuzzles into Uncle Grey's chest while my Dad hugs my mother, kissing her mark before he takes a chair in front of the both of us, alone.

"I found out what happened that day. My Father and I went to the Eastern Territory to pick up Grey, when we got there Victoria was about to be punished by her father. I thought that she deserved to be punished for what she did to me." Dad shifting in his seat slightly before continuing his side of the history.

"I walked away from my mate that day, from my brother, from my family and pack, but looking back what I really walked away from was myself." His eyes fall towards my mother, his jaw shifting slightly before recovering.

"I hated your mother and your father for many years for what I thought they did to me. In those years I was not a male of worth. Taking all the Virtues that were given to me. Because at the time I thought that would punish my mate more. I wanted to hurt her, to make her feel unworthy because that's how I felt. All it ended up doing was to pave a thorn littered path for you to walk on Charlie." Dad's truth spilling out in great heaving breaths. Shamus stays quiet with his mouth open.